If.... (1968) - Anderson's landmark provocative youth revolt picture

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Militant-looking but spiffily dressed young men against dramatic scenes inserted into the alarming nexus of a hand grenade makes up this effective poster for Lindsay Anderson's If....

We follow the strictly disciplined, odd life in a English public boarding school, where three older students resist the teachings of the institution, led by the rebel Travis.

 

If.... is written by David Sherwin (Wet Gold (1984, TV movie)), with John Howlett (Touch and Die (1992, TV movie)) contributing story elements, and co-produced and directed by great Indian-born British filmmaker Lindsay Anderson (This Sporting Life (1963)). 

The film sparkles with freshness to this day in lovely images (cinematography by Miroslav Ondrícek (Amadeus (1984))), with an abundance of funny and striking scenes. It is a powerful and provocative and violently revolutionary, subversive film. It idolizes Mick Travis, the leading character which Malcolm McDowell (Moving On (2022)) portrays with an awards-worthy turn.

SPOILER Despite the temptation to mostly shake one's head at the perverse school traditions of the English, this film presents contradicting 'heroes' that are just as, - if not a lot more, - terrible, because they finally arrive to the dubious conclusion that the systems faults are sufficient grounds to justify shooting every one in it!

If.... may be the strongest youth revolt film of all, which however also clearly shows the wave's unsympathetic, anarchisticly violent backside. It is odd that Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver mass murderer nearly a decade later, in another pivotal cinematic examination of violence in young males, is also named Travis. Perhaps the lack of a heroic glow around the later Travis character reflects a development towards a more critical stance in the general perception of the societal revolt, led by the young, in the intermediate years. 

 

Watch a trailer for the movie here

 

Cost: 500k $

Box office: In excess of 5.75 mil. $

= Uncertain but surely a mega-hit (projected return of 14 times its cost)

[If.... was released 19 December (UK) and runs 111 minutes. McDowell was paid 90 £ a week for his performance. Shooting took place from January - March 1968 in England, including in London. For the North American release, male nudity was cut out in order for the film to receive an R rating. Variety reported in January 1970 that the film had earned rentals of 2.3 mil. $, likely from North America alone, which suggests a gross of 5.75 mil. $. The film is described as a hit in the UK, but its actual gross and numbers from other markets are not recorded online regrettably: It didn't attract audiences in Denmark (just 825 tickets sold). A cautious projected total gross of 7 mil. $ is not unlikely. The film was nominated for 2 BAFTAs, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes and was nominated for a Golden Globe. Anderson brought McDowell's Travis character back in two later films, again portrayed by McDowell: O Lucky Man! (1973), - he only directed an episode of Play for Today (1972) in the years between, - and Britannia Hospital (1982). McDowell first returned in The Wednesday Play (1969, TV-series) and theatrically in Figures in a Landscape (1970). If.... is certified fresh at 90 % with a 7.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of If....?

Hell in the Pacific (1968) - Boorman's boring two-man turkey

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Weighty themes are teased on this superiorly crafted poster for John Boorman's Hell in the Pacific

Two men are stranded on a small island in the Pacific; one American and one Japanese. They hate each other like the plague. - But their chances of survival and escape are better if they work together.

 

Hell in the Pacific is written by Eric Bercovici (Shogun (1980, TV movie)) and Alexander Jacobs (Point Blank (1967)), with Shinobu Hashimoto (Hakkodasan (1977)) contributing uncredited work and story contributions by co-writer/producer Reuben Bercovitch (Bonanza (1968, TV-series)), and directed by great English filmmaker John Boorman (Having a Wild Weekend (1965)).

The two seasoned stars Lee Marvin (Pocket Money (1972)) and Toshirô Mifune (Sicilian Connection (1987)) muck around and crackle in each their own tongue, but any semblance of an exciting story is missing, making Hell in the Pacific strand thoroughly as a deadly bore. SPOILER You may wake up in the scene wherein Marvin urinates on Mifune. - Or you may not.

