Movies from the 1960s

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…

Sadly though, the Psycho house, along with the rest of the motel, was a set, built in the Universal backlot, using pieces taken from existing sets. It’s still there, and considerably refurbished from the two-wall shell used in the movie. It’s been moved around the backlot a couple of times, and the motel now sits between sets for How the Grinch Stole Christmas and War of the Worlds. You can see it on Google Maps or Wikimapia, or you can visit it as part of the Universal Studios tour (complete with a very cheesy encounter with Norman Bates).

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, on which the headline reads: PLAGUE CLAIMS HUNDREDS: is Europes’ disease carried on the wind?

Maybe the typesetters were already starting to feel the effects of the disease. Then again, it may be the end of the world, but that’s no excuse for sloppy punctuation.

Come to think of it, I’m not too sure about the capitalisation here either. But I’d best stop now, before people start muttering about stones and glass houses…

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. The actual reason is rather more prosaic. When they were filming the chapel scenes at Cheltenham College, they were working on a tight schedule and a limited budget. Lighting the chapel for colour would have taken much longer than lighting for black and white, so they plumped for the latter. Anderson decided he liked it so much that he decided to shoot other scenes in monochrome too, as Malcolm McDowell recounts on the DVD commentary:

I was sitting next to Lindsay watching the rushes (the dailies) of the chapel sequence, and he said, “I do love black and white”, and I said, “I love it too.”

He said, “What are we shooting tomorrow? Well, let’s do it in black and white.”

It was arbitrary. He was an absolute anarchist.

Anderson may have wanted do film the entire film in black and white, but this wouldn’t have been possible: by this point, the film studios had an eye on TV sales, and that meant colour.

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. A passing lorry driver saw the boys, and—despite the fact that they were miming, without actual knives in their hands—he thought the fight was real.

Inspired by a rather peculiar sort of civic responsibility, the man stopped his lorry, ran over to Malcolm McDowell (who appeared to be winning), and hit him on the back of the head with a hammer.

History doesn’t recall whether McDowell required medical attention, or what became of Cheltenham’s have-a-go hero, but at least they got the scene done. (Although not before accidentally capturing a reflection of the camera crew in the windows of a passing bus – see below.)

The Last Man on Earth (1964)

Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel I Am Legend has been filmed several times: most recently, there was the 2007 Will Smith movie. In 1971, it was filmed as The Omega Man, starring Charlton Heston. First, though, in 1964, it was filmed as The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price in the title role.

Although set in the USA, The Last Man on Earth was filmed in Rome (these being the days when Italy still had a thriving international film industry, and the legendary Cinecittà studios were used for something other than television commercials). As a result, the production was able to make use of Rome’s wide variety of architecture, from the crumbling buildings of the countryside to the wide roads and brutal angles of EUR, a district founded in 1935 by Mussolini and intended as a new Rome, a city designed according to fascist ideals.

In EUR stands the Square Colosseum, (Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana), which is partially visible in the scene above. It’s a central feature of EUR, less than thirty years old when the film was made, and yet already a relic of a disappeared ideology and a failed model for civilisation. Which is rather fitting.

There’s a better, more recent view of the Square Colosseum here. As this film is now in the Public Domain, you can watch it online or download it from the Internet Archive: The Last Man on Earth.