What is the grooviest sixties movie ever?

A film I really want to see is 'Praise Marx and Pass the Ammunition' (1968) -- starring John Thaw! -- about a young, posh bird-shagging lefty.

"Otley" (complete with joke about "The Naked Lunch")
"Smashing Time"
"Georgy Girl"
"I'll Never Forget What's 'Isname"

... there's a lot more

Though Blow-Up does steal the cool crown.

Bofors gun -- yeah, that's right. And David Warner.

What is the grooviest sixties movie ever? Why there's only one answer:
"Morgan, A Suitable Case For Treatment!

'Morgan' too.

People name 'Once Around the Mulberry Bush' (check this --ed) often -- is it any cop?

"smashing time" that's the one w/rita tushingham in it, plus a brief appearance by tomorrow? TERRIBLE!!!

"blow up" pwnz.

French don't do groovy, but William Klein's 'Mr Freedom' (s/t: Serge Gainsbourg) might be it.

there's a great shot in Georgy Girl when they go out to some club and the two pigtailed DJs are shaking their heads in unison as the camera pulls back.

> "Beat Girl"

the theme for this by John Barry is great.

The school disco / gig at the end of 'To Sir With Love' is also worth a look for Lulu and the Mindbenders.

'Performance', 'Head'?

"here we go round the mulberry bush" stars a macca lookalike and the geezer from "all creatures great and small" trying to lose their virginity at a variety of swinging clubs.

the grooviest 60s film was the swingin 60s pastiche Harry Enfield made in the early 90s as part of his half hour comedy show, with a posh beatle-hairstyled neer do well at various parties, cigarette hanging from his long face "i'm so terribly bored, nigel, i've had every girl at this party". then he impregnates a local council girl and shouts at her angry father nonchalantly, "i hope you die soon!"

Err, I beg to differ.

And no one's mentioned "Danger:Diabolik" ?

"Bedazzled" is pretty groovy. I think the scene with Peter Cook as the pop star is great.

early Coppola movie tries hard, but I thought it was pretty boring. Lovin' Spoonful did the soundtrack, and if I recall there's a scene where they're playing.

http://www.musicman.com/00pic/425.jpg

Hmm, must recycle that sentence sometime.

Oh no!!! Sexual awakening! OH NO!!!!

Both "Point Blank" and "Seconds" are sort of the ultimate anti-groovy yet somehow groovy '60s movies. (Walker in the psychedelic-soul scene; Rock Hudson in the grape-crushing nudie scene.)

a hard day's night
blow up
the knack
tonight let's make love in london
performance

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/cinema/dvdcollection/

Watkins' 'Privilege'!

last weekend of the month looks the best of the 4:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/sixties/

26 June - 2 July
Experimental Music | Alchemists of Sound | Fantasy Sixties | Billion Dollar Brain | The Kneale Tapes | The Year of the Sex Olympics | Art and the 60s | Repulsion | The Prisoner

Smashing Time is hee-hee-larious.

Has Morgan, A Suitable Case For Treatment been mentioned? Ah yes, several times. Well, one more vote.

It isn't terrible, but it's certainly nowhere near as good as you want it to be.

"Billy Liar" made an impression on me. "When you have what you wished for, don't get off the train"

groovy sixties to me is that v early sixties era where it was a hangover from the 50s, with the prospect of the summer of love, the pill et al flickering on the horizon. the frontline between the cool of the 50s, the trad values fro mthe same, and the beginnings of the "swinging" era and the liberalisation of society

i may have made this era up however.

i kind of think this is my favorite type of film ever.

see The Swinger with Ann-Margaret if you can find it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFEe4PWY9wE

http://plaidout.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/sterling-3.jpg

Roger Sterling does not approve.

what's with the "darling" hate upthread?

http://www.soledadmiranda.net/t3pics/dangerdiabolik.jpg

The Brain by Gérard Ouvry is a pretty atrocious film, but it sorta fits in here. French attempt at doing an Italian Job type heist movie, with David Niven in the main role playing a gangster who's so intelligent that his head keeps tilting to one side due to the weight of his amazing BRANE. Then there's Jean Paul Belmondo and some lame sidekick dude as irrascible underdog thieves, and Eli Wallach as a mafia dude (he plays it exactly like Tuco.) It's an awful movie, but endlessly fascinating as a sort of insane cross-section of various types of sixties cinematic cool (caper flick, Blake Edwards style camp, nouvelle vague, spaghetti western - admitidely those last two only because of the actors included.)

Groovy swingingness is only one strand in the movie, but it gets plenty of screentime, including a very lame animated sequence, Belmondo having a gorgeous bedroom in a car, a slapstick fight in a pool, music by The American Breed. Also the movie opens with a view of Swingin' London as David Niven sees a report on himself on a storefront television - inevitably he starts tilting his head, and a throng of hippies in the background follow suit. Comedy gold!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMC5PL2R73g

Optimum are sort've a crap company, but they are good at releasing interesting stuff that's been ignored, so I wonder if this box is worth owning:

http://www.optimumreleasing.com/dvd.php?id=1034

http://www.amazon.com/Presidents-Analyst-James-Coburn/dp/B0001XAOBG

favorite 60's james coburn film. the bit where he goes into hiding in a commune is one thing, but the rest of the film is a comedy about surveillance and the impossibility of privacy. it's really, really strange and incredibly paranoid and when you find out who the bad guys are, and see their groovy new cartoon ad campaign... this is definitely one of my favorites

czech groove

http://www.raindance.co.uk/site/picture/upload/image/general/movies/Daisies.jpg

http://ferdyonfilms.com/Daisies.jpg

http://ferdyonfilms.com/Daisies2.png

http://ferdyonfilms.com/Daisies%20cut.jpg

This is mostly nonsense in the same way that Lord Love A Duck is, but it's pretty groovy. Plus Claudia Cardinale!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2e/Dont_make_waves.jpg

xpost: I remember seeing The Brain on TV as a kid and thoroughly enjoying it - thanks for the reminder, though I don't know if I want to risk ruining the memory by watching it again.

