With the advent of a new film ratings system, 1960s crime films could now be much more adult-oriented. Film-makers were incorporating graphic, slow-motion violence and other new methods to tell their stories - even approaching taboo subjects such as drug abuse, addiction, rape, and child abduction - all vividly brought to the screen.
A new generation of film-makers was also emerging, including Francis Ford Coppola, Sam Peckinpah, Martin Scorsese, and others, who would push the limits of censors with their depiction of sex and violence.
Notable actors featured in this era include: Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Bette Davis, Glenn Ford, James Coburn, Lee Remick, Richard Widmark, and Anthony Perkins
A new generation of film-makers was also emerging, including Francis Ford Coppola, Sam Peckinpah, Martin Scorsese, and others, who would push the limits of censors with their depiction of sex and violence.
Notable actors featured in this era include: Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Bette Davis, Glenn Ford, James Coburn, Lee Remick, Richard Widmark, and Anthony Perkins
SUSPENSE FILMS FILMS OF THE 1960s
13 WEST STREET (1962) (80 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Leaning heavily on violence to ostensibly deliver a pacifist message, this standard drama by Philip Leacock looks at the problem of teen gangs from a slightly different angle -- these teens are all wealthy. Everything starts off when aerospace engineer Walt Sherill (Alan Ladd) is accosted and severely beaten by a group of young punks. The victimized man decides to hunt down the thugs on his own, at first just for curiosity and then increasingly for vengeance. His actions spark retaliatory measures, and before the credits roll, the body count is elevated by a few more victims in what amounts to nothing more than a blood feud. In the end, justice of the legal and politically correct sort makes a token appearance.
Starring: Alan Ladd, Rod Steiger, Michael Callan, Dolores Dorn, Ted Knight, Bernie Hamilton | Directed by: Philip Leacock
BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967) (111 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Producer/star Warren Beatty had to convince Warner Bros. to finance this film, which went on to become the studio's second-highest grosser. It also caused major controversy by redefining violence in cinema and casting its criminal protagonists as sympathetic anti-heroes. Based loosely on the true exploits of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker during the 30s, the film begins as Clyde (Beatty) tries to steal the car of Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway)'s mother. Bonnie is excited by Clyde's outlaw demeanor, and he further stimulates her by robbing a store in her presence. Clyde steals a car, with Bonnie in tow, and their legendary crime spree begins. The two move from town to town, pulling off small heists, until they join up with Clyde's brother Buck (Gene Hackman), his shrill wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons), and a slow-witted gas station attendant named C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard). The new gang robs a bank and Clyde is soon painted in the press as a Depression-era Robin Hood when he allows one bank customer to hold onto his money. Soon the police are on the gang's trail and they are constantly on the run, even kidnapping a Texas Ranger (Denver Pyle) and setting him adrift on a raft, handcuffed, after he spits in Bonnie's face when she kisses him. That same ranger leads a later raid on the gang that leaves Buck dying, Blanche captured, and both Clyde and Bonnie injured. The ever-loyal C.W. takes them to his father's house. C.W.'s father disaproves his son's affiliation with gangsters and enters a plea bargain with the Texas Rangers. A trap is set that ends in one of the bloodiest death scenes in cinematic history. The film made stars out of Beatty and Dunaway, and it also featured the screen debut of Gene Wilder as a mortician briefly captured by the gang. Its portrayal of Bonnie and Clyde as rebels who empathized with the poor working folks of the 1930s struck a chord with the counterculture of the 1960s and helped generate a new, young audience for American movies that carried over into Hollywood's renewal of the 1970s. Its combination of sex and violence with dynamic stars, social relevance, a traditional Hollywood genre, and an appeal to hip young audiences set the pace for many American movies to come.
Starring: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman, Gene Wilder, Denver Pyle | Directed by: Arthur Penn
CAGE OF EVIL (1960) (70 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Scott Harper (Ron Foster) is frustrated and angry as a police detective because he keeps getting passed over for a promotion to lieutenant. Meanwhile, he is assigned to gain the confidence of Holly Taylor (Patricia Blair), the girlfriend of a suspect in a robbery/homicide. Predictably, the two fall in love, conspire to kill Holly's boyfriend, and plan to run off with the proceeds.
Starring: Ron Foster, Patricia Blair, Harp McGuire, Preston Hanson | Directed by: Edward L. Cahn
CAPE FEAR (1962) (106 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
After an eight-year prison term for rape and assault, Max Cady (Robert Mitchum) is set free. Immediately making a beeline to Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck), the former prosecutor responsible for Cady's conviction, Cady laconically informs Sam that he intends to "pay back" the attorney for his years behind bars. Conducting a meticulous campaign of terror, Cady is careful to stay within the law. Sam, realizing that Cady intends to wreak vengeance by raping the attorney's wife (Polly Bergen) and daughter (Lori Martin), tries to put the ex-criminal behind bars, but has no grounds to do so. Chief Dutton (Martin Balsam) tries to help Sam with a few strong-arm tactics, but succeeds only in having the courts take Cady's side in the matter. Things come to a head when Sam moves his family to the "safety" of a remote houseboat on Cape Fear river. Cady shows up unannounced and is about to ravage Bowden's wife and daughter and when Sam turns the tables. — Hal Erickson
Starring: Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Polly Bergen, Lori Martin | Directed by: J. Lee Thompson
CASH ON DEMAND (1962) (84 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
A ruthless crook abducts the wife and child of a bank manager and then masquerades as an insurance company detective while scheming to rob the institution in this crime drama. Unfortunately, some of the manager's employees learn about the plot and the terrified manager must beg them to remain silent. Fortunately, the cops have been on the case all along.
