Cinema 1961: You Must Remember This–Movies, Stars, Events, Trends

What You Need to Know about 1961 as a Movie Year

1961 Box-Office Appeal

101 Dalamatians *22.8
West Side Story 19.5
Guns of Navarone 13.0
El Cid 12.0
The Parent Trap 11.3
Absent-Minded Professor 11.4
Lover Come Back 8.5
La Dolce Vita 8.0
King of Kings 6.5
Come September 6.5
Flower Drum Song 5.0
Blue Hawaii 4.7
Babes in Toyland 4.6
Fanny 4.5
Return to Peyton Place 4.5
One-Eyed Jack 4.3
Splendor in the Grass 4.3
Breakfast at Tiffany’s 4.2
Parrish 4.2

*Figures are in millions of dollars

Events
May 13 –

Gary Cooper dies at the age of 60 from colon and prostate cancer. Best known for Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Sergeant York, Pride of the Yankees and High Noon, Cooper was one of the biggest stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age and won two Best Actor Oscars.

June 28 –James Bond Series

Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman sign multi-picture deal with UA to produce films based on the novels of Ian Fleming starting with Dr. No or Diamonds Are Forever. The Bond series becomes the highest-grossing film series of all time.

July 17 –

TWA screens Come September to the press aboard its jet to introduce in-flight movies.

October 18 –

West Side Story, directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins and starring Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno and George Chakiris, becomes the year’s highest-grossing film and wins 10 ten Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director (for Wise and Robbins), Supporting Actor (Chakiris) and Supporting Actress (for Moreno).

Awards

34th Academy Awards, April 9, 1962

Best Film: West Side Story (Musical)
Best Director: Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins, West Side Story
Best Actor Maximilian Schell, Judgment at Nuremberg Glenn
Best Actress: Sophia Loren, Two Women
Best Supporting Actor George Chakiris, West Side Story
Best Supporting Actress Rita Moreno, West Side Story
Best Original Score: Henry Mancini
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Drama or Comedy)
Saul Chaplin, Johnny Green, Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal
West Side Story (Musical)
Best Original Song: “Moon River” Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Best Foreign Language: Through a Glass Darkly

Notable Releases 1961

24 January

La Notte (Italy/France)