 

Related post:

 

John Boorman: Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) - Boorman stuns with truly abysmal sequel

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 4.15 mil. $

Box office: 3.23 mil. $

= Huge flop (returned 0.77 times its cost)

[Hell in the Pacific was released 18 December (North America) and runs 103 minutes. Marvin and Mifune had fought on opposite sides during WWII: Marvin as a US Marine, receiving the Purple Heart for his service and getting injured in the Battle of Saipan in 1944; Mifune in the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service. Shooting took place from January 1968 - ? in the Micronesian country of Palau in the Pacific, near the Philippines. The film earned 1.33 mil. $ (41.2 % of the total gross) in North America. Due to its strangely high cost, the film recorded a massive 4.115 mil. $ loss for the short-lived ABC Films. Boorman returned with Leo the Last (1970). Marvin returned in Paint Your Wagon (1969); Mifune in Samurai Banners/Fûrin kazan (1969). Hell in the Pacific is fresh at 67 % with a 6.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Hell in the Pacific?  

Hang 'Em High (1968) - Post and Eastwood cook spaghetti in the West

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Sex, suspense and macho violence is promised on this colorful poster for Ted Post's Hang 'Em High

Retired lawman Jed Cooper is accused of stealing cattle and is nearly hung dead in a retaliatory lynching. But when his actual past job is known, he is hired for a high wage to forward justice in the Oklahoma Territory of 1889.

 

Hang 'Em High is written  by Leonard Freeman (Gold of the Seven Saints (1961)) and Mel Goldberg (The F.B.I. (1968, TV-series)) and directed by Ted Post (The Peacemaker (1956)).

The (Italian) spaghetti western style is cranked up beyond the tolerable in this wholly American film, an unreal and unexciting first venture for star Clint Eastwood (Sudden Impact (1983)) and Irving Leonard's Malpaso Productions company. Eastwood is not utilized satisfactorily in Post's sub-standard direction. The supporting cast look good on paper, but none of them really distinguish themselves in Hang 'Em High.

The film is also a colorful and large production, a bit overlong, - with a horribly melodramatic, overwrought score (by Dominic Frontiere (Massacre Harbor (1968))). The bottom-line: Hang 'Em High is an overrated near botch-up.

 

Related post:

 

Ted Post: Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) - More than decent follow-up to the SF milestone

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 1.6 mil. $

Box office: 10.8 mil. $

= Huge hit (returned 6.75 times its cost)

[Hang 'Em High was released 12 April (Italy) and runs 114 minutes. Eastwood was advised by his agent at the William Morris Agency to follow up his stardom from the Dollars trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars (1964); For a Few Dollars More (1965); and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)) with a co-starring role in J. Lee Thompson's Mackenna's Gold (1969), but Eastwood refused and instead formed his own production company. Eastwood was paid 400k $ and 25 % of the net earnings of the film, which should have raked him in an (at the time) incredible 2.1 mil. $ salary, if 25 % of the North-American earnings alone, or 3.1 mil. $ if for the entire world gross. Shooting took place from June - August 1967 in Arizona, New Mexico and California. The film opened strongly, reportedly besting United Artists' Bond films in opening numbers and making back its costs in just two weeks. It grossed 6.8 mil. $ (63 % of the total gross) in North America. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to 2 notches over this one. Post returned with Peyton Place (1964-69), Bracken's World (1969, TV-series) and theatrically with Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970). Eastwood returned in Coogan's Bluff (1968). Hang 'Em High is fresh at 92 % with a 6.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Hang 'Em High? 

Witchfinder General/The Conqueror Worm (1968) - Excellent Vincent Price performance in Reeves' witch movie classic

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A gnawing, rot-colored and quite effective poster for Michael Reeves' Witchfinder General

During the English Civil War in 1645 a notorious, self-appointed witchfinder and his willing assistant travels around to various hamlets and executes the unpopular wretches, who are thought to be witches.

 

Witchfinder General is written by Tom Baker (The Sorcerers (1967)) and co-writer/director Michael Reeves (She Beast (1966)), based on Ronald Bassett's (The Pompeians (1965)) same-titled 1966 book.

It is an exciting story of phony knights, based on the incredible true story of England's terrible witch mass murderer, Matthew Hopkins, who was responsible for sending around 100 people to their death as pronounced witches from 1644-46. Vincent Price (The Jackals (1967)) is terrific as the wholeheartedly evil title character.

