Top 20 Desert Isle Films

It’s sure refreshing to take a breather from backpacking—and talking about it—especially during these steamy dog days of August. One last trail observation, though: I discovered a nifty trick for alleviating the toil of steep mountain climbs is to create mental lists.

Here’s one of them, yet another of my periodic “desert isle” lists. This time it’s my top twenty favorite films (appropriate, since I’m partially immobile due to a leg vein that looks and feels like a red-hot fire iron, and have once again become good friends with my recliner and television remote). I think I formulated this list while struggling up Pond Mountain in Tennessee. Or maybe it was while descending into the town of Erwin.

Uncharacteristically for a born critic like me, I didn’t critique them. I just provide year, two key actors, and a short plot summation. I omitted director for brevity’s sake…but if you’re curious, directors Martin Ritt and Sergio Leone take top honors here, with two films apiece (all four are Westerns).

My favorite era is the 1960s, so it’s no surprise these films were made during that decade, or close to it. And I think you’ll see that many could be characterized as “guy flicks”…maybe because I’m a guy? 🥸 Who knows.

Lastly—while in my mind all of these movies are well-made—not all might be Leonard Maltin four-star-caliber. I admire critically acclaimed powerhouses like Citizen Kane and Schindler’s List, but they may not be the best entertainment for an isolated island in the South Pacific. However, the movies below I return to time and again and are entertaining with a strong nostalgia element, and those are the criteria I use for my desert isle collection.

Check ’em out, and let me know some of your own fave films—especially if made outside Hollywood, since this list woefully neglects foreign and independent films. I’m thinking of you, Neil, Mike, and CB!

“I hardly think a few birds are going to bring about the end of the world.”

“These weren’t a few birds.”

(Listed in order of release date):

On the Waterfront (1954). Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger. An idealistic young boxer and longshoreman defies a corrupt and powerful union boss.

Twelve Angry Men (1957). Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb. A jury of twelve very different personalities deliberates guilt or innocence in a murder trial.

Ben-Hur (1959). Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd. The life of a Jewish merchant, galley slave, and charioteer during the time of Christ.

“Hate keeps a man alive. It gives him strength.”

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). Gregory Peck, Mary Badham. A woman reminisces about her influential father and her childhood in segregated southern Alabama.

Hud (1963). Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas. A free-spirited man without principles clashes with his rancher-father while negatively influencing his younger nephew.

The Birds (1963). Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor. A woman visits a small seaside village and has a strange and horrific effect on bird behavior.

The Train (1964). Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield. A French Resistance fighter and railway inspector tries to prevent a Nazi colonel from absconding with priceless paintings.

A Hard Day’s Night (1964). John Lennon, Paul McCartney. Humorous semi-documentary of The Beatles and their recording and touring activities.

Goldfinger (1964). Sean Connery, Gert Frobe. Agent 007 tries to prevent an evil mastermind from stealing gold from Fort Knox.

“Do you expect me to talk, Goldfinger?”

“No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!”

Nevada Smith (1966). Steve McQueen, Karl Malden. A young man in the West goes on a trail of vengeance after three men brutally murder his parents.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach. Three men compete to uncover buried treasure in the West during the American Civil War.

Hombre (1967). Paul Newman, Fredric March. A white man raised by Apaches is forced into helping a group of bigoted stagecoach passengers.

The Graduate (1967). Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft. A recent college graduate confused about his future falls in love with the daughter of a woman who seduced him.

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). Henry Fonda, Jason Robards. Sprawling Western involving land rights, vengeance, and the arrival of the railroad in the changing American West.

The Party (1968). Peter Sellers, Claudine Longet. A bumbling but lovable Asian-Indian actor creates havoc after accidentally being invited to a swanky Hollywood dinner party.

Easy Rider (1969). Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper. Two hippies experience the best and worst of America while riding cross-country on motorcycles.

“Oh, they’ll talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom. But if they see a free individual, it’s gonna scare ’em.”

Woodstock (1970). Michael Lang, Artie Kornfeld. Award-winning documentary about the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair Festival.

Little Big Man (1970). Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway. An aged white man reminisces about being adopted by Indians and his relationships with Custer, Wild Bill Hickock, and his elderly Cheyenne mentor.

Jeremiah Johnson (1972). Robert Redford, Will Geer. A disillusioned Mexican-American War veteran flees to the mountains and becomes a mythic figure to Crow Indians.

Gettysburg (1993). Jeff Daniels, Martin Sheen. Docu-drama of Union and Confederate armies clashing in an epic three-day battle in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

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And the winning actor is…envelope, please…character actor MARTIN BALSAM, who amazingly appears in four of these films (On the Waterfront, Twelve Angry Men, Hombre, and Little Big Man).

Never mind that you never snagged a lead role, Martin. Winning the Longitudes Lifetime Achievement Award is nothing to sneeze at!

