We at Way Too Indie aren’t the only ones to be celebrating a milestone anniversary in 2015. This year is perfect for a retrospective of influential films that are coming upon their 25, 50, and 75 year anniversaries. We’ll showcase all these time-tested films this week starting with the 50th anniversary films. Mostly because today The Sound of Music turns 50 and we can hardly wait to give it some much deserved love.

1965 Highlights

A little context around what was happening 50 years ago. This was the year the U.S. combat troops would arrive in Vietnam, numbering 190,000 American soldiers by year’s end. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be arrested along with 2,600 other protestors in Selma on February 1st and Malcolm X would be shot and killed at Harlem rally on February 21st. That year the world would lose Winston Churchill, Nat King Cole, T.S. Eliot, and Adlai Stevenson. The LA Dodgers would defeat Minnesota 4-3 in the World Series and Boston would defeat the LA Lakers in the NBA Championship. This is also the year that the (not so notorious then) Bill Cosby would be the first African-American to headline a TV show in I Spy. Throughout everything, the shows went on and the following films would be released in 1965.

The Sound of Music

Release Date: March 2, 1965
Starring: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer
Directed By: Robert Wise
Tagline: …the more you see it, the more it becomes one of your favorite things.

Based on the real life book the Story of the Von Trapp Singers by Maria Von Trapp, the movie contained songs by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. It won five Academy Awards that year including Best Picture and Best Director and it’s soundtrack was nominated for a Grammy. The United States Library of Congress selected The Sound of Music to be preserved in the National Film Registry in 2001 for it’s cultural and historical significance. Julie Andrews learned to play the guitar just for this movie. If we were to adjust for inflation this would be the third highest grossing film and highest grossing musical of all time, and after it went to video it remained on the charts for five years.

Beach Blanket Bingo

Release Date: April 14, 1965
Starring: Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, Deborah Walley
Directed By: William Asher
Tagline: It’s the wettest, wildest game in town!

The fifth of the series of Beach Party movies, this one starred the hit movie couple, Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. It was playing on a drive-in movie screen in the 1983 movie, The Outsiders, which was set in the 1960’s. It was also featured for a few brief moments, though dubbed in Vietnamese, in Good Morning Vietnam.
What else was happening in the world the day this movie was released in theaters? Perry E. Smith and Robert E. Hickok, the American murderers that were written about in In Cold Blood, were hanged.

For A Few Dollars More

Release Date: May 10, 1965
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volonte
Directed By: Sergio Leone
Tagline: Clint Eastwood is back, and he’s burning at both ends – if you can take it!

The second part of the Italian spaghetti western Dollars trilogy, it follows A Fistful of Dollars and precedes The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and Ennio Morricone returned to compose the now famous soundtrack for this film as well. Sergio Leone hadn’t planned to direct a sequel to A Fistful of Dollars, but the production company withheld his earnings from that movie unless he did. This was Lee Van Cleef’s first major role in a movie.

Shenandoah

Release Date: June 3, 1965
Starring: James Stewart, Doug McClure, Glenn Corbett
Directed By: Andrew V. McLaglen
Tagline: SHAKES THE SCREEN LIKE CANNON THUNDER!!

Nominated for an Oscar that year for Best Sound, it broke box office records in Virginia where the story takes place. This film is set during the American Civil War and follows the Anderson family, most notably the patriarch played by James Stewart, in their attempts to stick to themselves and avoid all of the violence. This would resonate with audiences more and more in the years following as feelings towards the Vietnam War shifted. It was turned into a Broadway musical in 1975 for which John Cullum won his first Tony Award for Best Actor. A portion of the film’s music played before the Frontierland sequence in Disneyland’s 50th fireworks show, “Remember, Dreams Come True”.

Help!

Release Date: August 25, 1965
Starring: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr
Directed By: Richard Lester
Tagline: The colorful adventures of the Beatles are more colorful than ever…in color!

