American Gothic Week: It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea

NIGHT TIDE

1961

Written and directed by Curtis Harrington

Spoilers: moderate

American Gothic Week: I felt every fiber in my frame thrill as if I had touched the wire of a galvanic battery

PIT AND THE PENDULUM

1961

Directed by Roger Corman

Written by Richard Matheson (with one scene toward the end somewhat based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe)

Spoilers: moderate; high for the original short story

The love that dare not speak its name until halfway through the third act

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR

1961

Directed by William Wyler

Written by John Michael Hayes (based on the play by Lillian Hellman)

THESE THREE

1936

Directed by William Wyler

Written by Lillian Hellman (based on her play The Children's Hour)

Spoiler alert: moderate, maybe high

Walt Disney, part XXI: Fur is dead

ONE HUNDRED AND ONE DALMATIANS

Even if you're not thrilled about all the changes the movie represents, it's still pretty hard not to like what the movie is.  (Though not impossible, and, boy, does it have some unexamined problems with its drama.)

1961

Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, Hamilton Luske, and Clyde Geronimi

Written by Bill Peet (based on the novel by Dodie Smith)

Spoiler alert: I mean, what do you think? she flays the puppies and looks good doing it?

Mad man

LOVER COME BACK

There are three good things about this movie—and it gets exactly one point for each of them, plus one more, for that unbelievably stupid hat.

1961

Directed by Delbert Mann

Written by Stanley Shapiro and Paul Henning

With Doris Day (Carol Templeton), Rock Hudson (Jerry Webster), Tony Randall (Pete Ramsey),  Edie Adams (Rebel Davis), Ann B. Davis (Millie), and Jack Kruschen (Dr. Linus Tyler)

Spoiler alert: moderate

I don't care to join any sexual orientation that would have me as a member

VICTIM

A groundbreaking mid-century treatment of oppressed homosexuality that would be all the more impressive in 2014 if it had used it as the thriller maguffin it so very much wants to be, rather than as the subject of far too many Star Trek: The Next Generation speeches, and without a Patrick Stewart anywhere in sight.

1961
Directed by Basil Dearden
Written by Janet Green and John McCormick
With Dirk Bogarde (Melville Farr), Peter McEnry (Jack "Boy" Barrett), and Sylvia Syms (Laura Farr)

Spoiler alert: moderate