Halloween Movie Review: THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS

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Three years ago around Halloween, I published a list of five psychological horror films that I considered some of the best in the genre (Do NOT Watch Alone…). These are films about the mind that will keep you awake at night.

The film I’m reviewing this time isn’t disturbing like the others. But it has wonderful atmosphere, and I can’t think of another film like it. Critic Leonard Maltin calls it a “near-brilliant mixture of humor and horror.” It is Roman Polanski’s 1967 satire The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck (known as Dance of the Vampires in Europe). *

No matter what you think of Roman Polanski’s sexual imbroglios, as with the great Woody Allen, it’s beyond dispute he’s one of cinema’s most talented writers-producers-directors. His 1965 British movie Repulsion is a tour-de-force of psychological horror (and made my aforesaid list). Two years after Repulsion, he made this more lighthearted film.

Since Tod Browning’s classic 1931 film Dracula starring Bela Lugosi, vampire films had become progressively stale. The bottom came with the asinine Billy the Kid Versus Dracula in 1966. (Don’t watch this unless you have a large supply of alcohol on hand…enough to drink yourself into stupefaction.) So it was about time someone knocked the stuffing out of the vampire genre.

(Has anyone yet knocked the stuffing out of ubiquitous vampire books??)

The movie plot is simple: in the mid-19^th century, a scatterbrained German researcher named Professor Abronsius (Jack MacGowran) and his bewildered assistant Alfred (Polanski) travel through the snowy Transylvanian mountains to a small village in search of a vampire who supposedly lives nearby. While Abronsius is obsessed with tracking down and killing the bloodsucker, Alfred is more dazzled by the lasses in the local inn, including the lovely redheaded Sarah (Polanski’s future wife, Sharon Tate), whom he encounters while she’s soaping herself in a bubble bath.

The vampire, Count von Krolock (Ferdy Mayne), disrupts Alfred’s attempt at courtship when he kidnaps Sarah one night. Abronsius and Alfred then track him through the snow to his castle perched on the mountaintop. Bag of vampire-slaying tricks in hand, Abronsius is determined to destroy von Krolock, and Alfred is equally determined to rescue his damsel before she turns into a hollow-eyed blood bank. Without giving anything away, Abronsius and Alfred undergo various nail-biting (and neck-biting) escapades at the castle.

Expressive Irish actor MacGowran is perfect as Abronsius, with his faux pedagogy reminiscent of the standup comic “Professor” Irwin Corey (the “World’s Foremost Authority”). Instead of scientific jargon and Pyrex tubes, though, Abronsius speaks vampire clichés and wields garlic (“GAR-leek”), a wooden stake and mallet, and various crucifixes. Polanski makes a good shell-shocked stumblebum assistant. Tate, one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood at the time, doesn’t act much, or well, but she’s a visual delight. (Her horrific fate only two years later lends this film a tragic edge).

Bathtub scene with Tate and Polanski (photo Turner Classic Movies)

In addition, Ferdy Mayne as Count von Krolock gives veteran vampire actor Christopher Lee a run for his money, with his murky, imposing stature and ominous, throaty voice.

But the minor characters provide most of the funny moments. There’s the hunchback who serves as von Krolock’s personal “Igor,” with his gargantuan buck teeth and Beatle hairstyle. In an inspired move, Polanski gives von Krolock ’s creepy son Herbert (Iain Quarrier) a homosexual spin; Herbert is as sexually attracted to Alfred as he is thirsty for his blood. Best of all is actor Alfie Bass, who is Sarah’s father, and the innkeeper.  After turning vampire, he struggles to locate a comfortable place in the castle in which to situate his coffin. His exaggerated Yiddishness is hilarious.

The movie is filled with many moments of visual humor. The moonlit snowy landscape, courtesy of the Italian Alps, is another attractive feature. As is the shimmering music, particularly the psychedelic-Gothic score that accompanies the opening credits, created by the same person, European jazz musician Christopher Komeda, who later composed the score for Polanski’s universally acclaimed Rosemary’s Baby.

If you’re like me, you’ll get an adrenaline rush every time the doorbell rings on Halloween night. And if you’re really like me, after the doorbell stops ringing, you’ll plop yourself in your armchair and get a rush from a good horror flick. My suggestion this year is Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Killers.

And if you one day find yourself in Transylvania… beware of isolated mountain villages that have inns with “gar-leek” hanging over the front door!

(* Originally released in the U.K., The Fearless Vampire Killers was butchered by MGM when released in the U.S. Twelve minutes of the film were deleted, a cartoonish opening sequence was added, and MacGowran’s voice was given a deliberately comical and ill-suited dubbing. Polanski was understandably outraged, and campaigned to have the original version restored, which didn’t happen until the early 1980s.)