This was the second feature film with The Beatles and sets them comically up against an evil cult. The Beatles said at the time that it was inspired by The Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup and was satirizing the James Bond series. The soundtrack was released as an album of the same name. Given a much larger budget than the successful A Hard Day’s Night, it was given a fuller soundtrack and had multiple exotic locations in which to film. Several of the Beatles have maintained that much of this movie was filmed under the influence of marijuana, though if anyone is surprised at that, we’d in turn be surprised. It was nominated for two BAFTA awards and one Grammy for Original Score.

That Darn Cat!

Release Date: December 2, 1965
Starring: Hayley Mills, Dean Jones, Dorothy Provine, Roddy McDowall
Directed By: Robert Stevenson
Tagline: They’ll crack this case by a whisker!

Following the misadventures of the wily DC (short for Darn Cat) and his two adorable sister-owners as they help to rescue a kidnapped woman, this was the last of six films that Hayley Mills would make with Walt Disney Productions but it was the first for Dean Jones who plays deathly allergic FBI agent, Zeke Kelso. Based on the book Undercover Cat by Gordon and Mildred Gordon, the title song was written by The Sherman Brothers and sung by Bobby Darin. A remake was made in 1997 starring Christina Ricci.

Thunderball

Release Date: December 22, 1965
Starring: Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, Adolfo Celi
Directed By: Terence Young
Tagline: Look here! For the Biggest Bond of All!

The fourth Bond film, Thunderball won an Oscar for Best Visual and Special Effects. Frustrated with the press, at the time of filming Sean Connery avoided all journalists and photographers and gave only one interview—to Playboy. Adjusting for inflation, it was the highest grossing film of the series. One of the scenes has James Bond swimming with sharks. Though there was a plastic partition in the pool to separate them, one got loose and Sean Connery was seconds away from being attacked before he jumped out to safety. On the day this was released in theaters, Great Britain set its national maximum speed limit at 70 miles per hour. Coincidence?

Doctor Zhivago

Release Date: December 31, 1965
Starring: Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin
Directed By: David Lean
Tagline: A love caught in the fire of revolution!

Loosely based on Boris Pasternak’s novel, it won Five Oscars that year: Best Writing, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, and Best Music Score. Set in Russia before the Russian Civil War, it was banned by the Soviet Union at the time and thus couldn’t film on location. Instead it was filmed in Spain, mostly. Though at its release it wasn’t received well by critics who mainly complained about its excessive length (being over three hours) over the years it’s adulation has grown to be considered one of the best films of all time. By the way, on this exact date the American author, Nicholas Sparks, was born. He’s got romance in his stars.

As we’re caught in the middle of the whirlwind that is the holiday season, many of us will be traveling great distances, arguing with our families at the dinner table, receiving shitty gifts we have to pretend to like, and putting on fake smiles as we try our damnedest to ignore the pulsing headache that tortures us so in these early winter months. Sure, some people (psychos) actually enjoy the holiday hustle and bustle, and once the dust has settled and you cuddle up in front of the fireplace with your loved one, there’s still something very special about the “most wonderful time of the year.”

But there was an even more special time in all our lives, when we didn’t have a care in the world and our major concern was whether or not Santa was going to bring us that certain gift we’d been nagging the hell out of our parents for. Childhood was a time when, before we became snooty cinephiles, we could watch movies dozens of times over without mulling over things like cinematography and performances. I swear, when I was a kid, I could watch The Beast twirl Belle around that ballroom all freaking day if my mom would let me (I was obviously destined to become the badass I am today.)

There isn’t anything quite like the first time you acquaint yourself with the magic of movies; everything was dazzling, because you had no reference for what was “good” or “bad.” All you knew was that you liked what you saw on that silver screen, and that was more than enough.

Now, take a break from the holiday insanity and relax as we at Way Too Indie share our favorite childhood movies.

Happy Holidays! (Ya filthy animals!)

