Film Fanatic...

I have been a film fanatic for as long as I can remember . 

Encouraged by my mother to watch black & white films of the 60's - I still love these  films I first saw in my early teens.

I am always amazed when people have not seen any of these films but yet call themselves a film fan.

This has become my ultimate suggestion list of 60's films.

1)A Kind of Loving is a 1962 British drama film directed by John Schlesinger, based on the 1960 novel of the same name by Stan Barstow. It stars Alan Bates and June Ritchie as two lovers in 1960s West Yorkshire. The photography was by Denys Coop, and the music by Ron Grainer. Filming locations included the towns of Preston, Blackburn, Bolton, Salford, Manchester, Radcliffe and St Anne's-on-sea in the north-west of England.Victor 'Vic' Brown (Bates) is a draftsman in a Yorkshire factory who sleeps with a typist called Ingrid Rothwell (Ritchie) who also works there. She falls for him but he is less enamoured of her. He then learns she is pregnant so he proposes marriage and the couple move in with her domineering mother Mrs Rothwell (Thora Hird), who looks down on Vic. Ingrid has a miscarriage, Vic has regrets and comes home drunk. The couple then consider the possibility of making do with a 'kind of loving'.

2)Kes is a 1969 British film from director Ken Loach and producer Tony Garnett. The film is based on the novel A Kestrel for a Knave written by the Barnsley-born author Barry Hines in 1968. The film is ranked seventh in the British Film Institute's Top Ten (British) Films and among the top ten in its list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14.Outside cadging money and day-dreaming at school, Billy has no positive interests. His greatest fear is ending up working down the pit as a coal miner, but he has no apparent escape route from what would ultimately be his fate. That is until he finds an outlet from his pitiful existence through training a kestrel that he takes from a nest on a farm. His interest in learning falconry prompts Billy to steal a book on the subject from a secondhand book shop as he cannot get a borrower's card for the public library.

3)Tommy is a 1975 British musical film, based on The Who's 1969 rock opera album musical Tommy. It was directed by Ken Russell and featured a star-studded cast, including the band members themselves (most notably, lead singer Roger Daltrey plays the title role).

Ann-Margret received a Golden Globe Award for her performance, and was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Pete Townshend was also nominated for an Oscar for his work in scoring and adapting the music for the film. The film was shown at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the main competition.

4) A Taste of Honey is a 1961 British film adaptation of the play of the same name by Shelagh Delaney. Delaney adapted the screenplay herself, aided by director Tony Richardson, who had previously directed the first production of the play. It is an exemplar of a gritty genre of British film that has come to be called kitchen sink realism.The film follows the fortunes of Jo, a 17-year old schoolgirl, and her relationship with her domineering, forty-year-old alcoholic mother, Helen. After sustaining a fall after school, Jo meets a black sailor called Jimmy who invites her on to his ship to attend to her grazed knee. They soon start a brief relationship, after which Jimmy returns to his ship and departs. Relations between Jo and her mother become strained when her mother meets and marries a new man, Peter Smith. Feeling rejected by her mother, Jo starts a job in a shoe shop and rents a flat on her own. She meets a gay textile design student, Geoffrey Ingraham, and invites him to move in with her. When Jo discovers she is pregnant by Jimmy, Geoff is supportive of her, even offering to marry her, saying at one point, "You need somebody to love you while you're looking for somebody to love." Inevitably, Helen re-appears on the scene after the failure of her relationship with Peter, a selfish lout. She moves in with Jo, which causes tensions between her (Helen) and Geoff. Geoff decides he can no longer stay at the flat and moves out, leaving Helen to care for Jo and her impending baby. Symbolic of Helen's disdain of Geoffrey is her return, near the end of the film, of the bassinet he gave to Jo.

5)Darling is a 1965 British comedy/drama film written by Frederic Raphael, directed by John Schlesinger, and starring Julie Christie, Dirk Bogarde, and Laurence Harvey. It is considered one of Schlesinger's best films and an insightful satire of mid-sixties British culture. It was a breakout role for young actress Julie Christie, who, much like her character Diana, went on to become an international star.Darling tells the story of a trendy young woman named Diana Scott (Julie Christie) who uses her sex appeal to achieve fame and fortune. Initially she draws the attention of a television journalist (Dirk Bogarde) and convinces him to give up his family to be with her. After growing increasingly bored with this relationship, she begins moving and sleeping around in the upper circles of society. She secures increasingly important modeling and acting roles, attracting the attention of the international nobility, but real happiness proves harder to attain.

6)Poor Cow is a 1967 British drama film directed by Ken Loach, based on Nell Dunn's novel of the same name.Joy is an 18 year old woman who runs away from home with Tom; this proves to be the first of many bad choices. She marries and has a boy, Johnny. Tom is a thief; he becomes mentally and physically abusive to Joy and ends up in prison, leaving her on her own. Joy takes a job as a barmaid and then, to earn extra money, becomes a prostitute. Her life spirals downhill until her son goes missing and she realises what is most important to her.

7)Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a 1960 film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Alan Sillitoe. Sillitoe wrote the screenplay adaptation and the film was directed by Karel Reisz.Arthur Seaton, a young machinist at a Nottingham factory, is having an affair with Brenda, the wife of an older co-worker. He also has a relationship with Doreen, a woman closer to his own age. When Brenda gets pregnant, Arthur asks his aunt for advice on aborting the child. Brenda's husband discovers the affair, and his brother (a burly soldier) and a fellow soldier give Arthur a vicious beating. After recovering, Arthur returns to work, and the film ends on an ambiguous note, with Arthur and Doreen discussing marriage and the prospect of a new home.

8)Peeping Tom is a 1960 British psychological thriller/horror film directed by Michael Powell and written by the World War II cryptographer and polymath Leo Marks. The title derives from the slang expression 'peeping Tom' describing a voyeur. The film revolves around a serial killer who murders women while using a portable movie camera to record their dying expressions of terror.

Its controversial subject and the extremely harsh reception by critics effectively destroyed Powell's career as a director in the United Kingdom. However, it attracted a cult following, and in later years, it has been re-evaluated and is now considered a masterpiece.Lewis is a member of a film crew who aspires to become a filmmaker himself. He works part-time photographing lurid pictures of women. He is a shy, reclusive young man who hardly ever socializes outside of his workplace. He lives in his father's house, leasing part of it and acting as the landlord, while posing as a tenant himself. Mark is fascinated by the boisterous family living downstairs, and especially by Helen (Anna Massey), a sweet-natured young woman who befriends him out of pity.

9)Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 film directed by François Truffaut, in his first colour film as well as his only English-language film. It is based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury.
The film starred Oskar Werner as Montag and Julie Christie, who was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role award for the dual roles of Linda (Mildred) Montag and Clarisse.The central character, Guy Montag, is employed as a "fireman" (which, in this future, means "bookburner"). The novel's title refers to the supposed temperature at which book paper combusts. Although sources contemporary with the novel's writing gave the temperature as 450 °C (842 °F), Bradbury is believed to have thought "Fahrenheit" made for a better title; however, in an introduction to the 40th anniversary edition of the novel, Bradbury states that a person he spoke with at the local fire department said "Book-paper catches fire at 451 degrees Fahrenheit". The "firemen" burn them "for the good of humanity". Written in the early years of the Cold War, the novel is a critique of what Bradbury saw as issues in American society of the era.



*all info lifted from Wikipedia