Starring: Peter Cushing, Norman Bird, Vera Cook, Barry Lowe, Charles Morgan, Edith Sharpe | Directed by: Quentin Lawrence
CAT BURGLAR, THE (1961) (65 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
Cat Burglar is an unofficial reworking of 1953's Pickup on South Street. Burglar Jack Hogan steals a briefcase which, unbeknownst to him, contains a valuable secret scientific formula. The owner of the briefcase was on the verge of selling the formula to an unnamed (but somewhat slavic-sounding) foreign power. Thus it is that the burglar has the owner, the spies, and the police on his tail. Directed by former Republic western specialist William Witney, Cat Burglar was independently produced by Roger Corman's brother Gene.
Starring: John Baer, Billie Bird, Jack Hogan, Tommy Ivo, June Kenney, Gregg Palmer | Directed by: William Witney
CHARADE (1963) (113 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn star in this stylish comedy-thriller directed by Stanley Donen, very much in a Hitchcock vein. Grant plays Peter Joshua, who meets Reggie Lampert (Hepburn) in Paris and later offers to help her when she discovers that her husband has been murdered. After the funeral, Reggie is summoned to the embassy and warned by agent/friend Bartholemew (Walter Matthau) that her late husband helped steal 250,000 dollars during the war and that the rest of the gang is after the money as well. When three of the men who attended her husband's funeral begin to harass her, Reggie goes to Joshua for help, at which time Joshua confesses that his name is actually Alexander Dyle, the brother of a fourth accomplice in the gold theft. The three men from the funeral are revealed to be the three other accomplices in the crime, and though she knows next to nothing of the heist, Reggie is caught in a ring of suspense as she is followed by the shadowy trio, all after the money. Apparently, the only person she can trust is Joshua/Dyle -- until Bartholomew tells Reggie that the fourth accomplice had no brother, and Joshua/Dyle reveals that he is, in fact, a crook named Adam Canfield. Now Reggie doesn't know where to turn. The musical score by Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini was nominated for an Academy Award.
Starring: Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy | Directed by: Stanley Donen
CRIMINAL, THE (1960) (92 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Directed by American expatriate Joseph Losey, the British The Criminal is a gloom-wallow elevated by superb performances. Top crook Stanley Baker plans a clever bank robbery. It goes off hitchless, but the clerk responsible for "laundering" the stolen money insists upon a bigger percentage of the take, else he'll blow the whistle. Baker hides the money, whereupon he is turned over to the law by his ex-girlfriend, who is in cahoots with the clerk. Baker refuses to reveal the whereabouts of the loot, so his old gang arranges to have him broken out of jail — and also arranges for Baker's "accidental" demise. Appearing as the greedy clerk in Concrete Jungle is Sam Wanamaker, who like Joseph Losey fled to England as a result of the Hollywood blacklist. — Hal Erickson
Starring: Stanley Baker, Sam Wanamaker, Gregoire Aslan, Margit Saad | Directed by: Joseph Losey
DEAD RINGER (1964) (120 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Though he's most famous for his portrayal of Victor Laszlo in 1942's Casablanca, actor Paul Henreid took a few turns behind the camera as evidenced by this 1964 thriller starring Bette Davis as twins Margaret DeLorca and Edith Phillips. After landing the beau they both sought after by falsely claiming she was pregnant, Margaret lives a life of luxury as the wife of a wealthy man. Now, 20 years later, a broke and lonely Edith has returned for revenge. After killing the recently widowed Margaret, Edith assumes her identity with plans of living the life she feels she's deserved all along. But in order to pull it off, she'll have to play the role of Margaret connivingly enough to fool her servants as well as a local playboy and the police. Dead Ringer was remade in 1986 as Killer in the Mirror, a made-for-television movie starring Ann Jillian. — Matthew Tobey
Starring: Bette Davis, Karl Malden, Peter Lawford, Philip Carey, Jean Hagen | Directed by: Paul Henreid
DEADLY DUO (1962) (70 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
Hampered by a quickie conclusion, this routine melodrama by Reginald LeBorg features twin sisters, Sabena and Dara (Marcia Henderson) who are identical in physical appearance but about as alike as night and day. The evil twin learns that her good-hearted sister is about to come into some money and so she plots to get her hands on the lucre instead. What can be so difficult since the two of them look alike? She poses as her angelic counterpart but then runs into a series of problems that lead up to the abrupt ending.
Starring: Marcia Henderson, Dayton Lummis, Craig Hill, Carlos Romero | Directed by: Reginald Le Borg
DESIRE IN THE DUST (1960) (102 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
Raymond Burr was already three years into Perry Mason when he decided to return to his movie-villain roots with Desire in the Dust. Burr, playing the patriarch of a Southern family, befriends the ex-convict (Ken Scott) who'd supposedly killed Burr's son in an auto accident. Actually the accident was caused by Burr's daughter (Martha Hyer), who hopes that she can buy the accused man's silence and thus secure her daddy's political future. The ex-con goes along with the deception, having fallen in love with the daughter, but soon learns that Burr plans to double-cross him. Based on a novel by Harry Whittington.
Starring: Raymond Burr, Martha Hyer, Joan Bennett, Ken Scott | Directed by: William F. Claxton
DO YOU KNOW THIS VOICE? (1964) (80 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
Dan Duryea stars in this unsavory British melodrama as a seedy kidnapper who accidentally kills his child victim. The police pretend to be unaware of the murder in hopes of capturing Duryea when he comes to collect the ransom. He wriggles out of this trap, then finds he must contend with a nosy neighbor (Isa Miranda) who seems to know more about him than she's letting on. Duryea schemes to poison the woman, but the plan boomerangs and his own wife dies instead. Outside of Dan Duryea's bravura performance, Do You Know This Voice? has zero entertainment value.