25 January

One Hundred and One Dalmatians

26 January
The Mark

1 February
The Misfits

2 March

The Rebel

3 March
Lola (France)

16 March
The Absent-Minded Professor

24 March
Town Without Pity (U.S./West Germany/Switzerland)
Underworld U.S.A.

30 March
One-Eyed Jacks, directed by Brando

25 April
Yojimbo (Japan)

27 April
The Guns of Navarone

4 May
Parrish

5 May
Return to Peyton Place

14 May

Viridiana (Mexico/Spain), Bunuel

24 May
The Young Savages

26 May
Snow White and the Three Stooges

29 May
A Raisin in the Sun

2 June
Gidget Goes Hawaiian

5 June
Taste of Fear

6 June
The Deadly Companions

7 June
The Curse of the Werewolf
Scarlet Sails
8 June
The Last Sunset
Romanoff and Juliet
Wild in the Country

21 June

The Parent Trap

22 June
Antigone (Greece)

25 June
Last Year at Marienbad (France)

28 June

The Naked Edge

29 June
Goodbye Again (France/U.S.)

9 July
Armored Command

12 July

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

20 July
Whistle Down the Wind

26 July
Tammy Tell Me True
Two Rode Together

30 July

31 July
And Love Has Vanished (Yugoslavia)

9 August
Come September

12 August
The Pit and the Pendulum

15 August
Marines, Let’s Go

23 August

The Young Doctors

30 August
Victim

31 August
Accattone (Italy)

6 September
A Woman Is a Woman (France)

15 September
A Taste of Hone

22 September
Léon Morin, Priest (France)

25 September
The Hustler

26 September
Murder, She Said

27 September
Paris Blues

30 September

5 October
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
8 October
The Last War (Japan)

10 October
Splendor in the Grass

11 October

King of Kings

16 October
Through a Glass Darkly (Sweden)

17 October
Bridge to the Sun

18 October

West Side Story

21 October
Dersu Uzala (USSR)
Il Posto (Italy)

23 October

28 October
The Mask

29 October
The End of Summer (Japan)

1 November
The Comancheros, Curtiz last film

2 November
Bachelor in Paradise

8 November
Susan Slade
Too Late Blues

9 November
Flower Drum Song

16 November

Summer and Smoke

22 November
Blue Hawaii

24 November
The Innocents

28 November
The Errand Boy

6 December
El Cid (U.S./Italy)

7 December

13 December
Paris Belongs to Us
The Young Ones

14 December
Babes in Toyland
Judgment at Nuremberg
The Outsider

15 December
One, Two, Three

19 December
The Children’s Hour
Pocketful of Miracles
When the Trees Were Tall (USSR)

20 December

Divorce Italian Style (Italy)
Everything’s Ducky
Lover Come Back
Something Wild

22 December

Two Women(Italy/West Germany)
23 December
Barabbas (Italy)

27 December
A Majority of One

Notable films released in 1961

The Absent-Minded Professor, starring Fred MacMurray
Accattone, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini – (Italy)

Antigone, starring Irene Papas – (Greece)
The Assassin (L’Assassino), starring Mastroianni – (Italy)
Atlantis, the Lost Continent, starring John Dall

B
Babes in Toyland, starring Ray Bolger, Tommy Sands, Annette Funicello
Bachelor in Paradise, starring Bob Hope, Lana Turner
Back Street, starring Susan Hayward, John Gavin, Vera Miles

Barabbas, starring Anthony Quinn, Silvana Mangano, Jack Palance – (Italy)

The Big Bankroll, aka King of the Roaring 20s, starring David Janssen, Mickey Rooney, Diana Dors

Blue Hawaii, starring Elvis Presley (biggest box-office success), Joan Blackman, Angela Lansbury

Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Blake Edwards, starring Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal

Bridge to the Sun, starring Carroll Baker, James Shigeta – (France/U.S.)

C
Carry On Regardless, starring Sid James, Kenneth Connor, Charles Hawtrey (U.K.)

The Children’s Hour, starring Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner

The Colossus of Rhodes, Sergio Leone, starring Rory Calhoun (Italy)
The Comancheros, starring John Wayne, Stuart Whitman, Lee Marvin
Come September, starring Rock Hudson, Gina Lollobrigida, Sandra Dee, Bobby Darin
The Connection, directed by Shirley Clarke

The Deadly Companions, Sam Peckinpah, starring Maureen O’Hara, Brian Keith
Dersu Uzala – (USSR)

The Devil at 4 O’Clock, Mervyn LeRoy, starring Frank Sinatra, Spencer Tracy

Divorce Italian Style (Divorzio all’italiana), Pietro Germi, starring Mastroianni (Italy)

E
El Cid, directed by Anthony Mann, starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren – (U.S./Italy)
The End of Summer (Kohayagawa-ke no aki), Ozu – (Japan)

The Errand Boy, directed by and starring Jerry Lewis
Everything’s Ducky, starring Buddy Hackett
The Exiles – documentary
The Explosive Generation, starring William Shatner and Patty McCormack

F
Fanny, starring Charles Boyer, Leslie Caron

Flower Drum Song, starring Nancy Kwan
Francis of Assisi, Curtiz, starring Bradford Dillman, Dolores Hart
The Frightened City, starring Sean Connery, John Gregson, Yvonne Romain

G
Garibaldi (Viva l’Italia!), Rossellini – (Italy)
The George Raft Story, starring Jayne Mansfield, Ray Danton
Gidget Goes Hawaiian, starring Deborah Walley

Girl with Suitcasem starring Claudia Cardinale – (Italy)
Go Naked in the World, starring Gina Lollobrigida, Anthony Franciosa – (Italy)

Goodbye Again, starring Ingrid Bergman and Yves Montand – (France/U.S.)

The Guns of Navarone, directed by J. Lee Thompson, starring Gregory Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn – (U.K.)

Hercules in the Haunted World, Mario Bava – (Italy)

Hogs and Warships (Buta to gunkan), Shohei Imamura – (Japan)
Homicidal, William Castle
The Honeymoon Machine, starring Steve McQueen, Brigid Bazlen, Jim Hutton,

The Human Condition (Ningen no jōken), Masaki Kobayashi – (Japan)

The Hustler, Robert Rossen, starring Paul Newman, Piper Laurie

The Innocents, starring Deborah Kerr – (U.K.)