The film is well done with stand-out qualities counted in blood and a horrific witch-burning scene. Regrettably not all the actors live up to Price's example, but Witchfinder General is still a good horror.

 

Watch a short clip from the film here

 

Cost: 83k £, approximately 199k $

Box office: Uncertain, but at least 1.5 mil. $ in North-American rentals

= Uncertain, but at least a huge hit (returned 7.53 times its cost in North-American rentals alone)

[Witchfinder General premiered 15 May (Los Angeles) and runs 86 minutes. Reeves had envisioned Donald Pleasance as the film's title star, but American International Pictures, the film's US co-producing company, insisted on their star Price being used, to Reeves' detriment. The British censorship organ the BBFC read and objected strongly to at least three scripts for the film before filming began. AIP contributed Price's 12k £ salary and 20k £ for the production and thought of the investment as a tax write-off with little chance of a quality outcome. Reeves and Price disliked each other intensely and clashed several times during filming. This took place in England from September - November 1967. Louis M. Heyward directed a nude scene in a pub, which was shot for the German release of the film. The film is not historically accurate. It passed through the BBFC with 'just' 2 minutes removed, partly because Reeves had a distant cousin as one of the censors. Many British critics were appalled at the film's violence. In North America the film was released uncensored, and AIP had Price narrate an Edgar Allan Poe poem for to bookend the film in order for them to market it as part of their Poe series of horror films, which is also were the curious conqueror worm title derives from. It was played on a double bill with The Young, the Evil and the Savage (1968). Reeves biographer Benjamin Halligan claims that the film grossed 10 mil. $ in the US, which would change its status to that of a mega-hit if true. The film was reportedly also a hit in Germany, where it inspired a local wave of folk-horror films. Reeves passed away months after the film's release at age 25, suffering from insomnia and depression, from an accidental alcohol and barbiturate overdose. Witchfinder General is his last film. Price returned with a voice performance in Spirits of the Dead (1968) and physically in More Dead than Alive (1969). Witchfinder General is fresh at 88 % with a 7.10/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Witchfinder General?

The Green Berets (1968) - Wayne's gung ho pretty picture of the Vietnam War clashes with reality

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An apocalyptic painting of the hell of the Vietnam War adorns this gung-ho poster for Ray Kellogg, John Wayne and Mervyn LeRoy's The Green Berets

 

A Vietnam War-skeptical, liberal newspaperman heads out with new green berets (US Special Forces) to Vietnam to fight the unprincipled, Communist Vietcong madmen.

 

The Green Berets is written by James Lee Barrett (Fool's Parade (1971)), based on the same-titled 1965 novel by Robin Moore (The London Switch (1974)), and directed by Ray Kellogg (The Killer Shrews (1959)), Californian master filmmaker though uncredited here, Mervyn LeRoy (No Place to Go (1927)) and co-director/co-star John Wayne (Blood Alley (1955)). Wayne helped the film to creation due to his worries over the rampant anti-war sentiments of the time and his wish to present his own staunch pro-military stance to the public.

How far one's own political nerves can take of Duke's (Wayne's) highly creative positive spin on the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese people and the US troops is an individual circumstance, but in any case The Green Berets is regrettably a thoroughly empty and dull film, so that finally there's not much more to it than its more or less offensively made-up, clean, orderly and neat world views and some bizarre scenes: Like the one in which a soldier lets the ever-happy Vietnamese boy orphan in the army camp share his bed ...

George Takei (You Don't Mess With the Zohan (2008)) is a merciless anti-VC Vietnamese local hero. There's also macho bravado war comical bits that are as misplaced as they are unfunny. The film is mostly shot in Georgia, which naturally enough looks far from the Asian country of the actual plot. And, just to be clear, Wayne, otherwise a hero of mine, puts his foot squarely in it here. - The Green Berets is a real stinker.

