Movies from the 1960s

The Odd Couple (1967)

Here’s an onscreen mistake that makes the misplaced apostrophe in The Last Man on Earth look like a huge, movie-wrecking blunder. (more…)

The Birds (1963)

In The Birds, right after stopping in the street to respond to a boy’s wolf whistle, Tippi Hedren goes into a pet store. As she enters, out comes Alfred Hitchcock, along with two dogs. (more…)

The Birds (1963)

Near the beginning of The Birds, when Tippi Hedren is walking down the street (having just passed the San Francisco poster), she turns to acknowledge a wolf-whistle from a passing boy. This is an in-joke. (more…)

The Birds (1963)

After a couple of establishing shots showing Tippi Hedren walking through San Francisco’s Union Square in The Birds, the actress walks behind a large poster advertising the city (and clueing in anybody who still doesn’t know where the scene is set). The poster serves another purpose, however: it hides a cut. (more…)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

About twenty-five minutes into Kubrick’s 2001, during the gravity-free shuttle ride, there’s a great special effect: a loose pen, floating through the air.

Apparently it took them a long time to get this shot right: (more…)

If.... (1968)

When Malcolm McDowell was preparing for his role in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, he wasn’t sure how to play the character. He turned for advice to Lindsay Anderson, the director of If…., which had launched McDowell’s film career a couple of years earlier. (more…)

Psycho (1960)

Who doesn’t wish that Psycho had been filmed in a real motel? That one night, you might pull off a road somewhere remote, following the signs pointing towards a motel, only to see that house looming out of the gloom at you? A lone light might lead you to the reception, where you pay four times the going rate for a room, order up a Janet Leigh burger, and shell out an extra $20 for a souvenir mug decorated with the silhouette of Alfred Hitchcock… (more…)

The Last Man on Earth (1964)

The Last Man on Earth features a lengthy flashback sequence, during which we find out a little more about the origins of the disease that has all but wiped out the human race. An immensely unconvincing newspaper is produced, (more…)

If.... (1968)

People have often wondered why Lindsay Anderson’s iconic film If… is partly shot in black and white. Was there some kind of symbolism at play? The film already contains moments of fantasy, so do the changes between black & white and colour signify something to do with those multiple layers of reality?

Well, no. (more…)

If.... (1968)

In a rare moment of escape from the oppressive boarding school in Lindsay Anderson’s If…., Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) and Johnny (David Wood) pay a visit to the local town. In the street, they begin a pretend knife fight.

The scene was filmed from across the road, and the reactions of the passers-by are genuine. One reaction, however, was a little on the extreme side. (more…)