nineteen sixty two

The greatest movie year of all time is 1939 1962. That's right. I boldly scratched out the year that is invariably invoked as "the greatest" by critics, cinéastes, cinéphiles, film historians and movie buffs, no questions asked. For as long as I can remember, it's been a foregone conclusion - and not without good reason - that 1939 is the unchallenged champ.

Eighty years of accumulated praise have taken their toll, diminishing and overshadowing any potential rival. Look, I love the films of 1939, but never a team player, I disagreed with its starry status as long ago as 1992 when I wrote a 30th anniversary piece celebrating the headiness of 1962.

For years - nay, decades - I remained the lone voice promoting '62. Along the way, other critics - all great thinkers, naturally - have come to endorse the importance of that year. But more about them later. (See below.)

If neglected films are my forté - not to mention, the thrust of this site - then 1962 defines everything that is important to me in terms of movies. And so, I felt compelled to renew my spin after I read a series of short essays in The Washington Post titled "What Was the Best Year in Movie History?," written by seven staff writers. The years championed in the piece are 1946, 1955, 1974, 1982, 1999, 2007 and, of course, 1939.

Everyone has an opinion - and is entitled to it - but the best that the authors of these assorted squibs (all well-reasoned and -written, by the way) could do is come up with 20 or fewer titles for each year.

I can top that.

The movie year 1962 brims with dozens of noteworthy films. Both domestic and foreign. Some very good, some only okay, a lot of them great. Movies of breadth and variety. Made by an eclectic mix of filmmakers, both veterans and newcomers. Yes, the filmmakers.

And so, listed in no particular order and without commentary, here are the many directors of 1962 and their films that made the year so significant. (And please note that all the foreign-language films distributed in the U.S. in 1962 were most likely released in their native countries in prior years.)

David Lean: "Lawrence of Arabia"

Jacques Demy: "Lola"

Alain Resnais: "Last Year at Marienbad"

Three by John Frankenheimer: "The Manchurian Candidate," "Birdman of Alcatraz" and "All Fall Down"

Three by Delbert Mann: "The Outsider," "Lover Come Back" and "That Touch of Mink"

John Cassavetes: "Too Late Blues"

Sidney Gilliat: "Only Two Can Play"

John Ford: "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"

Two by Frank Tashlin:"Bachelor Flat" and "It's Only Money"

Guy Green: "Light in the Piazza"

Pietro Germi: "Divorce - Italian Style"/"Divorzio all'italiana"

Two by Sidney Lumet: "A View from the Bridge" and "Long Day's Journey into Night"

Two by Vincente Minnelli: "Two Weeks in Another Town" and "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse"

Two by Edward Dmytryk: "Walk on the Wild Side" and "The Reluctant Saint"

Otto Preminger: "Advise and Consent"

Jacques Rivette: "Paris Belongs to Us"/"Paris nous appartient"

Roger Corman: "Tales of Terror"

Stanley Kubrick: "Lolita"

John Guillermin: "Waltz of the Toreadors"

Delmer Daves: "Rome Adventure"

Leo McCarey: "Satan Never Sleeps"

Two by Sidney J. Furie: "Night of Passion" and "Wonderful to Be Young"

Andrei Tarkovsky: "The Violin and the Roller"/"Katok i skripka"

Richard Brooks: "Sweet Bird of Youth"

Orson Welles: "Mr. Arkadin"

Two by Henri Verneuil: "Maxime" and "The Most Wanted Man in the World"/"L'ennemi public n° 1"

Two by Tony Richardson: "A Taste of Honey" and "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner"

Jack Clayton: "The Innocents"

Michael Cacoyannis: "Electra"/"Ilektra"

Peter Ustinov: "Billy Budd"

Agnes Varda: "Cleo from 5 to 7"/"Cléo de 5 à 7"

Two by Blake Edwards: "Experiment in Terror" and "Days of Wine and Roses"

Freddie Francis: "Two and Two Make Six"

Bryan Forbes: "Whistle Down the Wind"

Serge Bourguignon: "Sundays and Cybele"/"Les dimanches de Ville d'Avray"

Mervyn LeRoy: "Gypsy"

Morton DaCosta: "The Music Man"

Luis Buñuel: "Viridiana" 

Michael Powell: "Peeping Tom"

Andre Cayette: "Tomorrow Is My Turn"/"Le passage du Rhin"

Two by Philip Leacock: "13 West Street" and "The War Lover"

Two by Michelangelo Antonioni: "Eclipse"/"L'Eclisse" and "Il Grido"

Sam Peckinpah: "Ride the High Country"

Inoshiro Honda: "Mothra"/"Mosura"

José Ferrer: "State Fair"

Two by J. Lee Thompson: "Cape Fear" and "Taras Bulba"

Arthur Penn: "The Miracle Worker"

Lewis Gilbert: "Damn the Defiant!" 

Martin Ritt: "Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man"

Michael Gordon: "Boys' Night Out"

David Miller: "Lonely Are the Brave"

Don Siegel: "Hell Is for Heroes"

William Castle: "Zotz"

Two by Daniel Mann: "Five Finger Exercise" and "Who's Got The Action?"

Samuel Fuller: "Merrill's Marauders" 

Richard Quine: "The Notorious Landlady"

Howard Hawks: "Hatari!"

