The Grass is Greener (1960)

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104 min – view video trailer

Director: Stanley Donen
Starring: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons

Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance

IMDB 6.6 / Amazon 3.8 / Tomatometer 100%

Oscars: n/a

Victor and Hillary are down on their luck to the point that they allow tourists to take guided tours of their castle. But Charles Delacro, a millionaire oil tycoon, visits, and takes a liking to more than the house. Soon, Hattie Durant gets involved and they have a good old fashioned love triangle. IMDB 6.6 from over 2,336 users

Cary Grant is the befuddled English earl casually puttering around his tourist attraction of a grand old estate in casual dress while a bull of an American millionaire (Robert Mitchum) crashes into his life and seduces Grant’s sophisticated lady (Deborah Kerr). It’s pure fantasy, of course, with its cool, cultured lovers swapping witty banter with the same calm they swap gunshots in an old-fashioned duel. Have adultery and jealousy ever been so civilized? Stanley Donen never shakes this very British drawing-room comedy of manners free of its talky, stagebound source or its deliberate snail’s pace, but he does manages to bring a lightness that softens the wit with an American lilt. Ultimately, though, it’s all about a crack cast in fine form: Mitchum’s sleepy-eyed insolence, Kerr’s easy elegance, Jean Simmons’s flighty outrageousness, and especially the charm and measured grace that is Cary Grant. Amazon 3.8 stars from over 48 users

A rousing chorus of Noël Coward’s “Stately Homes of England” is heard as the opening titles of The Grass Is Greener fade into several stock shots of those stately homes. One of these mansions is owned by British earl Victor Rhyall (Cary Grant), who opens his home to American tourists in order to make ends meet. One such tourist is wealthy Texan Charles Delacro (Robert Mitchum), who sets his sights upon Victor’s lovely wife, Hilary (Deborah Kerr). In his efforts to win back his wife, Victor presses his former girlfriend Hattie Durant (Jean Simmons) into service.  Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 100% Audience 64%

MRQE has links to 11 reviews

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBAmg47F_dw]

The Apartment (1960)

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125 min – PG – view video trailer

Director: Billy Wilder
Starring: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray

Genres: Romance, Comedy, Drama

IMDB 8.4 / Amazon 4.6 / MRQE 83 / Tomatometer 93%

Oscars: nominated for 10, won 5 (Best Picture, Director, Writing, Editing, Art)

Ranked #27 Greatest Movies Through 1960

A man tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but complications and a romance of his own ensue. IMDB 8.4 rating from over 54,641 users

Romance at its most anti-romantic–that is the Billy Wilder stamp of genius, and this Best Picture Academy Award winner from 1960 is no exception. Set in a decidedly unsavory world of corporate climbing and philandering, the great filmmaker’s trenchant, witty satire-melodrama takes the office politics of a corporation and plays them out in the apartment of lonely clerk C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon). Amazon 4.6 stars from over 158 users

Widely regarded as a comedy in 1960, The Apartment seems more melancholy with each passing year. Jack Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, a go-getting office worker who loans his tiny apartment to his philandering superiors for their romantic trysts. He runs into trouble when he finds himself sharing a girlfriend (Shirley MacLaine) with his callous boss (Fred MacMurray). Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 93% Audience 93%

MRQE 83% from over 82 reviews

Madison Public Library

Breathless (1960) French

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(French: A bout de souffle)

90 min – view video trailer

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Genres: Foreign, Crime, Drama, Romance

IMDB 7.9 / Amazon 4.3 / MRQE 86% / Tomatometer 96%

Oscars: none

Ranked #85 Greatest Movies Through 1960

A young car thief kills a policeman and tries to persuade a girl to hide in Italy with him. IMDB 7.9 rating from over 29,460 users

The movie that heralded the French New Wave movement, this lean and exciting 1959 film directed by Jean-Luc Godard (A Woman Is a Woman, Weekend) broke new ground not only in its unorthodox use of editing and hand-held photography, but in its unflinching and nonjudgmental portrayal of amoral youth. Amazon 4.3 stars from over 93 users

Breathless uses the famous techniques of the French New Wave: location shooting, improvised dialogue, and a loose narrative form. In addition Godard uses his characteristic jump cuts, deliberate “mismatches” between shots, and references to the history of cinema, art, and music.  Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 96% Audience 89%

MRQE 86% from over 80 reviews

Madison Public Library

Psycho (1960)

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109 min – TV14 – view video trailer

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles

Genres: Horror, Mystery, Thriller

IMDB 8.7 / Amazon 4.7 / MRQE 90% /

Oscars: nominated for 4, won 0

Ranked #8 Greatest Movies Through 1960, in 32 of 41 best movies lists, a Zagat Top Movie

A young woman steals $40,000 from her employer’s client, and subsequently encounters a young motel proprietor too long under the domination of his mother. IMDB 8.7 rating from over 206,556 users

More than just a first-rate shocker full of thrills and suspense, Psycho is also an engrossing character study in which director Alfred Hitchcock skillfully seduces you into identifying with the main characters–then pulls the rug (or the bathmat) out from under you. Amazon 4.7 stars from over 545 users

MRQE 90% rating from more than 77 reviews

Notes: Hitchcock’s cameo appearance is early in the movie. Look for him wearing a big cowboy hat outside Marion’s office.

Madison Public Library