The Movie Journal

The Manchurian Candidate (1962) “Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.” This quote, the most memorable quote in 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate , is a quote used to describe the brainwashed Raymond Shaw. This satire/drama is a politically charged movie that you will never forget. Nearly sixty years after the film’s release and more than twenty years since the end of the Cold War, this film remains as shocking and prevalent as ever. Perhaps that is a reason why the film was remade in 2004. That said, the film takes no side. Conservative, liberal, independent-the film goes after these parties. I certainly liked the depiction of McCarthyism here. The film does the job showing how the political spectrum works and how the mass and individuals could be brainwashed by this system. The film is based off a Richard Condon novel which has a heavy bite to his words. Condon admitted that he was surprised when wr...

The Longest Day (1962) 1962’s The Longest Day is one ambitious, comprehensive war movie. The care that was put into the film making it as realistic as possible is very commendable. With that realism in place, I think the movie suffered just a tad bit. The movie is three hours long, and there are long stretches of build-up leading up to the famous Allied D-Day landing in Normandy. That said, the rest of the movie works well and I really liked the ambition put forth into the film. The film had the largest budget for any black-and-white film, a whopping ten million dollars (a lot for its time). It would hold that title until 1993 when Schindler’s List came along. The film made use of many famous actors from all around the globe-48 actors to be exact! One of the things the movie does differently when compared to other films is that it is divided into different sections. Each section represented a different country and was directed by a person from that country. The main sect...

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Over the course of six decades, Lawrence of Arabia have been given names such as “the epic of all epics.” People always mention this film when talking about influential movies or favorite movies. In fact, this film gave way to famous directors such as Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, and Martin Scorsese. These forementioned directors based their films off the style of this film. No one knew it in 1962, but this film would be one of the most influential films of all time. Believe it or not, I actually didn’t think too much of the film the first time I saw it. I thought it was overlong and boring. I must have been in a bad mood that day, because I simply loved the film upon my second viewing. The scope of the film is incredible and I love the lush, gorgeous cinematography. The film is sweepingly beautiful and I still love seeing the shots of the desert sun. Everything in the film has a gentle beauty to it, even the violent battles featured in the film...

To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) To Kill A Mockingbird has always been looked upon as an instant classic because of its very important themes dealing with race during the 1930’s Alabama, a time where racism was rampant all across the United States especially in the southern states. The film itself, based on the popular and timely novel by Harper Lee, was released in 1962 which was during the civil rights movement. Some critics called this film an innocent film because of the time it was released. It was released back when people were more relaxed, but in the fifty years since then, society has gotten more uptight due to everything that has been going on. Despite a loss of innocence, this is a fantastic movie that has very important themes, even by today’s standards. This is not only one of my favorite movies from the 1960’s, but it’s also one of my all-time favorite movies. This movie can be divided into two mini-movies. One movie is a coming-of-age story told through the eyes ...