George Seaton: "The Counterfeit Traitor"

Jules Dassin: "Phaedra"

Two by Jack Cardiff: "My Geisha" and "The Lion"

Henry Koster: "Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation"

Frank Perry: "David and Lisa"

Two by Robert Mulligan: "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Spiral Road"

David Swift: "The Interns"

Phil Karlson: "Kid Galahad"

Basil Dearden: "Victim"

Richard Fleischer: "Barabbas"

George Roy Hill: "Period of Adjustment"

Lewis Milestone: "Mutiny on the Bounty"

Robert Wise: "Two for the Seesaw"

Guy Hamilton: "The Best of Enemies"

Three by Ingmar Bergman: "Through a Glass Darkly"/"Såsom i en spegel" - "Night Is My Future"/"Musik i mörker" - "The Devil's Wanton"/"Fängelse"

Louis Malle: "A Very Private Affair"/"Vie privée"

Peter Sellers: "I Like Money"

Three by François Truffaut: "Jules and Jim"/"Jules et Jim" - "Love at Twenty"/"L'amour à vingt ans" - "Shoot the Piano Player"/"Tirez sur le pianiste"

Charles Walters: "Billy Rose's Jumbo"

John Huston: "Freud"

George Pollock: "Murder She Said"

Irvin Kershner: "A Face in the Rain"

Jack Garfein: "something wild"

Gordon Douglas: "Follow That Dream"

Pierre-Dominique Gaisseau: "The Sky Above - The Mud Below"/"Le ciel et la boue"

Shirley Clarke: "The Connection"

Albert Lamorisse: "Stowaway in the Sky"/"Le voyage en ballon"

Robert Aldrich: "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"

Gene Kelly: "Gigot"

Ralph Nelson: "Requiem for a Heavyweight"

Hark Harvey: "Carnival of Souls"

Two by Mauro Bolognini: "Bell'Antonio"/"Il bell'Antonio" and "LaViaccia"

Daniel Petrie: "The Main Attraction"

Akira Kurosawa: "Yojimbo"/"Yôjinbô"

George Marshall: "The Happy Thieves"

Federico Fellini: "The Swindle"/"Il Bidone"

Henry Hawthaway, Ford and Marshall: "How the West Was Won"

Ken Annakin, Andrew Morton and Barnhard Wicki: "The Longest Day"

Luchino Visconti, Mario Monicelli, Vittorio DeSica and Fellini: "Boccaccio '70"

And George Cukor: "The Chapman Report"

Notes in Passing: The movie year 1962 has been celebrated by several notable critics. Stephen Farber wrote a wonderful essay, "1962: When the Silver Screen Never Looked So Golden," for The New York Times on Sunday, September 15, 2002.

Meanwhile, the Times' A.O. Scott's wrote a report on October 16, 2009, covering a 12-title event at  Brooklyn's Academy of Music (BAM), titled "BAMcinématek 1962: New York Film Critics Circle." This event was an attempt to correct a decades-old situation: A city-wide strike towards the end of 1962 halted newspaper production, which meant no newspaper Ten Best lists and no coverage of the New York Film Critics Awards.

And in his letters column on August 16, 2012, San Francisco Chronicle movie critic Mick LaSalle noted that "the top ten of 1962 has six classics - 'Lawrence of Arabia,' 'Dr. No,' 'The Longest Day,' 'The Music Man,' 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and 'Gypsy.'" One of Mick's picks, "Dr. No," a 1962 release in Great Britain, opened in America in May of the following year, 1963.

Finally, Turner Classic Movies set aside its  programming on September 21, 2012 for a mini-tribute to '62 that kicked off with "Sweet Bird of Youth," followed by "Gypsy," "The Manchurian Candidate," "Days of Wine and Roses," "Jules et Jim" and "Lolita." 

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~images~
(from top) 

~Image from Columbia's crown jewel, "Lawrence of Arabia"
~photography: Columbia Pictures 1962©

~John Frankenheimer (right) conferring with Laurence Harvey and Angela Lansbury on the set of "The Manchurian Candidate"

~photography: United Artists 1962© 

 ~Otto Preminger (left) on the set of "Advise and Consent" with Don Murray, Charles Laughton and Walter Pidgeon

~photography: Columbia Pictures 1962©

 ~Tony Richardson (right) directing Rita Tushingham and Paul Danquah in "A Taste of Honey"

~photography: Woodfall/Continental 1962©

~Stanely Kubrick (center) on the set of "Lolita" with James Mason and Sue Lyon

~photography: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 1962©

~Morton DaCosta (center) with Meredith Willson (left) and Robert Preston on the set of "The Music Man"

~photography: Warner Bros. 1962© 

~David Lean (left) directing Peter O'Toole in "Lawrence of Arabia" 
~photography: Columbia Pictures 1962©

~Richard Quine (center) observing Jack Lemmon and Kim Novak in a scene for "The Notorious Landlady"

~photography: Columbia Pictures 1962©

 ~François Truffaut and Jeanne Moreau on the set of "Jules et Jim"

~photography: Janus Films 1962©

 ~Robert Aldrich directing Joan Crawford (center) and Bette Davis in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"
~photography:Warner Bros. 1962©

~George Cukor (right) directing Jane Fonda and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. in "The Chapman Report"

~photography: Warner Bros. 1962©

~Mervyn LeRoy with Natalie Wood on the set of "Gypsy"

~photography: Warner Bros. 1962©

~Image of Paul Newman and Geraldine Page in "Sweet Bird of Youth"

~photography: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 1962©