Starring: Dan Duryea, Alan Edwards, Isa Miranda, Gwen Watford | Directed by: Frank Nesbitt
EXPERIMENT IN TERROR (1962) (123 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Bank teller Lee Remick is accosted in her garage one dark night by asthmatic psycho Ross Martin. He forces her to go through with an elaborate robbery scheme, threatening to kill Lee's teen-aged sister Stefanie Powers if the police are summoned. FBI agent Glenn Ford suspects that something is amiss and advises Lee to play along with Martin, hoping in this way to capture this dangerous criminal with a minimum of bloodshed. Unfortunately, Martin is as clever as he is deadly, always managing to stay one step ahead of Ford. The now-famous climax of Experiment in Terror finds the feds closing in on Martin during a crowded night baseball game at San Francisco's Candlestick Park. Experiment in Terror is based on the Gordons' novel Operation Terror.
Starring: Glenn Ford, Lee Remick, Stefanie Powers, Roy Poole | Directed by: Blake Edwards
FAIL-SAFE (1964) (111 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Based on the novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, Fail-Safe is set for the most part at Strategic Air Command headquarters, where a misguided transmission sends a squadron of bombers hurtling towards Russia, fully prepared to drop their atomic weaponry on Moscow. Air Force commander Frank Overton desperately tries to establish radio contact with the bombers, but once the pilots have passed the "fail safe" point, they've been instructed to disregard any reversal of orders. Racing against time, US President Henry Fonda, through his interpreter (Larry Hagman), informs the Russian premiere of the impending nuclear disaster. Working in concert with SAC, the Russians send up interceptors to shoot down the American bombers, while some of the planes run out of fuel and crash. Unfortunately, one aircraft, piloted by Edward Binns, manages to escape destruction and continues on its fatal mission. Realizing that Moscow is doomed, the President must decide how to avert World War III. Featured in the cast of Fail Safe are Walter Matthau as a hawkish scientist, Fritz Weaver as a round-the-bend colonel, and Dom DeLuise (billed as "DeLouise") as a weeping sergeant. Fail-Safe is followed by a government-dictated disclaimer insisting that the events leading up to the nuclear disaster depicted in the film could not possibly happen.
Starring: Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, Frank Overton, Dan O'Herlihy, Edward Binns, Fritz Weaver | Directed by: Sidney Lumet
FEAR NO MORE (1961) (80 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
A young woman on a business trip travels by train from L.A. to San Francisco and finds herself implicated in a murder in this crime drama. The trouble begins as she retires to her sleeping compartment and is knocked unconscious. The next day she wakes up beside the dead body of the woman she had been sharing it with. A police detective arrests her and escorts her off the train. She escapes and is picked up by a passing motorist. He takes her to her home where she discovers another corpse, a friend of hers who was an alcoholic writer. She was letting him stay at her apartment while she was gone. The distraught woman tells the motorist all she knows. She then admits that she is a former mental patient. The motorist becomes suspicious and takes the woman back to her boss, who denies that he sent her on the business trip. Trouble ensues until they learn that the boss was behind it all. The first corpse was his wife. He put the body beside the girl so that so she would be suspected of being a homicidal maniac. The boss kidnaps his hapless employee and takes her to the mountains where he plans to kill her and make it look like a suicide. Fortunately, the motorist trails them and saves the day.
Starring: Jacques Bergerac, Mala Powers, John Harding, Helena Nash, John Baer | Directed by: Bernard Wiesen
FIVE MINUTES TO LIVE (1961) (80 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
Johnny Cabot (Johnny Cash) is a bloodthirsty New Jersey gangster who is forced to hide out in a small California suburb after killing a cop during a job gone wrong. He's given a chance to get back in the game by Fred Dorella (Vic Tayback), a crook with a novel plan for a foolproof bank heist. Dorella has been studying the daily habits of the Harper Federal Trust vice president Ken Wilson (Donald Woods). He learns that Wilson and his wife Nancy (Cay Forester) are on a strict schedule every morning and Dorella plans to use their dull routine against them. After Wilson goes to work, Johnny tricks his way into the house with Nancy by pretending to be a door-to-door guitar salesman, and then holds her hostage. At the same time, Dorella visits Wilson at the bank and demands 70,000 dollars in cash. If he doesn't get the loot and contact Johnny by phone at a specified time, Nancy will be killed. What Dorella hasn't counted on is that the Wilson home is not a happy one, and Ken is planning on running away with his mistress that very evening. Meanwhile, the leering, sadistic Johnny taunts Nancy about being "the perfect wife." He does all he can to humiliate her, forcing her to put on makeup and a flimsy negligee, slapping her around and singing menacing songs. When the Wilsons' son Bobby (Ron Howard) comes home from school for lunch, a terrifying showdown with the police leads to tragedy. Guitar legend Merle Travis has a small role as a cowardly bowling alley owner in this crime drama, which was re-released in 1966 under the title Door-to-Door Maniac.
Starring: Johnny Cash, Donald Woods, Vic Tayback, Cay Forester, Pamela Mason | Directed by: Bill Karn
GIRL HUNTERS, THE (1963) (103 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Novelist Mickey Spillane portrays his own creation, Mike Hammer, in The Girl Hunters. Hammer has spent seven years in an alcoholic funk after the supposed death of his secretary, Velda. He is brought back to the land of the living by his old friendly enemy, police lieutenant Pat Chambers (Scott Peters), who wants Hammer to extract some information out of a dying federal agent. This puts Mike on the trail of a subversive communist organization, the key to which seems to be sexy Laura Knapp (Shirley Eaton), the widow of a murdered senator. When Hammer determines that following this espionage trail may lead to relocating Velda, who might not be dead after all, he pursues matters with his usual fascistic tendency to pummel first and ask questions later. The Girl Hunters is the film in which Mike Hammer incapacitates an opponent by literally nailing the latter's hands to the floor. But that's kid stuff compared to the fate in store for the treacherous Laura Knapp. The Girl Hunters was filmed in its entirety in England.