 

Related posts:

 

Ray Kellogg: The Giant Gila Monster (1959) - Sullivan shines in Kellogg's low-tech Texas drive-in classic

John Wayne: Cahill U.S. Marshall/Cahill (1973) - John Wayne upholds the law in exciting late-career western (star)

The Cowboys (1972) or, John Wayne and the Cowboys (star)

Chisum (1970) - Middle-of-the-road John Wayne action-western (star)

El Dorado (1966) - Hawks, Duke and Mitchum's great western (co-star)

Circus World/The Magnificent Showman (1964) - Hathaway and Bronston's grand, ill-fated curio (co-star)

The Conqueror (1956) - John Wayne's inauspicious turn as Genghis Khan (co-star) 

Flying Leathernecks (1951) - Ray's gung ho, Technicolor aviation spectacle (co-star)

Fort Apache (1948) - Wayne and Fonda clash in Ford's solid western of a massacre of Indians (co-star)

Back to Bataan (1945) - Wayne in the Pacific (star)

Watch a 5-minute clip from the film here

 

Cost: 7 mil. $

Box office: 8.7 mil. $ (North-American rentals alone)

= Uncertain

[The Green Berets premiered 19 June (New York) and runs 142 minutes. Wayne visited South Vietnam in 1966 and decided to do a film in support of the Army special forces. He turned down a part in The Dirty Dozen (1967) to do Green Berets. Wayne bought out Moore's involvement in the production with 35k $ and 5 % of undefined profits from the film. The script was developed with the US Army, who had objections and ideas for molding it. Shooting took place in Alabama, Georgia, California and Florida from August - December 1967 with extensive cooperation with the Department of Defense providing air crafts, uniforms and consultancy. Wayne rejoiced as the public braved anti-war picketing at theaters and paid admissions to take the film in the black within 3 months, as it earned 8.7 mil. in North-American rentals despite also getting critically destroyed. Roger Ebert gave it a zero/4 star review, translating to a notch under than this one. The foreign gross numbers are regrettably unknown. Kellogg retired from directing and only returned as an associate producer on a single TV movie five years later; LeRoy retired after his work on the film; and Wayne directed again, albeit uncredited, in Big Jake (1971). As an actor he returned in Hellfighters (1968); David Janssen (Ring of Fire (1961)) in The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968); and Jim Hutton (Where the Boys Are (1960)) in Hellfighters (1968). The Green Berets is rotten at 23 % with a 4.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Green Berets?

Faces (1968) or, John Cassavetes' LA Misery circa 1968

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A hype-filled poster with a strip of pictures of faces from the film, John Cassavetes' Faces

SPOILER At an overwrought drinking  party of three people, a man decides to leave his wife, who goes on to have sex with a younger man - and attempts suicide.

Faces is written and directed by New-Yorker master filmmaker John Cassavetes (A Woman Under the Influence (1974)), whose 4th feature it is. It is an intense and impressive B/W drama, which feels a lot like a play. The title is highly auspicious, as the film is ripe with facial close-ups.
The cinematography (by Al Ruban (Love Streams (1984)), Maurice McEndree (Devil's Angels (1967, actor)) and Haskel Wexler (Face in the Rain (1963))) has a curious, youthful feel to it, whereas the characters are a heavy Los Angeles-set gallery of ennui, despair, quick remarks and an endless pool of unfunny jokes, which the characters themselves laugh loudly at.
Gena Rowlands (Gloria (1980)) is fantastic in Faces, but the film, which is a strong example of its time, certainly, does impress me as somewhat self-indulgent and self-centered.

Related posts:

John Cassavetes: The Fury (1978) - De Palma's telekinetic powers run amuck! (starring actor) 
A Woman Under the Influence (1974) or, Family Dysfunction (writer/director)
The Dirty Dozen (1967) - Aldrich's rough WWII super-entertainment (starring actor)
Edge of the City (1957) - Poitier gleams in Ritt's idealistic debut (starring actor)

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 275k $
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain (but reportedly a 'surprise box office success' - source: Jesse Ziegelstein, UCLA Film and Television Archive)
[Faces premiered in March (Beverly Hills, California) and runs 130 minutes, - a Criterion release cut runs 147 minutes, and Cassavetes' long cut ran 183 minutes and is lost. Cassavetes wrote, directed and financed the film with his wife Rowlands in the main part, shooting most of the film in their own Los Angeles home. Post production reportedly took 3 years. Info on the film's box office earnings are regrettably not available online. Roger Ebert gave the film a 4/4 star review, translating to two notches better than this one. It was nominated for 3 Oscars: It lost Best Supporting Actor (Seymour Cassel (Little New York (2009))) to Jack Albertson for The Subject Was Roses, Supporting Actress (Lynn Carlin (Insight (1974-80))) to Ruth Gordon for Rosemary's Baby, and Original Screenplay to Mel Brooks for The Producers. The film won 2 awards at the Venice Film Festival. Cassavetes returned with Husbands (1970)). Rowlands returned in Nick Quarry (1968, short) and theatrically in Machine Gun McCain (1969). Faces is fresh at 85 % with a 7.2/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Faces?