Our Favorite Childhood Movies

Goonies

I guess I was never a big fan of escapist fantasies like Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark growing up. Sure, they were fun, but while my friends would obsess over those classics I would be watching The Goonies repeatedly. Of course, The Goonies isn’t exactly a realistic movie, but the protagonists being ordinary middle class kids stumbling into an epic treasure hunt made my 7 year old self think that it could happen to me as well. For that reason I fell for the movie completely, watching it over and over. Of course it helps that Richard Donner and the whole cast (including Sean Astin, Corey Feldman, Martha Plimpton and Josh Brolin in their younger days) perfectly capture the camaraderie between neighborhood friends. It’s the only film in the 70s-80s era of Spielberg blockbusters (he didn’t direct, but he produced and created the story) that I truly loved, it’s a personal favourite of mine and even now I can still watch it for the umpteenth time without getting tired of it. [CJ Prince]

Labyrinth

Every once in a while as a child, flipping through the channels available in our limited cable subscription, a channel that was normally static fuzz would suddenly appear clearly, a scrolling phone number at the bottom of the screen, and I’d know that rarest of TV phenomena had occurred: a Disney Channel Preview Weekend. It was on one such special weekend, glued to the TV, that I was first exposed to the strange wonder that is Labyrinth. The film follows Sarah (Jennifer Connelly), an especially imaginative and day-dreamy teenager, who isn’t particularly fond of her stepmother and baby stepbrother, Toby, who she regularly is stuck babysitting. Always straddling reality and fantasy, Sarah is so fed up with Toby one stormy night she decides to quote the incantation that will bring the Goblin King to rid her of Toby forever. Surprisingly, her wish comes true and a clan of puppet goblins descends, taking Toby to the Goblin King’s far-off lair. Realizing she may have been hasty, Sarah argues with the Goblin King Jareth (my first introduction to the androgynously mesmerizing David Bowie) asking that Toby be returned. Instead he gives her 13 hours to make her way through his labyrinth to find the child.

Sarah’s journey introduces her to many strange Jim Henson creations, usually accompanied by equally strange musical numbers (the best of these sung by Bowie). Though I’d been exposed to Jim Henson before, the Muppets being an 80s-child staple, Labyrinth has a dark quality to it that intrigued 11-year-old me. I found Sarah to be a bit whiny (always shouting about how unfair things are) but her romantic nature fit my own bookish tendencies, and the starry-eyed tension between her and Bowie’s Jareth appealed to my budding hormones. This film ended up being Henson’s last directing endeavor and his meticulous attention to detail is truly incredible. Each handcrafted puppet fits perfectly into his fine-tuned fantasy world, my favorite being a wall of rubber hands that form talking faces. The storyline may not hold up all that well now that I’m an adult, and most of the songs, though full of 80s pop goodness, make no sense whatsoever; but I still find myself taking this one out on sick days, ready to feel like a kid again. Viewer be warned, however, Labyrinth may lead toward an unhealthy obsession with David Bowie and/or a tendency toward impractical crushes on sexy villains. [Ananda Dillon]

Home Alone

Macaulay Culkin may be a ghoulish, pale-skinned, drug-addict looking guy these days, but when I was a kid, watching him beat the living shit out of Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern in Home Alone pretty much made him my idol. Chris Columbus’ home invasion comedy about a boy abandoned in his family’s giant house for the holidays was everything I wanted in a boyhood fantasy; it had action, it had excess, it had humor, and in the end, the kid outsmarted the grumpy adults!

Culkin’s Kevin McCallister did what any young boy would do in his situation; he played adult! Or, his idea of adulthood at least. He ordered out for pizza, watched violent movies and, of course, made his hilarious and now classic attempt at shaving. When Pesci and Stern’s bumbling “Wet Bandits” try to raid the McCallister household, setting off Kevin’s kick-ass array of booby traps he’s strewn about the house, it makes for one of the most delightful, broad, wacky climaxes in any kids movie I can recall (the nail through the foot is still wonderfully gross!) It was Looney Toons, it was sadistic, it had some heart, and it’s my favorite childhood movie. [Bernard Boo]

Transformers: The Movie (1986)