Starring: Mickey Spillane, Shirley Eaton, Lloyd Nolan, Hy Gardner | Directed by: Roy Rowland
HARD CONTRACT (1969) (106 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
John Cunningham (James Coburn) is a cold-blooded assassin sent by his superior Ramsey (Burgess Meredith) to murder three people in Europe. He takes off for Spain where he meets a foursome of jet-setting socialites. Sheila (Lee Remick) is a wealthy divorcee who falls for John. Alexi (Patrick Magee) is a former Nazi weasel who has eyes for Sheila. Adrianne (Lilli Palmer) is a social butterfly who plays Cupid for John and Sheila. Sterling Hayden and Claude Dauphin also star in this romantic story of how love can soften a man's stone-cold heart.
Starring: James Coburn, Lee Remick, Lilli Palmer, Burgess Meredith, Sterling Hayden | Directed by: S. Lee Pogostin
HARPER (1966) (121 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Screenwriter William Goldman has claimed that Paul Newman agreed to do Harper, the film that established the grateful writer's career, only because he was working unhappily on Lady L. (1965) in Europe, and was looking for something as unlike that film as possible. He stars as Lew Harper, a hip L.A. private dick whose business has gotten so bad that he's re-using his coffee grounds. At the suggestion of his friend, attorney Albert Graves (Arthur Hill), the detective takes on the investigation of the disappearance of the wealthy husband of waspish cripple Elaine Sampson (Lauren Bacall). After finding a photograph of former actress Fay Estabrook (Shelley Winters), Harper locates the alcoholic actress in a bar, plies her with booze, and takes her home to search her apartment while she's unconscious. There he takes a call which leads him to another bar to meet Betty Fraley (Julie Harris), a singer with a heroin problem. To curtail his inquisitive behavior, some large and unpleasant gentleman beat him up outside the saloon. Hoping for sympathy from his soon to be ex-wife (Janet Leigh), who has just filed divorce papers, the weary detective is much more successful than he has any right to expect.
Starring: Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris, Arthur Hill, Janet Leigh, Shelley Winters, Strother Martin, Robert Wagner | Directed by: Jack Smight
HOMICIDAL (1961) (87 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Homicidal represents producer/director William Castle's slant on Hitchcock's Psycho. The film concerns a young woman named Miriam Webster (Patricia Breslin) who seemingly has everything a girl could want - including a successful flower shop business, and a handsome beau, Karl (Glenn Corbett), who works as a pharmacist. Events take a turn for the worse, however, when Miriam's half-brother, Warren, returns from Europe - with a rather unpleasant friend in-tow: a blonde named Emily (Jean Arless). Emily promptly sets about destroying Miriam's life: the newcomer attempts to wheedle Karl away from Miriam, then rips the flower shop to pieces, then ultimately reveals a little taste for knife-wielding that directly threatens Miriam's safety. Like The Tingler and other Castle outings, this one originally featured a gimmick, preserved in the video release: a "fright-break" just prior to the climax, which allowed terrified audience members approximately 45 seconds to get out of their seats and leave the theater - to avoid the prospect of being "frightened to death." One look at Jean Arless's credit in the cast listing betrays the final twist in this one, directly (and unapologetically) lifted by Castle from Psycho.
Starring: Glenn Corbett, Patricia Breslin, Eugenie Leontovich, Alan Bunce, Richard Rust | Directed by: William Castle
I PROMISED TO PAY (1961) (94 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
A vicious gang of crooks plan to steal the wages of a local factory, but their carefully laid plans go wrong, when the factory employs an armoured van to carry the cash. The gang still go ahead with the robbery, but when the driver of the armoured van is killed in the raid, his wife plans revenge, and with the police closing in, the gang start to turn on each other.
Starring: Michael Craig, Françoise Prévost, Billie Whitelaw, William Lucas | Directed by: Sidney Hayers
IT TAKES A THIEF (1960) (89 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: C
Jayne Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe's blond competition in the late '50s and early '60s, stars in this crime melodrama as Billy, the leader of a gang of thieves. She charms Jim (Anthony Quayle), a widower with a young daughter, into joining the group effort on a particular robbery. After the heist, Jim personally stashes away their stolen loot while she leads the police off in another direction. But the unfortunate new recruit ends up in the clinker for five years while the others go free. Once out of jail, Jim is brought up short — Billy has allied herself with another man and her gang has money to spare — though not enough money, they decide. Against Billy's wishes, the gang takes drastic measures to get at Jim's hidden cache of loot from the robbery that sent him to jail. — Eleanor Mannikka
Starring: Jayne Mansfield, Anthony Quayle, Carl Möhner, Peter Reynolds | Directed by: John Gilling
JOHNNY COOL (1963) (101 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
In this offbeat crime drama, Mafia boss Johnny Colini (Marc Lawrence) has run afoul of the law and is being deported back to his native Sicily. Colini is not at all happy about this, and after he saves the life of a young thug, Johnny Giordano (Henry Silva), he knows the perfect way for Giordano to pay him back. Colini teaches Giordano the fine art of being a hit man, then sends him to America as Johnny Cool, with a long list of people who he believes informed on him to the police. Johnny Cool begins knocking off Colini's old enemies with a brutal violence that betrays the cool detachment of his personality; along the way, he meets Dare Guinness (Elizabeth Montgomery), a beautiful but promiscuous woman with whom Johnny falls in love. Several gangsters wanting to stop Johnny Cool's reign of terror rough up Dare as a warning to the hit man, but this only serves to make him all the more bloodthirsty. Produced in part by Peter Lawford, Johnny Cool features an interesting variety of notables as Johnny's associates and victims, including Telly Savalas, Mort Sahl, Joey Bishop, Jim Backus, and Sammy Davis, Jr., who also sings the theme song.