Destroy All Planets/Gamera vs. Viras/Gamera Vs. Space Monster Viras/ガメラ対宇宙怪獣バイラス (Gamera tai uchū Kaijū Bairasu) (1968) - Unmitigated kaiju trash

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An information-packed Japanese poster for Noriaki Yuasa's Destroy All Planets

QUICK REVIEW:

Destroy All Planets is another entry in the Japanese Gamera kaiju (giant creature) franchise, written by Niisan Takahashi (Super Monster/Uchu kaijû Gamera (1980)) and directed by Noriaki Yuasa (Gammera the Invincible (1966)). Gamera is, for those who don't know it, a giant flying turtle.

The plot is something about two Boy Scouts, who go to space, and seemingly endless fights between poorly constructed giant monsters.

There's nothing mitigating about Destroy All Planets, a piece of trash which, for a film-lover, is painful to have to categorize as a film. The title Destroy All Planets, which was the US release title, was chosen not because it has anything to do with the film at all, but only because it resembled the title for Destroy All Monsters/Kaijû Sôshingeki (1968), which had just been successful.
Exposing children to Destroy All Planets, whom it is squarely targeted at, is likely to do one of two things, I reckon: (1) Harm them mentally, or, (2) put them to sleep.

Related review:

Noriaki Yuasa: Attack of the Monsters (1969) or, Gamera Saves Imperiled Kids!

Here's a short trailer for the film

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown
[Destroy All Planets was released March 20 (Japan) and runs 90 minutes. The film was made on a very small budget. To cut expenses, Destroy All Planets incorporates, as the first Gamera movie, footage from previous films in the series, which here makes up around 15 minutes of the film. It is not possible to rank its theatrical performance without any numbers, obviously, but it is likely that the film made money, because Gamera movies continued to be made after it. 1,727 Rotten Tomatoes users have given Destroy All Planets an average rating of 2.8/5.]

What do you think of Destroy All Planets?

Django, Prepare a Coffin/Preparati la Bara!/Prepare a Coffin!/Viva Django/Django/Get the Coffin Ready/Django Get a Coffin Ready/Django Sees Red (1968) - Baldi and Terence Hill see red

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Gunfight from a coffin here on the gritty-cool poster for Ferdinando Baldi's Django, Prepare a Coffin

QUICK REVIEW:

Django's wife gets shot in a hold-up, where he was transporting gold. By freeing innocently sentenced by the gallows, the widowed Django then gathers a gang that is going to carry out vengeance towards the corrupt governor. - But also within the gang there is a rotten apple; SPOILER the Indian García (José Torres (Death Rides a Horse/Da Uomo a Uomo (1966)) steals and murders!

In the end, SPOILER Django gets his revenge in the film's best scene, in which he shoots the governor and his whole gang with a Gatlin gun, hidden in a coffin.
In Coffin, co-written by co-writer/director Ferdinando Baldi (Suicide Mission to Singapore/Goldsnake 'Anonima Killers' (1966)) and Franco Rossetti (Crazy Westerners/Little Rita nel West (1967)), nearly everyone is a crook, safe for, of course, Django (Terence Hill (My Name Is Nobody/Il Mio Nome è Nessuno (1973))), and perhaps it is especially this, that Django is deserted again and again, that makes the film a little long to get through. Slightly dull.
The film doesn't lack fistfights, and the restored copy is handsome to look at. Coffin is filmed in the classic Italian style of the period by cinematographer Enzo Barboni (Vengeance of the Vikings/Erik il Vichingo (1965)).

