One of the visual thrills I get from watching Japanese films is noting the intricate design of Japanese buildings found in period settings, from the details of the roofs, walls, verandas and gardens to the interior spaces designed for living quarters and reception areas in homes of nobles and officials. Even the simple dwellings of farmers, artisans and craftsmen are designed with efficiency, practicality and comfort.
As film buffs everywhere, led by TCM, celebrate the 100th anniversary of the merger that formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on April 17, 1924, and recite the litany of great films from the Golden Age of that studio from the 1920s to the early ’50s and the roster declaring “more stars than there are in heaven,” I thought it might be useful to recall some of the films that came later in the studio’s history, particularly in the troubled days of the 1960s and ’70s when turbulence in the executive suites led to the studio’s decline and the destruction of its fabled backlot. I experienced this period in real time, particularly from 1969 on, and remember reading trade paper accounts of the controversial actions of new studio owner Kirk Kerkorian and production head James T. Aubrey, who was there a short time (1969-1973), but managed to burn a lot of bridges during his tenure. Yet I continued to see MGM releases during this period, including a few of my favorite films from the studio, most of which marked quite a contrast with the Golden Age MGM classics which remain beloved by millions today (including me). I’ll start with the earliest MGM films I saw as a young moviegoer. This won’t be a comprehensive account of this era of MGM’s history, just the highlights, including some I saw in theaters and some I discovered years later, usually on TCM.
From 1960-69, I saw 25 MGM films in theaters, including such big-ticket items as BEN-HUR, THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, THE TIME MACHINE, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, HOW THE WEST WAS WON, DR. ZHIVAGO, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and a highly-touted re-release of GONE WITH THE WIND. (BEN-HUR, HUCKLEBERRY FINN and MUTINY were actually remakes of much earlier MGM films.) Usually it took these films a while to reach neighborhood theaters after their initial Broadway showings, at least two years in the case of BEN-HUR (1959). I was lucky enough to see HOW THE WEST WAS WON (1962) in Cinerama at a Broadway theater on a 4th Grade class trip. I remember looking up and checking out the three projection booths employed for the Cinerama process. Our teacher purchased the program book for the film and placed it in the class library and I devoured it during recess hours, learning the names of all the actors in it.
Leiji Matsumoto, manga artist and animation creator, passed away in Japan on February 13, 2023, at the age of 85. He is arguably the most important figure in manga/anime in Japan after Osamu Tezuka, who was ten years older than him and emerged as a major manga artist after the war while Matsumoto was still a boy. (The two would eventually become friends.) Despite Tezuka’s towering achievements in both anime and manga, covered in a tribute here, I would contend that Matsumoto, who outlived Tezuka by 34 years, contributed the most trailblazing work in postwar Japanese animation history, when he co-created and designed the influential franchise, “Space Battleship Yamato” (1974), a saga of a space crew on an intergalactic mission against time to save a devastated Earth from alien invasion. When the initial TV season was compiled into a 135-minute theatrical feature and released in 1977, creating a bigger splash in Japan than STAR WARS, it enabled Matsumoto and the animators to create two subsequent TV seasons, in 1978 and 1980, and four more spin-off theatrical features, 1978-83. (Reboots and sequels followed decades later.)
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