Starring: Henry Silva, Elizabeth Montgomery, Marc Lawrence, Richard Anderson, Telly Savalas, Jim Backus, Joey Bishop, Brad Dexter, Sammy Davis Jr., Wanda Hendrix, Elisha Cook, Jr., Joseph Calleia | Directed by: William Asher
MACHINE GUN MCCAIN (1969) (94 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Hank McCain (John Cassavetes) is the imprisoned gangster who gets out of jail with the help of the mob. The syndicate wants him to take part in a heist of a Las Vegas casino. The plan is discussed and soon abandoned by the mob, but Hank decides to go ahead with the robbery. Disguised as a fireman, he pulls off the daring crime with the help of his current flame Irene (Britt Ekland). The angry mobsters want him dead and they soon close in on his old girlfriend Rosemary (Gena Rowlands) for information that could lead to Hank. She would rather commit suicide than give them information about her ex-boyfriend as she obviously still carries a torch for her old flame. Even without her help, the dragnet closes in on Hank as the mobsters systematically figure out his whereabouts. This feature was the Italian entry at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival, a choice that caused controversy and questions. — Dan Pavlides
Starring: John Cassavetes, Britt Ekland, Peter Falk, Gabriele Ferzetti | Directed by: Giuliano Montaldo
MAD DOG COLL (1961) (86 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
This gangland crime story about the life and death of mobster Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll (John Chandler) is most notable for the array of relatively unknown actors in bit parts who later became famous. Otherwise, there is a lot of bloodshed, surface characterization, and a great deal of fiction in the violent tale. Coll is first shown suffering extreme abuse from his father, and then he segues into the development of a neighborhood gang at the age of seventeen. From there, he gets on the wrong side of gangster Dutch Schultz which ultimately is a big mistake. Director Burt Balaban depicts Coll as increasingly insane, before his last killing leads to his violent death. Among those "new" faces are Telly Savalas as Lt. Dawson, Jerry Orbach as Joe, Coll's Judas, Gene Hackman in his first screen role as a cop, and Vincent Gardenia as Dutch Schultz.
Starring: John Chandler, Vincent Gardenia, Telly Savalas, Gene Hackman | Directed by: Burt Balaban
MADIGAN (1968) (101 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
It's a seemingly peaceful spring morning in New York City — graduation day at the Police Academy — and Police Commissioner Anthony X. Russell (Henry Fonda) is looking forward to giving a speech to the new officers. But all isn't well: Russell's been given apparently incontrovertible evidence that his oldest friend, Chief Inspector Charles Kane (James Whitmore), is shaking down a bar owner, and a black minister (Raymond St. Jacques) is claiming that his son was brutalized when he was picked up for questioning in a rape/assault case. Then Russell gets a call informing him that two first-grade detectives, Daniel Madigan (Richard Widmark) and Rocco Bonaro (Harry Guardino), allowed small-time hood Barney Benesch (Steve Ihnat) to get the drop on them, steal their guns, and escape while they were trying to pick him up for questioning at the request of Brooklyn detectives — and Benesch is now a suspect in that earlier murder in Brooklyn. Madigan has other problems, including the fact that the commissioner — his ex-captain — doesn't trust him, always believing him to be a loose cannon who has taken advantage of the badge in accepting favors and cutting corners where peoples' rights were concerned. Madigan also has a beautiful, upwardly mobile wife (Inger Stevens) who loves him but can't abide all the time his job takes him away from her or crimps her socializing; and he has never fully gotten over Jonesy (Sheree North), a saloon singer he knew before he was married. Madigan and Bonaro are given 72 hours to bring in Benesch and begin beating the bushes for leads.
Starring: Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Inger Stevens, Harry Guardino | Directed by: Don Siegel
MAN IN THE BACK SEAT, THE (1961) (57 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
Two young thugs rob a bookie leaving a dog-racing track with his winnings, but when they grab his case full of money they discover that he has chained it to his wrist. They dash around town trying to find a way to separate the case from the wrist of the bookie, who the pair has by now beaten so badly he appears to be dead. They finally come up with what they think is a foolproof plan, but soon something happens that they weren't quite expecting.
Starring: Keith Faulkner, Harry Locke, Derren Nesbitt, Carol White | Directed by: Vernon Campbell Sewell
MIDNIGHT LACE (1960) (108 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Kit (Doris Day), an American married to wealthy London businessman Tony Preston (Rex Harrison) becomes the terrified victim of a mysterious stalker, who she hears but can never see. She is threatened by the eerie, high-pitched voice as she walks in the thick London fog. She then begins receiving repeated threatening telephone calls. The now totally panicked Kit is nearly killed when someone pushes her in front of a bus. Unfortunately for Kit, no one but she hears the voice or the telephone calls and neither Tony, Kit's visiting aunt Bea (Myra Loy), or Scotland Yard take any of these incidents seriously. The only one who seems to believe Kit is Brian Younger (John Gavin), a construction foreman, but Kit is not convinced that she can trust him. The tension builds to a thrilling climax as Kit flees for her life on a scaffolding outside her apartment building. Midnight Lace is an exciting thriller, with many surprising plot twists and a nice sinister performance by Rex Harrison. Roddy McDowall is also fun as the son of Kit's housekeeper, who keeps hitting up his mom for money. — Linda Rasmussen
Starring: Doris Day, Rex Harrisson, John Gavin, Myrna Loy | Directed by: David Miller
MY BLOOD RUNS COLD (1965) (104 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
My Blood Runs Cold was a typically lurid horror chiller produced and directed by William Conrad during his 1960s tenure on the Warner Bros. staff. Heiress Joey Heatherton falls prey to the charms of a handsome young man (Troy Donahue) who claims to be the reincarnation of a legendary lothario. Troy further insists that Joey had been his lover in a previous life. Pretty soon Joey nearly has the opportunity to check out the veracity of Troy's story in the Hereafter, for Mr. Donahue is actually a psychopath who hopes to claim Ms. Heatherton's fortune and then bump her off. My Blood Runs Cold is silly enough to have been dreamt up by Bill Conrad while he was narrating Rocky and His Friends.