J
Jhumroo, starring Madhubala and Kishore Kumar – (India)
Johnny Nobody, directed by and starring Nigel Patrick – (U.K.)
Judgment at Nuremberg, directed by Stanley Kramer, starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, Richard Widmark, William Shatner

K
King of Kings, Nicholas Ray, starring Jeffrey Hunter, Robert Ryan, Siobhán McKenna

L
The Ladies Man, directed by and starring Jerry Lewis
The Last Judgment (Il Giudizio universale), De Sica – (Italy)
The Last Sunset, starring Rock Hudson, Kirk Douglas, Dorothy Malone
The Last Time I Saw Archie, starring Robert Mitchum, Jack Webb
The Last War (Sekai Daisensō) – (Japan)

Last Year at Marienbad (L’Année dernière à Marienbad), Alain Resnais, starring Delphine Seyrig – Golden Lion winner – (France)
Léon Morin, Priest (Léon Morin, prêtre), starring Belmondo – (France)
Lola, Jacques Demy, starring Anouk Aimée – (France)

The Long and the Short and the Tall, starring Laurence Harvey, Richard Harris – (U.K.)

The Lovemakers (La Viaccia), starring Claudia Cardinale and Belmondo (Italy)
Lover Come Back, starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson

A Majority of One, starring Rosalind Russell and Alec Guinness
Man-Trap, starring Jeffrey Hunter, David Janssen and Stella Stevens
Marines, Let’s Go, starring Tom Tryon and David Hedison
The Mark, starring Stuart Whitman and Maria Schell – (U.K.)
The Marriage-Go-Round, starring James Mason, Julie Newmar
The Mask, starring Paul Stevens – (Canada)
Master of the World, William Witney, starring Vincent Price, Charles Bronson
The Miracle of Father Malachia (Das Wunder des Malachias), Bernhard Wicki (West Germany)
The Misfits, directed by John Huston, starring Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift

Mr. Sardonicus, directed by William Castle
Mr. Topaze (aka I Like Money), directed by and starring Peter Sellers – (U.K.)
Murder, She Said, George Pollock and starring Margaret Rutherford – (U.K.)
Mysterious Island, starring Michael Craig, Michael Callan and Joan Greenwood

N
The Naked Edge, starring Gary Cooper (final film), Deborah Kerr
La Notte (The Night), Antonioni, starring Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau – Golden Bear winner – (Italy/France)

Nude on the Moon, directed by Doris Wishman

O
One-Eyed Jacks, directed by and starring Marlon Brando, with Karl Malden, Katy Jurado, Ben Johnson
One Hundred and One Dalmatians, voices of Rod Taylor and Betty Lou Gerson
One, Two, Three, Billy Wilder, starring James Cagney, Horst Buchholz, Pamela Tiffin
The Outsider, starring Tony Curtis as World War II Marine Ira Hayes

P
The Parent Trap, starring Hayley Mills, Maureen O’Hara, Brian Keith
Paris Belongs to Us (Paris nous appartient), Jacques Rivette – (France)
Paris Blues, starring Sidney Poitier, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward
Parrish, starring Troy Donahue, Connie Stevens, Claudette Colbert

Pigs and Battleships (Buta to gunkan), directed by Shohei Imamura – (Japan)
The Pit and the Pendulum, starring Vincent Price
Plácido, directed by Luis García Berlanga – (Spain)
Please, Not Now! (La bride sur le cou), starring Brigitte Bardot – (France)

Pocketful of Miracles, Capra (final film), starring Bette Davis, Glenn Ford
Portrait of a Mobster, starring Vic Morrow

Il posto, directed by Ermanno Olmi – (Italy)

Q
Question 7, directed by Stuart Rosenberg – (U.S./West Germany)

R
A Raisin in the Sun, starring Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee
The Rebel, starring Tony Hancock – (U.K.)
Return to Peyton Place, directed by José Ferrer, starring Carol Lynley, Tuesday Weld, Eleanor Parker
The Right Approach, starring Martha Hyer, Frankie Vaughan and Juliet Prowse
Romanoff and Juliet, starring Peter Ustinov and Sandra Dee

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, starring Vivien Leigh, Warren Beatty – (U.K.)