"Baba Yaga" is a pretty groovy number based on Guido Crepax' erotic pop-art comics. In what is probably a similar vein, just out on DVD is "Deadly Sweet", a "Blow-Up" inspired sixties thriller by Tinto Brass. Just typing those words makes me wonder why I haven't seen it yet . .

Caught up with "Deadly Sweet" last night. Excellent stuff, lots of verite scenes of swinging London, including colour footage of an event that looks a lot like the The Fourteen Hour Technicolour dream. Non-swinging London gets a look-in too, with action scenes at the dog track and in what looks to be ruins left over from the blitz. Guido Crepax turns up again as art director, and David 'Vader' Prowse gets a couple of minutes as a heavy, before being despatched with an intercut sound effect panel, Batman-style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTSVxB1mD94

The Brain by Gérard Ouvry is a pretty atrocious film, but it sorta fits in here. French attempt at doing an Italian Job type heist movie

My dad took me to see this in 1969! I have no idea why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tyLYnHSuSs

I remember seeing it on TV, maybe in 1980?

It's not a terribly good movie, although Niven's performance in the title role makes it at least a reasonable way to pass a wet weekday afternoon. In the early 80s ITV had a major Niven binge and his movies were shown rather often.

Blake Edwards style camp,

'The Brain' is mostly a Pink Panther style caper movie. Niven nowhere near as good as Sellers at physical comedy. Tilting his head to one side seems to be mostly it.

I just finished watching Smashing Time. What a nutty, wonderful film.

this thread helped me remember the name of rita tushingham
how cute is she still??!
so cute!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rita_Tushingham#mediaviewer/File:Rita_Tushingham_2006.jpg

oops
here's another one but she's not smiling
http://www4.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/TFF+2010+Portrait+Studio+FilmMaker+Industry+fv65E0UfO3Em.jpg

This is possibly my favourite genre of film ever. The moment where British New Wave and Kitchen Sink suddenly went all Technicolor and groovy.

With the Serge-love up-thread, why did no one mention Slogan?

Oh yeah, right. It's not very good. But it's still ~not very good~ in the same way that lots of films on this thread are not very good but are still amazing and still some of my favourite films. But it's very, very groovy. Kinda like a French version of Darling, but with some wicked advertising piss-takes cut in.

After reading this review:
http://theholbornmag.com/2013/07/16/slogan-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-hate-serge-gainsbourg/
I was convinced it was going to be absolutely terrible. So going in with lowered expectations, I was able to be charmed. Some of the criticisms were valid (was it misogynist? Of course it was! Was it more misogynist than other films of the period - Blow-Up, Performance, every other film listed on this thread? No, it's of a piece and of a time. And I've got very used to watching 60s films with much more problematic elements as time capsules of the-past-as-not-entirely-foreign-country. I'm also really bored of newly hatched "Feminist Men" who use "the women have no personality" as a cover-all description for "women in this period were allowed no *agency* so their actions take place within the strictures of a sexist society". Both Evelyn and Francoise show more complexity within their cartoon roles than that writer allows them credit for being.) but some of them are just crazy-talk! Serge Gainbourg and Jane Birkin can't act? They just "look cool" while wandering through the film? Firstly, as if looking *that* cool, and projecting that kind of image, is not a talent for acting? ("Oh they're just playing themselves" as a smear on acting ability, when those characters they portrayed IRL were carefully constructed parts they played very skilfully?) Second, I don't agree. It's the *physical* acting that makes the movie compelling to watch, even though it is admittedly a terrible film. Everything that happens on their faces is just incredible to watch. (It might have helped that I watched a version badly dubbed into Russian with almost illegible subtitles - but I still knew what was going on at every moment.)

And Serge is supposed to be *rude* to shopkeppers? Really? Has this writer ever actually *been* to France?

I mean yeah. It's not a great film. But it's basically "Serge Gainsbourg! And Jane Birkin! At Peak Grooviness! With Sizzling IRL Chemistry! Who Cares About The Plot?" Swinging dollybirds? Yes! Awkward discoteque scene? Yes! Groovy all-white mod bachelor pad? Yes! Ridiculous transparent 60s technology? In every scene! White trousers? Bonus points for WET white trousers on an Italian hunk. Skinny Suits? YES! YES! YES! YES!

So yeah. Terrible film; but definitely part of the Grooviest Canon, as far as this thread goes. Groovy as fuck.

I'm not saying, BTW, anything like "I like this, therefore it isn't problematic." I'm saying more like "I recognise this is problematic, I like it perhaps despite, perhaps because."

I dunno; that blog post has just annoyed me. Just seems like a disillusioned dude waking up from his love affair with Serge (and probably a hefty dose of "wanting to be Serge" with this rude, shock awakening of "Hey, Serge was kind of an asshole!" like this was a surprise or something! When "being an asshole" was a huge part of Serge's schtick? Like, duh.)

Watched "Privilege" last night.

Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine