# Select your favorite vintage films directed by John Frankenheimer



## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

During the late 1950s, John Frankenheimer transitioned from directing live television programs to helming feature films.
Frankenheimer's early output fixated upon hard-hitting topical social issues, typically intense, invariably serious, and rendered with theatre-quality acting performances.

Indicate which amongst Frankenheimer's initial 8 films are your favorites (if any). Multiple choice.

Only 2 of these films had a corresponding soundtrack album released on vinyl LP during those years:

The first was David Amram's music for THE YOUNG SAVAGES ...


















... followed by THE TRAIN, by Maurice Jarre.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

I´m only familiar with "The Manchurian Candidate", which is a good one


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I like old films, but somehow I've missed these.


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

Hi, joen_cph

Yes, "The Manchurian Candidate" is very interesting and effective. 

Frankenheimer and the various cinematographers who shot these films achieved a sort of expressionism via low-angle shots which could capture the ceilings within some the sets, and the usage of wide-angle lenses also impart a degree of paranoia which was unique to the Cold War era.

Of the other films listed here, the one which comes closest to "The Manchurian Candidate" in terms of Cold War threats to governments would be "Seven Days In May", which is about the planned takeover of the United States by its own military armed forces. "Seven Days In May" was completed in 1963 before the assassination of President Kennedy, but released in early '64 after the tragedy so it probably made for uncomfortable viewing amongst American audiences at the time. (script by Rod Serling)

The 'plot' which interests me the most personally, though, is "Seconds". "Seconds" is about a fictional (and secret) corporate firm which offers its customers a second chance at life with a new body and identity. Submit your financial assets to this company, and it will "fake" your own death and you can start anew after extensive make-over surgery (which we learn later on involves the trafficking in human cadavers). 

Another movie I consider very provocative is "Birdman Of Alcatraz", based on the life of Robert Stroud.
"Birdman Of Alcatraz" raises highly debatable issues such as the prison system's treatment of prisoners throughout the decades and society's norms being challenged when this convicted murderer in solitary confinement becomes an expert on ornithology by reading volumes of reference books and conducting experiments on birds within his prison cell.
Shall we ignore such contributions to science when the author is a criminal? Ah - this is an issue each individual will need to answer for him/her-self regarding accepted morality versus trail-blazing achievements. 

All the other earlier films are much more domestic in nature, with the focus on the youth in America and its dynamics within nuclear families.

"The Train", by the way, is reportedly the final high-profile action movie to be filmed in monochrome but it is probably the most conventional item in early Frankenheimer, being a WW II picture with the standard heroics of Allied forces playing cat-and-mouse with the Germans.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Pretty engaged & forward-looking content & certainly making them sound interesting.

Serious films in Denmark were few and far between in those decades, quite heavily relying on folk comedies and a commercial market of only a small population; later we got a system with better public financing.

The satirical comedy "Naboerne/The Neighbours" (1966) was one that is top-notch, though stylistically conventional. It has been thought of as both a satire on petit-bourgeois rivalry and the absurd logics of the Cold War. A neutral grocery owner becomes rich by supplying to neighbours with fighting weapons, but outwardly keeping a quasi-religious moral attitude.


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

Thanks for the sample!

I have a number of Polish films (and Hungarian films, too) in my video collection, but I confess I'm not acquainted with domestic Danish cinema except for international "art" films, like Carl Theodor Dreyer's ORDET (1955) and GERTRUD (1964).
There's quite a bit of vintage Czech cinema I haven't yet seen but would like to, however, films from Denmark I know much less about.

I'm curious about the distribution of Hollywood movies in Denmark throughout the decades.

Does Copenhagen distribute a lot of English-language entertaiment or not much?


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Prodromides said:


> Thanks for the sample!
> 
> I have a number of Polish films (and Hungarian films, too) in my video collection, but I confess I'm not acquainted with domestic Danish cinema except for international "art" films, like Carl Theodor Dreyer's ORDET (1955) and GERTRUD (1964).
> There's quite a bit of vintage Czech cinema I haven't yet seen but would like to, however, films from Denmark I know much less about.
> ...


*Czech films* from a couple of decades ago are often very good or touching, and they have some interesting film music people, including Lubos Fiser, who was also a classical composer 
"_Babicka_" 



"_The World Through Magnifying Glass_" 



"_Dotek Mytola_" 



 (I have a theory that the sign "Europa" at 3:02 refers to the then-divided Europe after the rebellion in 1968 ...)

Concerning *Danish films*, we´ve had a good deal of success internationally due to a public support programme, especially since 1985 or so. This includes some winners of Oscars, the Berlin Bear, the Sundance Festival Prize etc. - directors like Bille August, Gabriel Axel, the notorious avant-garde Troels Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, Susanne Bier and others.

I tried to check whether material on Frankenheimers reception in Denmark could be found on the web, but it doesn´t seem so. No doubt they received good reviews in most of the press, which tends to be enlightened.

We´ve always received our fair share of the American blockbusters, which have had a very strong position on the market, but curiously enough the American film industry organized a boycott between 1954-58 because they wanted bigger profits from the ticket sales, resulting in "_Gone With The Wind_" (1939) having its premiere in 1958, and people taking the ferries to Sweden to visit cinemas before then ! This however should not be mistaken for the situation nowadays, where American mass culture is extremely influential.

Locally made films have always been popular here too, though their success is not always foreseable. The biggest seller, a popular-style film from 1950, sold 2,6 million tickets among a total population of 4,5 million ("_The Red Horses_", featuring a horse race and a love story). We still have locally produced blockbusters, but they are almost always directed towards the international market too. However, the 3 most popular films in 2012 were all Danish, and generally ticket sales were increasing, around 2 tickets per member of the population annually.

We also have cinemas here ignoring commercial trends and concentrating on experimental films and film history, including "Cinemateket", a division of the Danish Film Institute, http://www.dfi.dk/Service/English.aspx

It is possible to browse a relatively comprehensive Danish film history with some pictures here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_Denmark

A bit of a digression from your head-line  but you´ve stimulated interest in him; I´m sure that his films turn up now and then at "Cinemateket" and our television channels. I remember some good acting and the intense atmosphere in particular in "_The Manchurian Candidate_".


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

The choices missed my favorite Burt Lancaster films-- The Killers (1946), Mister 880 (1950), From Here To Eternity (1953), Trapeze (1956), Gunfight at OK Corral (1957), Run Silent Run Deep (1958), Elmer Gantry (1960), The Midnight Man (1974), Atlantic City, USA (1980), Local Hero (1983).


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

Hi, Vaneyes.

Yeah - there's many great Lancaster movies. I like "Elmer Gantry", too, but my favorite film with Lancaster is "Sweet Smell Of Success" (though mainly for the script by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman).

Does your love of "Elmer Gantry" extend also to Andre Previn's soundtrack?










If so, you didn't vote for "Elmer Gantry" in my poll on Andre Previn months ago...


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

No, just the insincere fire 'n brimstone Bible-punching. These tent revivalists prayed and preyed across America in the '30's to '50's. Forerunners to the later and greater TV scams.


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## Il_Penseroso (Nov 20, 2010)

Manxfeeder said:


> I like old films, but somehow I've missed these.


Same here, except The Manchurian Candidate.


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