Unlike the acting-histrionics competition in Hollywood’s The Miracle Worker (1962), Truffaut never upstages the astounding Cargol; both performers underplay in perfect harmony, turning the story into a duet of paternal affection and paradise lost.

This is a deliciously languid, slinkily unsettling affair.

Though the vertiginously absurdist logic of the book is hopelessly fractured, some of it does filter through (the mostly superb performances are a great help). Nichols unfortunately grafts on a Meaningful Statement by way of a ponderous Fellini-ish sequence in which Yossarian, on leave in Rome, finds himself wandering the seventh circle of hell.

Interesting only in so far as it reveals Eastwood's nonchalant attitude to the blockbuster. Unlike Sutherland, who tries desperately to act his way out of Troy Kennedy Martin's laboured script, Eastwood just strolls through the film, along the way creating its few cinematic moments.

With his first movie for a major studio, Meyer simply did what he'd been doing for years, only bigger and better. That's to say, he turned the homely story of an all-girl rock band's rise to fame under their transsexual manager into a delirious comedy melodrama, soused in self- parody but spiked with dope, sex and thrills.

Siegel devotees will find much to enjoy in the languid but not unexciting story by Budd Boetticher.

Neil Simon cranks out this kind of fluff before breakfast, but it is enjoyable.

Often very funny in its topsy-turvy comments on racism, the script unfortunately has to battle against a director determined to use every gaudy trick in the book.

The Landlord succeeds thanks to terrific performances, political nous, flawless photography from Gordon Willis, a handful of sublimely witty moments and an overall sense of rebellious fun.

Self-touted as an authentic picture of Sioux manners and customs, the film to some extent delivers the goods (despite sacrificing a great deal of credibility by absurdly casting Judith Anderson as a malevolent old crone). But the Sun Vow sequence, lingered on in enervatingly gloating detail, ultimately defines it as exploitative.

A time capsule, yes, and a hallowed memory, perhaps. But gimme shelter.

Despite such sleazy subject matter, the cast is outstanding, dominated by a fierce Shelley Winters, and Corman pulls no punches, delivering a searing Jacobean tragedy of a gangster movie.

As a study of power, neither Coppola's script nor Schaffner's direction are precise enough to merit the praise that has been heaped upon them. As an exercise in biography, however, Schaffner and Coppola's character study of General George S Patton is marvellous, especially in its sideways debunking of the American Hero.

The Magic Christian is all too clearly representative of the impasse independent mainstream film-making found itself in when given its head by the industry in the '60s. The result is a variety concert of a film in which most of the acts/jokes fall flat.

Fisher taps a rich vein of Romanticism here, making this the high point of a series that afterwards degenerated into the sloppy self-parody of Jimmy Sangster's The Horror of Frankenstein.

An eerie, neglected classic of its kind.

The trouble, as so often with Ritt films, is that the situation remains interesting rather than involving. But at least this detachment means that one has the leisure to savour the textures of Wong Howe's magnificent camerawork.

Period charm accounts for much of the mild enjoyment to be had from this sunnily nostalgic adaptation of William Faulkner's novel about an unholy trio - small boy (Vogel), dimwitted young buck (McQueen) and wily black (Crosse) - who 'borrow' a 1905 Winton Flyer and drive triumphantly off to Memphis for three days of illicit pleasure.

The near-incomprehensible plot (something about French and American agents trying to find out more about a Russian undercover group, directly involved with Cuba and working within the French security network) might appeal to devotees of Le Carré et al, but it certainly doesn't make for dramatically exciting cinema, especially given Hitchcock's flat, seemingly uninterested direction.

Only Streisand's second movie, but already (as co-star Matthau grumbled) she was hogging the screen. The trouble is that there isn't much to hog in this elephant which gave Star! a helping hoof in burying the Hollywood musical.

The widescreen effects are first-rate, as is Peck as the embattled controller, and the suspense builds remorselessly to a neat conclusion.

The acting is strident and overblown, the narrative technique gimmicky and obvious, and the implication that the competitors' situation is a microcosm of a wider-reaching American malaise (though safely distanced by the period and the flash-back-and-forth narrative technique) rather pretentious.

The recreation of the murder and the subsequent investigation uses the techniques of an American thriller to gripping effect, though conspiracies are so commonplace nowadays that it's hard to imagine the impact it made at the time.

It's all stirringly traditional stuff, with a lively supporting cast, and made very easy on the eye by William Clothier's camerawork.

Incredibly bloated remake, with Mrs Chips an ex-showgirl (allowing for some vacuous songs), a continental holiday (allowing for a travelogue wallow), and Herbert Ross (his first film as director), trying to match Wyler's choreographed camera movements on Funny Girl but failing to make them serve any meaningful purpose.

It is much better and funnier than the "The Sting" precisely because it allows the two stars to play off each other.

Pakula's debut as a director, two years before making Klute, is one of those rare American films which manage to be gently observational without succumbing to the Europeanism of Mazursky or Cassavetes.

Logan's rotund version of Lerner and Loewe's musical Western may lack actors (Presnell excepted) who can actually sing, but that's compensated for by a solid plot involving a farcical discovery of gold, and the growth of a mining town (No Name City) that develops from amoral shantydom to respectability and a holocaust.