My top 10 Sci-Fi Movies of the 1960s

[diebitter]

As a follow-up to my top 15 Sci-Fi movies of the 1950's, I present my Top 10 of the 60s...

Okay, I'll start with some honourable mentions and also rans...

First, Sci-Fi really blossomed into something special on TV in the 60s, and while this is a movie list, honourable mentions need to be made for the Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, The Time Tunnel, Lost in Space, Voyage to the bottom of the Sea, Land of the Giants, and the mighty Star Trek. British TV didn't lag, producing such things as Dr Who, The Avengers, and The Prisoner.


Second, a number of spy movies seemed to impinge on the arena of Sci-Fi, but none of them cut it as a 1960's Top 10 Sci-Fi movies. These include some of the Bond movies (eg Dr No, You Only Live Twice, Casino Royale), the Flint movies, the Matt Helm movies, and the Man from Uncle movies (most of which were cut together episodes of the TV series...).


Other ones that I liked but didn't cut the top 10 were the plant-fests Little Shop of Horrors, Day of the Triffids, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, First Men in the Moon and Quatermass and the Pit. The only other movie of note that is considered something of a classic but doesn't make my list cos I don't think it's that great (except the swimming pool scene) is Alphaville.



So to the top 10...


10) Barbarella

A cool bit of sci-fi fluff with the beautiful Jane Fonda as Barbarella, and the saucy Anita Pallenberg as the bad girl (I just have to think of her saying, in that secy low voice, 'pretty pretty' to get...well you work it out), and the angel guy and the orgasmatron....okay, not as much fun as it looks at first glance or if you read the blurb on the back of the box, but still plenty of fun anyway...


9) The War Game

This was made in 1965, and still is shocking as hell. Dealing with the build-up and then aftermath of a nuclear attack on an English town in a pseudo-documentary style, and banned by the BBC when it was made(the BBC commissioned it), this is still a powerful little movie that lays down what can happen when decision-making gets detached from plain humanity.

One that should be shown to everyone that thinks that America (or any other nation) would be justified in using nuclear weapons in anything even close to civilian areas.


8) Planet of the Vampires (Terrore nello spazio)

This is a very cool and stylish Italian horror/sci-fi movie, following a similar framework to [i Forbidden Planet[/i] about a intergalactic military craft landing on a planet and then being laid siege to my strange forces that reside there. There are in fact no vampires, but rather aliens taking over the bodies of the crew. Nicely atmospheric, very stylish and cool, with one or two very eerie scenes.

This won't be to everyone's taste (some may find the acting/dialogue a little wooden - not helped by the English dubbing), it is an enjoyable little movie.

Some consider it to be a precursor/inspiration for Alien, BTW.



7) Village of the Damned

A cool little British movie based upon John Wyndham's 'The Midwich Cuckoos', this is the black-and-white gem of the blond-haired kids that seem to think and act as one, and can do things with their mind that makes them creepy and threatening. I mini-masterpiece of build and tension.


6) Dr Who and the Daleks

Okay, I'm betraying my English roots here, but I have a deep and abiding love for this movie, having grown up watching the TV series as a kid, I just love this movie and the sequel 'Dalek Invasion of Earth:2150AD'. Daleks are intrinsically scary and fascinating to children for reasons that are beyond me (at least they were in England...I suspect it's their militaristic/fascistic barking that subconsciously recalls the Nazis - drilled into the British as mortal enemies that were prepared to bomb us to dust - but I don't know for sure). I love this movie and am fully aware of it's studio-bound/script shortcomings, and I make no apologies for rating it 6th.


5) The Time Machine

Based on the H.G.Wells story, this is a fascinating and effective Sci-Fi yarn about travel into the far-future of mankind, and finding it an extreme divergence of humans into different types, based on social patterns from H.G.Wells' time. Some excellent effects, and interesting speculation on what we might become in the far future, a nice, engaging little tale that is always worth watching when it's on.


4) Scream and Scream Again

This is probably the least-seen film on this list by far, another British sci-fi movie that's worth mentioning. It starts with an exciting chase of an individual who finally gets caught, and proceeds to pull off his own hand to escape a handcuff, and resume the chase. He then dives into a pool of liquid, and when the chaser puts in his arm to fish out the guy, he gets horribly burnt...it's a pool of concentrated acid....eeeeewwwwww! It's a twisty-turny story involving manufactured superhumans, people in high places being replaced by body-doubles, and assorted other shennanegins. It stars Vicent Price, Peter Cushing, and Christopher Lee, and is mad 1960's stuff through and through. Thoroughly recommended to afficianados of weird movies, and anyone else who wants to watch something a little different from the usual.

Oh, and it's apparently directed by one of the jobbing directors of Hawaii 5-0 [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]


3) Planet of the Apes and Beneath the Planet of the Apes

Okay, the first one I'm sure most of us have seen and know backwards. It is of course an excellent piece of cinema, and has a lot going for it in terms of actors, action, make-up and story. My only issue with the first one is the dialogue is hackneyed, obvious and clunky, but that is not that big a deal, frankly. I actually have a big love for the second one, which veered off into some weird storytelling involving underground telepathic mutants and their worship of the Bomb. Scenes like crucified apes and suchlike make it an odd, interesting movie that makes this a solid pair of films. The 3rd in the series toyed with Christ-like imagery (But it wasn't that great), but the 4th drew heavily on a civil-rights/race issue that still shines through angrily - I'm amazed it was greenlit actually, and suspect the director misled the studio into what the movie was about (good for him).


2) Dr Strangelove

This is an amazing, funny, scary movie that is probably the best Kubrick film bar one (can you guess what that was? - I think Clockwork Orange was number 3 and FMJ was number 4 in Kubrick's pantheon myself). I remember watching it before the Berlin wall came down and thinking 'Jeez, this is how it's gonna happen...mistakes, idiocy and lunacy...'. And I remember watching Cheney or Rumsfeld coming on TV prior to the invasion of Afghanistan going on about dozens of secret military bases built into the mountains of Afghanistan and being chillingly reminded of the nutty General in Strangelove...


1) 2001: A Space Odyssey

Of course, THE seminal sci-fi movie of the 1960's. Awesome, slow, mesmerising...one that really needs to be seen on the big screen...Kubrick never bettered it. Nothing else to say.