S
Sail a Crooked Ship, starring Ernie Kovacs, Robert Wagner, Dolores Hart
Sanctuary, starring Lee Remick, Yves Montand

The Secret Ways, starring Richard Widmark

The Sins of Rachel Cade, starring Angie Dickinson
A Soldier’s Prayer (Ningen no jôken), directed by Masaki Kobayashi – (Japan)
Something Wild, starring Carroll Baker and Ralph Meeker

Splendor in the Grass, starring Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty
Spotlight on a Murderer (Pleins feux sur l’assassin), Georges Franju (France)
The Steamroller and the Violin (Katok i skripka), Tarkovsky – (USSR)

Summer and Smoke, starring Geraldine Page and Laurence Harvey
Susan Slade, starring Troy Donahue, Connie Stevens

T
Tammy Tell Me True, starring Sandra Dee

A Taste of Honey, Tony Richardson, starring Rita Tushingham – (U.K.)

Three Daughters (Teen Kanya), directed by Satyajit Ray – (India)
Through a Glass Darkly, Ingmar Bergman – (Sweden)
Too Late Blues, starring Bobby Darin
Town Without Pity, Gottfried Reinhardt, starring Kirk Douglas – (U.S./West Germany/Switzerland)

Two Loves, starring Shirley MacLaine
Two Rode Together, starring James Stewart and Richard Widmark

U
Underworld U.S.A., Samuel Fuller, starring Cliff Robertson

V
Valley of the Dragons
Victim, Basil Dearden, starring Dirk Bogarde and Sylvia Syms – (U.K.)

Viridiana, Buñuel, Palme d’Or winner,mCannes Film Fest, (Mexico/Spain)
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, starring Walter Pidgeon, Joan Fontaine

W
We Were Young (A byahme mladi) – (Bulgaria)
West Side Story, starring Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris
What A Whopper, directed by Gilbert Gunn, starring Adam Faith, Sidney James, Carole Lesley and Terence Longdon – (U.K.)
Whistle Down the Wind, directed by Bryan Forbes, starring Hayley Mills and Alan Bates – (U.K.)
Wild in the Country, starring Elvis Presley with Hope Lange, Tuesday Weld, Millie Perkins
A Woman Is a Woman, Godard, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anna Karina – (France)

Y
Yojimbo, Kurosawa, starring Toshiro Mifune – (Japan)
The Young Doctors, starring Ben Gazzara and Dick Clark
The Young Ones, starring Cliff Richard and The Shadows – (U.K.)
The Young Savages, starring Burt Lancaster, Dina Merrill

Short film series
Looney Tunes (1930–1969)
Terrytoons (1930–1964)
Merrie Melodies (1931–1969)
Goofy (1961)
Tom and Jerry (1940–1967)
Noveltoons (1943–1967)
Loopy De Loop (1959–1965)
The Alvin Show (1961–1962)

Births

Deaths
January 14 –

Barry Fitzgerald, 72, Irish actor, Going My Way, The Quiet Man
February 2 –

Anna May Wong, 56, American actress, Shanghai Express, The Thief of Bagdad

February 15 –

Jack Whiting, 59, American actor, singer, dancer, Sailing Along, Give Me Sailor
February 17 – Nita Naldi, 66, American actress, Blood and Sand, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

March 6 – George Formby, 56, British actor, entertainer, It’s in the Air, Off the Dole

March 12 – Belinda Lee, 25, British actress, Long Night in 1943, The Goddess of Love (automobile accident)
March 14 – Lies Noor, 23, Indonesian actress, Pulang (encephalitis)
March 29 – Fritzi Ridgeway, 62, American actress, Ruggles of Red Gap, This Is Heaven
April 27 – Roy Del Ruth, 67, US director, The Maltese Falcon, Broadway Melody of 1938
May 4 –

