My Top Ten Films of 1967

This is part of my continuing series looking back on films from the years before I began this blog. The ten films below are unranked and listed in no particular order. Enjoy.

The Graduate - And here's to you, Mike Nichols and Buck Henry, for giving us Benjamin Braddock, hero of the post-grad Boomers in crisis, grappling with the unknown future and tricky generational divides. And for giving Dustin Hoffman his first major screen outing. Fifty years on, it's still hard to quantify the sense of preppy West Coast satire, outsider ennui, and black humor that make this such a striking piece of work. Back in 1967, it was exactly the right movie for exactly the right moment, but it still hits a nerve today. It's become such a part of the culture, I can't imagine where we'd be without it.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? - The film's attitudes toward race and its kid-glove treatment of the too-perfect interracial couple were already considered retrograde at the time of the film's release, and some critics weren't too kind to the film. However, I find it impossible to not be moved by Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn's final appearance on screen together. The movie simply would not work without their inimitable presence and their history. And while I don't think Katherine Hepburn really deserved that Oscar win, I'm glad that it propelled her to many better roles.

Dragon Inn - One of the classics of the Wuxia genre from King Hu, a feature that beautifully juggles multiple characters, many different action and suspense sequences, and makes great use of its iconic location. "Dragon Inn" has been remade twice over the years with far more elaborate productions, but the original remains a touchstone because of its strong core story and conflicts, fuelling the dazzling action. All the different versions are worth watching, since they all manage to find a different take on the material. I'm stunned that no one has tried reworking this one as a Western yet.

Playtime - The most ambitious film project that Jacques Tati ever pulled off, involving some of the most complicated and large scale comedy sequences ever filmed. Essentially an entire city, "Tativille," was constructed for this purpose, allowing Tati's whimsical and stylized design choices to ascend to new heights. The film itself is really a series of sketches, some of them packed with multiple stories and sight gags all unfolding at once. The nightclub sequence runs fifty minutes by itself, nearly the entire second half of the film. It's a comedy that fully embraces spectacle, and it's magnificent.

Le Samourai - Jean-Pierre Melville's masterpiece, a character portrait of a peculiar hit-man who operates by his own personal code of behavior and morality. It's a film full of silences and ellipses, spinning its mysteries with spartan sets and Alain Delon's minimalist performance. It's also a film of great precision, each element perfectly chosen and executed to create an atmosphere of rising tension and anticipation. Our hero, Jef Costello, is an icon of cool, with his flawless gangster image and perfectly neutral detachment. There have been many imitators, but nobody quite matches the original.

Samurai Rebellion - Masaki Kobayashi is a lesser known Japanese director, though his films, especially his samurai films, rival any of his contemporaries. Here he casts Toshiro Mifune as his aging hero, a loyal samurai driven to rebellion and insurrection in the wake of cruel injustices to his family. Despite the title and the amount of bloody action, this is a film driven by its characters' domestic struggles and family relationships. Much of Kobayashi's work had anti-establishment themes, and here he pits the demands of family loyalty against those of a rigid social order, to fantastic, moving effect.

Wait Until Dark - It's a long, slow build to get to the thrills and chills, but when the climax comes, it's a real scream. Audrey Hepburn plays a blind woman who is being targeted by a trio of menacing criminals, resulting in one of the tensest home invasion films ever made. I love that it's totally a genre film, not particularly concerned with character depth or plausibility. Hepburn is the goodiest of goodies, Alan Arkin is the nasties of baddies, and director Terence Young takes full advantage of the film's conceits - particularly the famous blackout sequence - to bring the audience to the brink.

Two For the Road - And on the other opposite end of the spectrum we have another Audrey Hepburn film, this one a bittersweet melodrama about the end of a couple's relationship juxtaposed with its beginning. The non-linear narrative and travelogue format were unorthodox storytelling choices at the time, but it's the psychological complexity of the characters and the performances that are really a break from form. Stanley Donen ensures that "Two For the Road" looks like the typical, beautiful Hollywood picture, but the love story that he tells is something truer to the real world.

The Young Girls of Rochefort - Jacques Demy's tribute to the big Hollywood style musical is an effervescent, colorful confection that tracks the stories of multiple young people looking for love. Michel Legrande's music is jazzy and impossible to get out of your head. Catherine Deneauve and Francoise Dorleac are the perfect, carefree leading ladies. Gene Kelly doesn't look a day older than when he made "An American in Paris." The scale of the production is occasionally too much for the filmmakers, but they also pull off some truly memorable feats of cinema.

In the Heat of the Night - As a detective story, "In the Heat of the Night" is well executed, but nothing special. As an examination of race relations and a showcase for the talents of Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, it's clear to see why this one left an impression. From the Quincy Jones arranged soundtrack to the Haskell Wexler cinematography, this is a film that is determined to subvert the accepted way of doing things and establish its own voice. At the same time, director Norman Jewison ensures that it's such a crowd-pleaser that the strident social messaging actually works in its favor.

Honorable Mention
Bonnie and Clyde

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