Starring: Troy Donahue, Joey Heatherton, Barry Sullivan, Nicolas Coster, Jeanette Nolan | Directed by: William Conrad
NAKED EDGE, THE (1961) (99 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
There is nothing like suspecting your husband of murder to add suspense to a marriage, at least that is the case in this standard whodunit with a compelling plot. George Radcliffe (Gary Cooper) testifies in court against a man suspected of murdering George's business partner, absconding with a lot of cash in the process. Several years later, when his wife, Martha (Deborah Kerr), is confronted by a blackmailer (Eric Portman) who says her husband murdered his partner, she gets suspicious. George did come into a lot of money just at that time. And to make matters worse, life starts to turn very menacing for the confused and frightened Martha. This was Gary Cooper's last feature film. He succumbed to cancer a few months before The Naked Edge was released.
Starring: Gary Cooper, Deborah Kerr, Eric Portman, Diane Cilento, Peter Cushing | Directed by: Michael Anderson
NIGHTMARE IN CHICAGO (1968) (80 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: C
Based on the novel Death on the Turnpike by William P. McGivern, Robert Altman's Nightmare in Chicago was expanded for theatrical release after it originally aired on NBC in 1964 on an episode of Kraft Suspense Theater. Filmed on-location in Chicago, this suspense thriller follows the story of a serial killer known as "Georgie Porgie." The Chicago turnpike is threatened over a three-day period as the police try to catch him by blocking the whole area. Starring Charles McGraw, Ted Knight, and Robert Ridgely. Original musical score by John Williams.
Starring: Charles McGraw, Robert Ridgely, Ted Knight, Philip Abbott | Directed by: Robert Altman
POINT BLANK (1967) (92 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Based on Donald E. Westlake's novel The Hunter, John Boorman's gangster film hauntingly merges a generic revenge story with a European art cinema sensibility. In Alcatraz to divvy up the spoils from a robbery, thief Walker (Lee Marvin) is instead shot point blank by his double-crossing friend Mal Reese (John Vernon) and left to die while Reese takes off with Walker's wife Lynne (Sharon Acker) and his $93,000. Resurrected, the stone-faced Walker returns to Los Angeles a couple of years later to seek revenge on Mal with the help of the enigmatic Yost (Keenan Wynn) and Lynne's sister Chris (Angie Dickinson). Wanting little but his cash, Walker implacably penetrates Mal's lair and the hierarchy of the shady "Organization," registering no emotion about the string of murders left in his wake, as his thoughts repeatedly return to the past that brought him there. In his first American feature, Boorman transforms a stripped-down revenge plot into a surreal meditation on the gangster's spiritual demise, using flashbacks and startling shifts in setting to interweave Walker's fractured memories with his extraordinarily photographed odyssey through L.A. Marvin's chillingly stoic presence further hints at the ambiguities in Chris's observation that Walker "died at Alcatraz, all right." Brutal in the violence that it shows and suggests, Point Blank opened in the U.S. in the same period as Bonnie and Clyde, becoming one more testament to the genre-bending and ground-breaking possibilities of the nascent Hollywood New Wave. Although Point Blank was mostly overlooked in 1967, Boorman's visual adventurousness, and Marvin's amoral and apathetic antihero, have since made Point Blank seem one of the key films of the mid-late '60s, a precursor to revisionist experimentations from Martin Scorsese to Quentin Tarantino. It was remade as the 1999 Mel Gibson vehicle Payback.
Starring: Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn, Carroll O'Connor, John Vernon, Michael Strong | Directed by: John Boorman
PORTRAIT IN BLACK (1960) (112 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Wanting to be free of her crippled husband but not his enormous fortune, a glamorous wife talks her lover, who is also her spouse's personal physician, into injecting poison into the ailing industrialist. This crime melodrama chronicles the chain of events that leads to the murderous lovers' downfall. Though they successfully offed the husband, the two are not allowed to enjoy their new wealth and happiness for a letter sent to the wife reveals that someone knows about the crime. Believing that the anonymous author is her late-husbands investment advisor, the wife and her lover quickly dispatch him. When his body later turns up, another is blamed with the crime. Unfortunately, the villainous twosome, the accused is to marry the granddaughter of the deceased tycoon. Matters don't improve when the doctor/lover's conscience flares up and he decides to confess.
Starring: Lana Turner, Anthony Quinn, Sandra Dee, John Saxon, Richard Basehart, Lloyd Nolan, Anna May Wong | Directed by: Michael Gordon
PRETTY POISON (1968) (89 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
Easygoing but psychotic Dennis (Anthony Perkins) is released from jail, where he has served a sentence for his complicity in a suspicious death. Wandering through a small, working-class New England town, Dennis befriends apparently normal high school A-student Sue Ann (Tuesday Weld). He fills her head with lies about his imaginary career as a secret agent. She is thrilled, and makes up her mind to join him in his further adventures. This jet-black "who's manipulating who?" seriocomedy was adapted by Lorenzo Semple Jr. from Stephen Geller's novel She Let Him Continue.
