The Fortune Cookie

Billy Wilder, 1966, bw (7.8*)
Ok, maybe not Wilder's best comedy, but it may well be the best performance by Walter Matthau, earning him a well-deserved Oscar® for supporting actor, after mostly undistinguished minor dramatic roles. This is also his first teaming with Jack Lemmon, as he plays the shyster lawyer brother-in-law of Lemmon's sideline football cameraman for CBS, injured on a punt return by Boom Boom Jefferson (Ron Rich). You can see the ambulance-chasing wheels turning in Matthau's every move as he seeks to extract a huge financial award from the insurance company for Lemmon's faked back injury.

For his part, Lemmon has to play mostly straight man with morals to Matthau's oily smooth orchestrations as nearly all the comedy comes from the parody of lawyers without any scruples when money is involved. The funniest scenes are when Wilder parodies our overly litiginous society, all the lawyers are hilarious caricatures of men with nothing but dollar signs in mind. The more serious issues injected here, such as Boom Boom's alcoholism, dampen the comedic flow somewhat and keep this from being as funny as it could have been.

Wilder is one of the great directors, here's a small list of his best films:
The Front Page, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Lost Weekend, The Spirit of St. Louis, One Two Three, Ace in the Hole, The Seven Year Itch, Sabrina, The Apartment, Some Like It Hot, Witness For the Prosecution.

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Au Hasard Balthazar

Robert Bresson, France, 1966, bw (8.3*)
This is a very tough film to review, as it has high marks for artistic merit, yet it's a very hard film to watch, as it involves the cruelty of man toward beasts of burden, in this case a cute little donkey named Balthazar. We follow the story of a donkey from its infancy, from good owners to completely despicable ones who have this tiny donkey pulling wagon loads of hay and people, or pulling on a water wheel, being forced with a whip to move at all. One girl in particular, played by Anne Wiazemsky, who is shunned by people as the town's local 'painted lady', is very kind to Balthazar, yet her boyfriend and his scooter gang constantly play pranks on the hapless donkey and even beat him needlessly at one point.

Semi-Spoiler Alert: This film has one of the most poignant and poetic endings on film; only the most heartless of people will not be touched or even outraged by this story. Some say it's a faith-rooted religious parable, but taken simply as the story of one animal's lifetime, it carries great weight as a moral fable. Psychologists now know that serial killers are usually cruel to animals growing up, and I can only extrapolate that people who could treat a small donkey this way could never make good parents if unfortunate enough to have kids, or even passable citizens; they'll most likely be criminals, soldiers, or prison guards, each with a streak of cruelty. Highly recommended as one of the best films from France, but with major reservations: not for kids, not for the squeamish, not for those extremely sensitive to animal treatment. #50 (2011 update) on our top ranked films on the net survey.

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Morgan!

Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment
Karel Reisz, 1966, bw (8.5*)
This small and unique film made actor David Warner a star. He’s more lovable here than as Evil Incarnate in Time Bandits, or the evil computer program in Tron, as he plays Morgan, a zany but lovable psychotic who’s obsessed with giant apes, Communism, and ex-wife Vanessa Redgrave. However she’s moving on and about to get re-married, sending Morgan on a chest-thumping binge of jealous insanity. Director Reisz has made an original comedy that reminds me of the Charles Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine, Being John Malkovich) comedies. Uneven, but so original they remain in your memory. One of the last black-and-white classics as well.

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The Avengers

[Our 300th review]
a.k.a. "The Original Avengers", "Emma Peel Megaset"
British TV, 1964-67, 51 episodes, bw & color (8.5*)
This famous tongue-in-cheek British series poked fun at the 007 genre and others, such as cheap SciFi and kung-fu, and did so with a style and panache that's still enjoyable today as long as you don't take it seriously. British super-agent John Steed, played as a charming bowler-wearing sophisticate by Patrick MacNee, starred and was teamed with a series of athletic actresses. The gorgeous Diana Rigg came into the series from the Royal Shakespeare Company about 1964 as Mrs. Emma Peel ('M' appeal, get it?) when it was still black and white, replacing Honor Blackman who ironically left to do the 007 film Goldfinger. In one episode, Steed receives a Christmas card from her character, Cathy Gale, and when Emma asks where it's from Steed comments "Fort Knox.. can't ever figure why she'd be there".

