Videos - High Modern Weirdness of the Late 60s and Early 70s

text by Clifton Bertram

Never let it be said that the late 1960s and early 1970s were not a time of profound weirdness....

Here Raquel Welch dances a discombobulated 'Space Girl' dance in a truly weird outfit (although less weird than those worn by her male counterparts), in front of the statues for the very funky Mexico 1968 Olympic Summer Games.



One of the most spaced-out movies of a spaced-out decade, in Zardoz Sean Connery goes a long way from his James Bond type-casting. Or does he....?



Delia Darbyshire was a female electronic music pioneer who worked for the BBC in the 1960s and 'electronified' Ron Grainer's Doctor Who theme. Here she is shown doing a mind-blowing bit of electronic 'arranging' with a series of reel-to-reel decks, all beat-matched to create a full-blown composition.



Of course, we all remember the original Planet of the Apes, starring Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowell and Kim Hunter, but less-well remembered is the classic Jerry Goldsmith soundtrack. Goldsmith, perhaps better recognized for having scored all the Star Trek movies, created a moody, dissonant masterpiece for Planet of the Apes, which worked in seamless harmony with the stark landscapes of Glen Canyon and Lake Powell. One reviewer called this avant-garde score "one of the most innovative film scores of the 20th century", an assessment with which I am inclined to agree.