A couple of my faves have already been nominated but I haven’t seen anyone else mention A Fistful of Dollars.
The Train (director: John Frankenheimer, starring Burt Lancaster), a little-known action film set in WWII, is my personal favorite.
I first saw it on TV when I was a little kid 40 years ago, and it kind of became an obsession with me. I have probably watched it 20 times, thanks to lamost yearly showings as a Saturday late night movie on TV in the 70s, and then my purchase of the DVD about ten years ago.
At the time they made this film, the French National Railway was in the process of moving away from steam locomotives, so Frankenheimer got to play with several like a kid playing smashup with his train set on the living room floor.
Furthermore, the FNR also had a railyard outside of Paris thet they were going to demolish, and Frankenheimer basically told them, yeah, let me blow that up for ya. End result: A very convincing depiction of a bombing raid on a railyard.
The title “train” of the film is a train loaded with French art that a German colonel is trying to take (steal) to Germany as they pull out of Paris in 1944, and the efforts of the French resistance to stop them. Considering that it is an action film, the movie does raise questions about the value (in human life) of art and national culture and of the costs of war.
It has a very haunting ending.
Lancaster is great, and does not only his own stunts but also those of some others in the film. Paul Scofield does a fantastic job of depicting the German colonel’s slide into madness and rage, and Wolfgang Preiss is memorable as his realistic, level-headed subordinate.
For people raised on more recent action films, this B&W film might feel like slow going at times, but if you are a train buff and/or enjoy older WWII films, I would recommend it.
But, this is coming from someone who used the Internet and Google Earth to locate the stretch of track in France where they shot the final scenes, so don’t let my little obsession lead you astray…
I gotta pick *The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? * just for the awesome title. I mean how many movies have **! ***and * **? **in their title?
I love all of these! Apparently I could watch just the movies from 1964 and be happy.
I’ll vote for Horror!. I’ve never heard it called that, but I recognized immediately that it was Children of the Damned. It is the sequel to the better Village of the Damned which some may recognize from the book The Midwich Cuckoos. [sub]Is this some six degrees of separation thing?[/sub]
As much as I adore Dr. Strangelove, Goldfinger, The Night of the Iguana, Fail-Safe, From Russia With Love, The Pink Panther and Zorba the Greek, I too have to go with The Train.
Burt Lancaster has never been better and his role couldn’t have been better scripted. Yes, wellanuff, I was just pointing out to my wife the other day some of his stunts, like descending the ladder in the yard just before the bombs came raining down. Paul Scofield is equal to his performance in A Man for All Seasons, convinced that he more than the people of France is able to best appreciate the genius of the art he comandeers. Poppa Bull, Major Herren (Wolfgang Preiss), marvelous performances all. It’s an intelligent, exciting, sometimes riveting story with seemingly a perfect cast. To me it’s the epitome of '64 movie greatness.
Well, if nobody else is, I’ll bring Night of the Iguana.
It’s a pretty good film adaptation of an outstanding Tennessee Williams play, definitely worth watching on its own merits.
But it’s also a sentimental favorite of mine because Mrs. Wheelz and I have vacationed several times in Mismaloya, Mexico, where the film was shot. It’s a beautiful area about 20 miles south of Puerto Vallarta and much less commercialized. The building which served as Ava Gardner’s hotel is now a very nice restaurant. We had dinner at a table in the very corner where Richard Burton spent much of the film lying in a hammock.
I probably saw 300 movies that year, I was a projectionist who went from theatre to theatre giving other projectionists their day off, so I saw just about everything (if I bothered to watch).
My favorite film of that year and many more was Umbrellas of Cherborg. I fell in love with Catherine Denueve. My recollection is that is really was an opera and that most or all of the dialog is sung in French with sub-titles. I also liked Father Goose, a cool little movie that came and went pretty fast. I had forgotten what a blockbuster year that was!
I googled it and found it on YouTube. I don’t know if that’s kosher, but if it wasn’t for YT, I probably wouldn’t get the chance to see any of these obscure movies. I’m thinking I’d like to see Night of the Iguana next. And The Train.
ETA: The Train is available on Instantly Watch on Netflix, btw.
I was going to mention The Umbrellas of Cherbourg myself. The wife and I recently rewatched it. She cried as usual. The recurring theme song will be familiar to most people even if they didn’t know where it came from. Yes, all of the dialogue is sung; there are no regularly spoken words.
santa claus conquers the martians
my favorite christmas movie ever.
I’d bring 7 Faces of Dr. Lao. Tony Randall was incredible in that movie.
1964 seemed to be a good year for a lot of things. Including me. 
I wouldn’t necessarily give it “riveting.” Both my husband and I, who love WWII movies, fell asleep during it, woke up, fell asleep again, and I woke up at the end. I’ll give it another try, but I think Brown Eyed Guy probably won’t. 
Hammer Films had a pretty lean time in 1964. The Gorgon was probably the best of the bunch.
Over in Japan, it was a toss up between Kwaidan and Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster
Awful, awful movie. I felt I had to watch it to report on it, So I bought a copy. It seems that they really wanted to make a movie about a gorgon, but really had no idea what the plot ought to be. They set it in some Ruritanian Germanic country, gave the gorgons the names of the Furies, and invented a background for them. The titular gorgo was realized by a woman wearing a headdress of rubber snakes – not the most convincing effect.
But still not the worst they made that year. Not by a long way.
*Topkapi *is my choice, even though I saw it later than '65–it never played at our neighborhood theatre bargain matinees.
I think Peter Ustinov was sexy. Anyone else?
Tennessee Williams did not agree, apparently.
They sent him a copy of the script for his review, as required by his contract, and he returned it with a note that read “If my name appears anywhere on this picture, I will sue.”
Or at least, so my father often said. 
I’m going to second A Shot In The Dark: made first but released second, it is the film that gave us Inspector Clouseau. And Chief Inspector Dreyfuss. With a theme by Henri Mancini that is perfect, and inexplicably less famous than the one from the Pink Panther.
:dubious: I don’t think so. According to IMDB:
.
…not really. I looked up his picture from Topkapi, he looks like an older Richard Dreyfus.
I’ll make Santa my choice. I’ve watched it maybe ten times -without MST3K. Bonus points for knowing that it’s **Pia Zadora’s **first movie.