Emma's married, but her pilot-explorer husband has been missing for years after a jungle flight, so she and Steed maintain a platonic but chemistry-charged relationship that often includes ennuendo and roundabout flirtations in typical British style, as the most they ever shared was a bottle of champagne; she is supposedly an amateur sleuth helping Steed for the commonwealth. Rigg's first 2 years in b&w are probably better written, and we see her in black a lot, leather bodysuits and the like, but the color ones from her last year are a little better made and Rigg is even more gorgeous. She eventually left after three seasons and 51 episodes (shown in the U.S. as four, from 64-67; now on 17 dvd's), and her last episode is appropriately called The Forget-Me-Knot, which also introduced her successor, Linda Thorson, as well as a hilarious visual with a Steed double. The Avengers before and after Diana Rigg pale by comparison; she and MacNee brought a cool chemisty never matched by a crime-fighting duo before or since; well, tv anyway - after all, there was the Thin Man film series.

Note: in The Superlative Seven (title spoof of The Magnificent Seven), both Donald Sutherland and Charlotte Rampling were guest stars in a plot borrowed from Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None.
Self-Reference: in the color episode Return of the Cybernauts, Emma is watching tv, which is showing the bw episode The Cybernauts from two seasons earlier.

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Closely Watched Trains

Jirí Menzell, Czechoslovakia, 1966, bw (7.7*)

Best Foreign Film (AA)

This offbeat film is about a young, bumbling apprentice train dispatcher in a small Czech town during the Nazi occupation. It's an odd time frame for a romantic comedy about losing one's virginity, while being surrounded by others also more interested in amorous activities than some silly world war. It's almost as if the war inside everyone's pants takes precedence, one hardly notices the real war, just some occasional German train officials who come around to talk about "watching the trains closely".

There's not a lot of substance here, but some tasteful comedy about virginity and lust, and mildly erotic scenes done in good taste, especially a famous one involving rubber-stamping a flirtatious teenage girl inside the dispatcher's station. One Oscar

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The Russians are Coming

The Russians are Coming

(yes, the title has it twice)

Dir: Norman Jewison, 1966 (8.5*)

Best Picture (GG)

Hilarious spoof of the cold war and patriotism, as a Russian submarine gets too close to New England and runs aground. Second-in-command Alan Arkin (Best actor nominee) in a starmaking role, is sent ashore to get a tugboat to pull the sub out and hopefully avoid an international incident. He first runs down the street yelling "Emergency! Emergency! everyone to get from streets!" - Yep, no one will know the Russians are here. Police chief Brian Keith tries to keep the town cool, but war vet Paul Ford creates a vigilante army immediately to repel what he convinces folks is a "real invasion" - homeland security at its finest. This also stars Carl Reiner, Jonathan Winters, Eve Marie Saint and a battalion of others. In an era when "big crazy casts running amock" populated many comedies, this was probably the best one. Nominated for 4 Oscars, including Best Picture, won none.

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Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Dir: Mike Nichols, 1966, bw (8.5*)

AFI Top 100

Stage director Mike Nichols makes an impressive dramatic film debut in Edward Albee’s Pulitzer prize-winning play. Elizabeth Taylor (who added quite a few pounds and won her 2nd Oscar® for best actress), and husband Richard Burton are jaded married college professors George and Martha, who are entertaining a new young professor, George Segal and his ditzy wife, Sandy Dennis (Oscar® for Supp. Actress). What starts as fun degrades into more cruel revelations and distress in this party in emotional hell. Ensemble acting doesn’t get any better than this, everyone leaves you emotionally drained. All the actors were Oscar nominated, the ladies both won, and it's likely the picture would have but was (before ratings) banned to filmgoers under 18 due to coarse language, so the Oscar went to the tame and inoffensive Sound of Music. 5 Oscars®

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