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The History of American Cinema: 1964

January - August

27/1 -

Director Norman Z. McLeod dies in Hollywood of a stroke at the age of 66.   He is chiefly remembered for the comedies he made with the Marx Brothers, W. C. Fields and Danny Kaye. [ADD]

29/1 -

Alan Ladd is found dead in his Palm Springs home after overdosing on a cocktail of alcohol and sedatives. [ADD] 

29/1 -

Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is released.   Peter Sellers plays multiple roles: the American president, an ex-Nazi scientist, and an RAF officer.   Sterling Hayden plays the deranged USAF general who launches an unauthorised nuclear strike against the Russians. [ADD]

19/2 -

Paramount sells the TV rights to 200 of its pre-1948 features to NBC for $60 million. [ADD]

12/3 -

Film critic Jonas Mekas is arrested for screening Jack Smith’s controversial underground film, Flaming Creatures. [ADD]

18/3 -

MGM producer Martin Ransohoff calls upon the MPAA to permit nudity in films after his latest film, The Americanization of Emily, is forced to drop its nude scenes in order to gain a seal of approval. [ADD]

20/3 -

Blake Edward’s The Pink Panther is released in the US.   The film introduces Peter Sellers’ clumsy, accident-prone Inspector Clouseau.   A hasty sequel, A Shot in the Dark, is released just three months later. [ADD]

13/4 -

Tony Richardson’s Tom Jones wins four Oscars at the 36th Annual Academy Awards Ceremony, while Sidney Poitier becomes the first black artist to win the Best Actor award for his role in Lilies of the Field. [MORE]

27/4 -

Veteran director William Wyler derides the latest wave of European New Wave films, claiming there is a difference between ‘the artistic and the arty, between the subtle and the incomprehensible.’ [ADD]

5/7 -

Charles Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux, which was a box-office failure upon its initial release in 1947, is a success upon its re-release as part of a Chaplin festival at the Plaza Theater on East 58^th Street in New York.   The film grosses £13,500 over three days. [ADD]

21/7 -

Irish playwright Samuel Beckett begins filming a project with Buster Keaton based on three short pieces written by himself, Harold Pinter and Eugene Ionesco. [ADD]

22/7 -

Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie is released.   Sean Connery makes his US film debut as a man attempting to solve the mysteries of the title character, a man-hating kleptomaniac played by Tippi Hedren (in a part originally intended for Grace Kelly). [ADD]

5/8 -

Actress Anne Bancroft marries comedy writer Mel Brooks in New York. [ADD]

27/8 -

Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins, directed by Robert Stevenson, is released.   British actress Julie Andrews makes her film debut as the P. L. Travers’ perfect nanny.   Glynis Johns and David Tomlinson also star, while Dick Van Dyke provides a tragic cockney accent as Bert the handyman.  [ADD]

The History of Cinema: 1964