Anita Stewart, 66, American silent-film actress, The Combat, The Suspect

May 13 –

Gary Cooper, 60, US actor, High Noon, Meet John Doe, The Pride of the Yankees, Sergeant York
May 18 – Henry O’Neill, 69, American actor, Shadow of the Thin Man, Anchors Aweigh
May 19 – Ben Corbett, 69, American actor, The Fighting Renegade, Six-Gun Trail
May 22
Edward F. Cline, 69, American director, You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
Joan Davis, 53, American actress, Hold That Ghost, If You Knew Susie
June 2 – George S. Kaufman, 71, American playwright, A Night at the Opera
June 10 – Vivienne Osborne, 64, American actress, Supernatural, Luxury Liner
June 14 – Eddie Polo, 86, Austrian-American actor, The Vanishing Dagger

June 17 – Jeff Chandler, 42, US actor, Broken Arrow, Merrill’s Marauders
June 27 – Paul Guilfoyle, 58, American actor, Winterset, The Grapes of Wrath
June 30 – Lee de Forest, 87, American inventor of Phonofilm
July 4 – Franklyn Farnum, 83, American actor, The Life of Emile Zola, The Lost Weekend, The Greatest Show on Earth
July 9 – Alan Marshal, 52, Australian actor, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, House on Haunted Hill
July 23 – Valentine Davies, 55, US screenwriter and director, Glenn Miller Story, The Benny Goodman Story

August 4 –

Maurice Tourneur, 85, French director, The Last of the Mohicans, The Poor Little Rich Girl
August 17 –

Violet Kemble-Cooper, 74, British actress, The Invisible Ray, David Copperfield

August 27 – Gail Russell, 36, US actress, Angel and the Badman, Seven Men from Now
August 30 –

Charles Coburn, 84, American actor, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Lady Eve
September 10 –

Leo Carrillo, 81, American actor, Viva Villa!, Phantom of the Opera
September 20 –

Andrzej Munk, 39, Polish director and screenwriter, Man on the Tracks, Passenger
September 22 –

Marion Davies, 64, American actress, Show People, Cain and Mabel

September 25 – Frank Fay, 69, US actor, Under a Texas Moon, The Matrimonial Bed
September 26 –

Juanita Hansen, 66, US actress, The Magic Cloak of Oz, The Phantom Foe
October 1 – Donald Cook, 60, American actor, The Public Enemy, Baby Face
October 11 – Chico Marx, 74, American actor, member of the Marx Brothers, A Night at the Opera, Duck Soup
October 13

Maya Deren, 44, US experimental filmmaker, Meshes of the Afternoon, At Land
Zoltan Korda, 66, Hungarian director, The Four Feathers, Cry, Beloved Country

October 22 – Joseph Schenck, 82, Russian-born US motion picture executive, The General, Sherlock Jr.

November 15
Elsie Ferguson, 78, US actress, The Witness for the Defense, Scarlet Pages
Douglas Walton, 51, Canadian actor, Bride of Frankenstein, Murder, My Sweet
November 18 – Eduard Tisse, 64, Soviet cinematographer, Battleship Potemkin, Ivan the Terrible
November 24 –

Ruth Chatterton, 68, American actress, Dodsworth, Female
December 20 –

Moss Hart. 57, US playwright, Gentleman’s Agreement, A Star Is Born

Film Debuts

Ann-Margret – Pocketful of Miracles
Ed Asner – The Murder Men
Warren Beatty – Splendor in the Grass
William Berger – Back Street
Roscoe Lee Browne – The Connection
John Davis Chandler – Mad Dog Coll
Sonny Chiba – Invasion of the Neptune Men
Leonardo Cimino – Mad Dog Coll
Keir Dullea – Hoodlum Priest
Chad Everett – Claudelle Inglish
Mimsy Farmer – Gidget Goes Hawaiian
Louis Gossett Jr. – A Raisin in the Sun
Gene Hackman – Mad Dog Coll
Lance Henriksen – The Outsider
Sammo Hung – Ai de jiao yu
Anna Karina – A Woman Is a Woman
George Kennedy – The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come
Harvey Korman – Living Venus
Eddy Mitchell – Daniella by Night
Dudley Moore – The Third Alibi
Lance Percival – Three on a Spree
Joe Pesci – Hey, Let’s Twist!
Burt Reynolds – Angel Baby
Doris Roberts – Something Wild
Aldo Sambrell – King of Kings
Stefania Sandrelli – Gioventù di notte
Telly Savalas – Mad Dog Coll
George Segal – The Young Doctors
Rita Tushingham – A Taste of Honey