Transformers: The Movie was BY FAR the film that I spent the most time with as a kid growing up in the late 80s and early 90s. Back when we had video stores (you kids are missing out now), my dad and I would drive to the nearest Pop N’ Go video store every Friday night to rent the newest movies. While he would get something different every week, I stuck with this animated movie from 1986 that, to a 6 year old boy, had everything one could ask for. I couldn’t even venture a guess of how many times I’ve seen it. Ok, I will. It’s probably easily over 60 times. These days, I only watch it once a year just to remind myself of the total awesomeness that permeates the film. The story is pretty terrible (bad robots look to incinerate good robots while a massive robot planet looks to destroy everyone), but when you have voice work from Leonard Nemoy, Judd Nelson, Robert Stack and even Orson Welles himself, who cares?! While the voice acting is great, hands down the best part of the film is the soundtrack, which is comprised of both original works (by Stan Bush) and songs from the likes of Weird Al to White Lion. Transformers literally rocks for pretty much its entire 85 minute runtime. I guarantee that by the time the end credits roll, you’ll be belting out the lyrics to The Touch. [Blake Ginithan]

The Sound of Music

When she skipped over hills and onto screens 48 years ago, Julie Andrews had no idea she would be melting hearts across the world, producing the highest grossing film of its day. The Sound of Music is a well known classic with good reason; from its lovable characters to its thoroughly enjoyable songs, even hardened cynics would be hard pressed to find something to dislike about this film. If you’re unaware of the plot, you’ve got something of a massive gaping hole in your life, but just as a reminder, the delightful Rodgers and Hammerstein musical tells the tale of a young, rebellious nun who, upon deciding that convent life isn’t for her, becomes governess to the seven children of Captain Von Trapp, all in the midst of Nazi-riddled Austria. We’re quickly swept away by Maria’s charms, and for so many children across the world, she resembled something to aspire to – an independent, somewhat off-beat woman that found her place in life – so it definitely holds a place as a childhood favorite for me. Not to mention they’re all totally good at tricking Nazis. [Pavi Ramani]

You’ve Got Mail

As a 90s kid, my memories of the movies are flooded with classics by Meg Ryan, Sandra Bullock, and Tom Hanks. While you were sleeping, Forces of Nature, Speed, French Kiss, Sleepless in Seattle, Forrest Gump, Toy Story, Cast Away are all the movies that come to mind when I think about my favourite childhood films. I’m assuming it’s a testament to being raised by a mother who was in love with all three actors and refused to accept anyone else existed.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that my favourite movie consists of two of those three. Yes, You’ve Got Mail, is my all time favourite childhood film. It’s probably a bit out of place in this list but what of it! Being that it was released in 1998 means that I was 7 when it came out. I remember falling in love with the characters, wanting so much for them to realise who each other were, and to run into each other’s arms and live happily ever after. I must say, I never really thought I’d be admitting all of this for the world to see, but I’m hoping my fellow writers aren’t too judgmental considering their picks! [Amy Priest]

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure

This was an easy topic for me because my mother loves to tell the story about six-year-old Dustin and how I watched Pee-wee’s Big Adventure…on repeat, in the same sitting. Looking back on that now, two things come to mind. First, just how much work that required for parents who had to manually rewind the VHS tape (which as a kid felt like an ETERNITY!) Second, just how messed up Tim Burton’s first film is now as an adult (or maybe it’s the combination of him and Paul Reubens.) This highly intoxicating visual adventure starts with a bang as Pee-wee Herman’s Rube Goldberg invention makes his breakfast in the morning, and never lets up after his precious bicycle gets stolen. What makes this wild adventure film work is the writing credits; shared by Reubens who makes sure his character is felt in every scene, Burton who gives the film a slightly dark tone, and Phil Hartman who brings his comedic mastermind to the table. As an adult having re-watched it not too long ago, I was surprised how much enjoyment I got out of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure as a kid and that I was not completely terrified of it (though I still blame the film for my dreadful fear of snakes.) Yet with every scene offering overwhelming amounts of stimulation either by goofy dialog delivery or wacky visuals, it is easy to see how a child would not get bored with a single frame of the film. [Dustin Jansick]