Terence Hill behind his machine gun in Ferdinando Baldi's Django, Prepare a Coffin

Watch an original trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown
[The film follows Sergio Corbucci's classic Django (1966), which started a wave of reportedly over 30 unofficial sequels without the original's director or star Franco Nero. Baldi's film was, actually supposed to have Nero back as Django, but that didn't ultimately pan out. Coffin is also noteworthy for its title song You'd Better Smile by Nicola Di Bari, which was later sampled for Gnarls Barkley's worldwide hit Crazy (2005).]

What do you think of Django, Prepare a Coffin?

Coogan's Bluff (1968) or, Dopes and Hippies, Beat It!

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Overly cool Italian poster for Don Siegel's Coogan's Bluff

QUICK REVIEW:

Coogan's Bluff is a decent 60's action crime drama flick in which Clint Eastwood (Where Eagles Dare (1968)) plays the man of the West, an Arizona small town deputy, who strays with a prisoner to New York, the big city, where hippies and drugs abound. As the conservative hero that he often played and certainly plays here, Eastwood will now have to clean up in some of the Manhattan mess!

A brown-suited Clint Eastwood involved in some heavy duty crime clean-up in Don Siegel's Coogan's Bluff

The title refers to the plight, which starts it all, when deputy Coogan bluffs his way into a hospital to get his prisoner, but fails and instead must chase the fleeing bum around for the rest of the film. It is also the name of a New York site.
Through the chase we are lubricated brown suits, red rubber boots, ponchos, round glasses, flowers, psychedelic montages and the particular funk-jazz tunes that characterize many films from the time.
Coogan's Bluff is entertaining in places, but is told in a very loose structure that might also have been a product of its time, (or of the fact that the film had seven drafts before the filmed version came about, which was heavily influenced by Eastwood's ideas and preferences.)
Notably, Coogan's Bluff is the film that brought Eastwood and master director Don Siegel (Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)) together. It started a great collaboration that would also result in Eastwood's Siegel-directed starring films Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), The Beguiled (1971), Dirty Harry (1971) and Escape From Alcatraz (1979), their finest film together.
Coogan's Bluff was also the film that later was made into the popular TV-series McCloud (1970-77) with Dennis Weaver.

Related review:

Don Siegel: The Beguiled (1971) - Intense, erotic Civil War kammerspiel thriller

 Watch the original trailer here

Cost: 3 mil. $
Box office: 3.1 mil. $ (U.S. only)
= Uncertainty

What do you think of Coogan's Bluff?
What are Siegel's and Eastwood's best works apart and together, in your opinion?

Stolen Kisses/Baisers Volés (1968) - Minor nouvelle vague Antoine Doinel-romcom

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Beautiful, romantic old poster for François Truffaut's Baisers Volés

QUICK REVIEW:

Baisers Volés is French master director François Truffaut's (Jules et Jim (1962)) third film, (the first 2 being The 400 Blows (1959) and the short Antoine et Colette (1962)), about his alter ego character Antoine Doinel, portrayed in all the films by Jean-Pierre Leaud (The Pornographer (2001)). The series includes two more films, Bed & Board (1970) and Love on the Run (1979).
Antoine Doinel has grown up on the outside, but is really still mostly an ungrateful brat. He has fallen in love with Christine, been dropped by the army and hired in Paris as a (worthless) private detective.
Stolen Kisses is neither particularly funny, warm nor touching. The humor is dry, the inventions amuse a few times; among other there is the man, who wants to know why nobody likes him.
Methodically, the film holds lots of the French nouvelle vague's favorites like jump cuts, rule-breaking of different kinds and all the world's inelegant, youthfully anarchistic grips.
Leaud in the lead is annoying, but on the bright side, the film does have some lovely women in it.
It is my least favorite Truffaut film, but it was popular at the time and still has its fans. I find it incredible that Baisers Volés was Oscar-nominated as Best Foreign Film in '69. It lost to Sergey Buncarchuk's Russian, 4-hour long War and Peace (1966).

Related review:

François Truffaut: The Bride Wore Black (1968) - Truffaut lets Moreau serve ice-cold revenge
Antoine et Colette (1962) - Unrequited love in Truffaut's Paris

An Italian (I think) poster for the film

If interested in the film, here's its 4 minute trailer with subtitles in English

Budget: 0.35 mil. $
Box office: 1.5 mil. $
= Big hit

How do you rate the films about Antoine Doinel?
What is your favorite Truffaut film?