Starring: Anthony Perkins, Tuesday Weld, Beverly Garland, John Randolph, Dick O'Neill | Directed by: Noel Black
PRIZE, THE (1963) (136 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Based on the novel by Irving Wallace, The Prize takes place in Stockholm, where several laureates gather to accept their Nobel Prizes. At first, the film concentrates on iconoclastic novelist Paul Newman, but he is temporarily shunted to the background when physics expert Edward G. Robinson is kidnaped and replaced by his wicked twin brother. The real Robinson is to be spirited behind the Iron Curtain, while the "fake" Robinson is to disrupt the awards ceremony with an anti-American tirade. Newman gets wind of the plot, and with the help of Swedish foreign office functionary Elke Sommer, he endeavors to rescue the real Robinson and expose the phony-who has yet another trick up his sleeve before the film is over. We'll go along with the fantastic plot convolutions of The Prize, provided we don't have to swallow the premise of another man's voice emanating from that familiar Eddie Robinson mug.
Starring: Paul Newman, Edward G. Robinson, Elke Sommer, Diane Baker, Kevin McCarthy, Leo G. Carroll, Anna Lee | Directed by: Mark Robson
PSYCHO (1960) (108 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock was already famous as the screen's master of suspense (and perhaps the best-known film director in the world) when he released Psycho and forever changed the shape and tone of the screen thriller. From its first scene, in which an unmarried couple balances pleasure and guilt in a lunchtime liaison in a cheap hotel (hardly a common moment in a major studio film in 1960), Psycho announced that it was taking the audience to places it had never been before, and on that score what followed would hardly disappoint. Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is unhappy in her job at a Phoenix, Arizona real estate office and frustrated in her romance with hardware store manager Sam Loomis (John Gavin). One afternoon, Marion is given $40,000 in cash to be deposited in the bank. Minutes later, impulse has taken over and Marion takes off with the cash, hoping to leave Phoenix for good and start a new life with her purloined nest egg. 36 hours later, paranoia and exhaustion have started to set in, and Marion decides to stop for the night at the Bates Motel, where nervous but personable innkeeper Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) cheerfully mentions that she's the first guest in weeks, before he regales her with curious stories about his mother. There's hardly a film fan alive who doesn't know what happens next, but while the shower scene is justifiably the film's most famous sequence, there are dozens of memorable bits throughout this film. The first of a handful of sequels followed in 1983, while Gus Van Sant's controversial remake, starring Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche, appeared in 1998. — Mark Deming
Starring: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin | Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
RUNNING MAN, THE (1963) (103 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Based upon a novel by Shelley Smith, The Running Man opens at the memorial service for Rex Black (Laurence Harvey), the owner of a small air transport company who is believed to have drowned in a recent glider accident. It soon turns out, however, that Black is very much alive; he faked his death as a means of getting back at the insurance company who denied an earlier claim because he was one day late in making his payment. He has enlisted the cooperation of his wife Stella (Lee Remick) in this scheme. While she waits for the insurance company to approve the claim, he disguises himself, assumes a new identity (that of Charles Erskine, a shoe salesman) and goes to wait for Stella in Spain. Once there, he meets drunken Australian millionaire Jim Jerome in a bar; when Jerome inadvertently leaves his passport at the bar, Rex confiscates it and hatches a new plan to collect on Jerome's insurance as well. In the meantime, Stella has met with insurance representative Stephen Maddox (Alan Bates), who eventually approves her claim. She journeys to Spain, but finds Rex a changed man, and isn't comfortable with either his new personality or his latest scheme. To make matters worse, Maddox shows up. Is it a coincidence or is he suspicious? The rest of the film hinges on the answer to this question, as well as what Maddox's plans are in either case.
Starring: Laurence Harvey, Lee Remick, Alan Bates, Felix Aylmer, Fernando Rey | Directed by: Carol Reed
SECRET PARTNER, THE (1961) (91 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
In this routine mystery story by director Basil Dearden, someone who favors mysteries and comedies, Stewart Granger is John Brent, a VIP in a shipping company with a prison record behind him. When a quarter of million dollars goes missing from the company's vault, he is the primary suspect of Detective Superintendent Hanbury (Bernard Lee). Complications arise when Hanbury starts looking carefully at John's estranged wife Nicole (Haya Harareet) and the men she has on a string. The suspect list has suddenly expanded.
Starring: Stewart Granger, Haya Harareet, Bernard Lee, Hugh Burden, Lee Montague | Directed by: Basil Dearden
SHAKEDOWN, THE (1960) (92 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
This is a routine tale about the vice squad versus pornographer and blackmailer Augie Cortona (Terence Morgan). After the petty criminal gets out of prison, he discovers his old partners in crime are not interested in him anymore, and the prostitution ring he once bossed is controlled by someone else. His solution is to set up a fake photographer's and model's studio during the day that becomes a place where porno photo men can do their work at night, as call girls engage in their trade with unsuspecting customers. The photographs bring in extra lucre through a blackmail scheme -- Cortona makes the hookers' clients pay to keep their activities quiet. As he is building up this racket, a gangland boss is out to get him -- and so is the vice squad.
Starring: Terence Morgan, Hazel Court, Donald Pleasence, Bill Owen | Directed by: John Lemont
SIGNPOST TO MURDER (1964) (77 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
In this suspenseful thriller, a man is sentenced to ten years in a mental institution for the criminally insane after murdering his wife. In the hospital, the man's doctor slyly tells him about an esoteric law that will allow the patient a new trial if he can escape and stay out of the hospital for two full weeks. Naturally, the patient promptly escapes and ends up staying in the home of a woman whose husband is out of town. She is unhappily married and begins feeling drawn to the fugitive killer. Later the man begins to get suspicious when he discovers a corpse near the house. He trips and tumbles down a flight of stairs. When he regains consciousness, the body has vanished. The police eventually find it, and the woman blames the death on the fugitive. Fortunately, the pressure is too much and the woman finally admits that she and the doctor have been having a passionate affair and that they engineered the whole set up to frame the patient for the death of her husband.
Starring: Joanne Woodward, Stuart Whitman, Edward Mulhare, Alan Napier, Joyce Worsley | Directed by: George Englund
STRAIT JACKET (1964) (93 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
In this chilling blood-tale in "Psycho" style, Robert Bloch modernizes the Lizzy Borden story. A wife (Joan Crawford) literally axes her cheating husband and his lover, witnessed by her three-year-old daughter. Mom is packed off to the insane asylum for 20 years before reuniting with the daughter (Diane Baker). From this point, the axe murders continue along a contrived plot intended to lead the audience astray until the mystery is solved. Crawford's strong performance and the excellently constructed suspense are the best elements of the film — and the chopping saves the show when the plot tends to slow. — Lucinda Ramsey
Starring: Joan Crawford, Diane Baker, Leif Erickson, Howard St. John | Directed by: William Castle
THIRD ALIBI, THE (1961) (68 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
A composer stuck in a middle-class marriage finds that his affair with his wife's half-sister has resulted in her pregnancy. When his wife refuses to give him a divorce he hatches a murder scheme that is too clever by half.
Starring: Laurence Payne, Patricia Dainton, Jane Griffiths, Edward Underdown, John Arnatt | Directed by: Montgomery Tully
THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, THE (1968) (102 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) is a self-made Boston millionaire who masterminds a bank heist in hopes of leaving it all behind. Tired of being part of the Establishment, he has hopes of pulling off the caper and flying to Rio. Erwin Weaver (Jack Weston) leads the cast of crooks who never actually meet Crown but manage to pull off the robbery without a hitch. Crown deposits 3 million in a Swiss bank account, pays off the crooks, and waits for the insurance company to repay the bank for the loss. Eddy Malone (Paul Burke) is the savvy detective who helps insurance investigator Vicky Anderson (Faye Dunaway) find the mastermind behind the heist. Thomas Crown Affair became one of the first films to employ many split-screen images throughout its running time, as devised by editor Hal Ashby. Michel Legrand's score was nominated for an Academy Award, and the song The Windmills Of Your Mind, written by Legrand with Alan and Marilyn Bergman took home the coveted Oscar.
Starring: Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, Paul Burke, Jack Weston, Yaphet Kotto | Directed by: Norman Jewison
THREE CAME TO KILL (1960) (71 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
Marty Brill's (Cameron Mitchell) Los Angeles gang plot to assassinate visiting Asian Prime Minister Gourem-Nara (Frank Lackteen). They break into the home of airport flight controller Hal Parker (John Lupton) and hold his family hostage. Brill threatens to kill Parker's wife June (Lyn Thomas), unless he broadcasts a coded message to identify which plane taking off from the airport is the premier's. They then plot to shoot the plane down. Meanwhile, special agents Ben Scanlon (Paul Langton) and Ray Maguire (Logan Field) close in on the gang.
Starring: Cameron Mitchell, John Lupton, Steve Brodie, Lyn Thomas, Paul Langton | Directed by: Edward L. Cahn
TOO HOT TO HANDLE (1960) (90 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: B
With dialogue ranging from flat to offensive and acting in the same range, this low-brow erotic crime drama by director Terence Young stars Jayne Mansfield as Midnight Franklin, a star stripper in a Soho club that is in serious rivalry with another strip joint. A reporter gets involved in the strip scene while writing a story on the clubs, and in the end he has quite a lot to write about. The competition between the two clubs heats up, and after one of the owners is the unknowing instrument in the death of a young (illegally young) stripper, both rival clubs head for a crash.
Starring: Jayne Mansfield, Leo Genn, Christopher Lee, Danik Patisson | Directed by: Terence Young
WAIT UNTIL DARK (1967) (108 Min.) Genre: 1960 SUSPENSE, Transfer Quality: A
Wait Until Dark is an innovative, highly entertaining and suspenseful thriller about a blind housewife, Susy Hendrix (Audrey Hepburn). Independent and resourceful, Susy is learning to cope with her blindness, which resulted from a recent accident. She is aided by her difficult, slightly unreliable young neighbor Gloria (Julie Herrod) with whom she has an exasperated but lovingly maternal relationship. Susy's life is changed as she is terrorized by a group of criminals who believe she has hidden a baby doll used by them to smuggle heroin into the country. Unknown to Susy, her photographer husband Sam (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) took the doll as a favor for a woman he met on an international plane flight and unwittingly brought the doll to the couple's New York apartment when the woman became afraid of the customs officials. Alone in her apartment and cut-off from the outside world, Susy must fight for her life against a gang of ruthless criminals, led by the violent, psychotic Roat (Alan Arkin). The tension builds as Roat, aided by his gang, impersonates police officers and friends of her husband in order to win Susy's confidence, gaining access to her apartment to look for the doll. The climax of the film, a violent physical confrontation between Susie and Roat in her dark kitchen, is one of the most memorable and frightening scenes in screen history. All performances are outstanding, particularly those of Audrey Hepburn who plays a vulnerable, but self-reliant woman, and Alan Arkin, in perhaps his best role, as the ruthless, manipulative Roat.
Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Jack Weston, Julie Herrod | Directed by: Terence Young
