A history of 1960s British cinema in 10 songs

When the talkies hit Hollywood 99 years ago, it seemed as though every picture contained a song in order to exploit the new technology. The same was also true in the case of British cinema in the 1960s, as producers sought to cash in on the beat boom by shoehorning groups into their films or commissioning chart-friendly tunes to play over montages or credit sequences.

Tommy Steele had started the trend in the late 1950s, to be followed by Cliff Richard, whose 1961 Elvis-inspired vehicle The Young Ones yielded the famous title song, which went straight to No.1 in the UK in January 1962, staying there for six weeks. It would later be named song of the year in Melody Maker. 

Cliff would appear in puppet form with The Shadows at The Swinging Star Club in Thunderbirds Are Go! (1966), while cartoon Beatles would sail to Pepperland in Yellow Submarine (1968). But The Rolling Stones considered themselves too cool to be lured into movies (until Jean-Luc Godard came along), even though The Dave Clark Five (Catch Us if You Can, 1965), Gerry and the Pacemakers (Ferry Cross the Mersey, 1964), the Small Faces (Dateline Diamonds, 1965) and The Spencer Davis Group (The Ghost Goes Gear, 1966) all took a turn before the cameras – and there was no escaping Freddie and the Dreamers. Yardbird Jeff Beck even got to smash his guitar into an amplifier during ‘Stroll On’ in the nightclub sequence in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blowup (1966).

Traditional musicals such as Half a Sixpence (1967), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Oscar-winning Oliver! (both 1968) were still being made, with Joe Brown seeking to put a pop spin on the format with What a Crazy World (1963) and Three Hats for Lisa (1965). But songs could pop up anywhere, with Cicely Courtneidge warbling ‘Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty’ (sampled by The Smiths on ‘The Queen Is Dead’) in The L-Shaped Room (1962) and Paul Jones  confessing ‘I’ve Been a Bad, Bad Boy’ in Privilege, while Terence Stamp covered Donovan’s ‘Colours’ in Poor Cow (both 1967) and Yul Brynner crooned ‘Mad About the Boy’ in drag between Badfinger numbers in The Magic Christian (1969).

Weighty films found ways of incorporating songs too, with ‘My Bonnie Moorhen’ and ‘Men of Harlech’ respectively featuring in Culloden and Zulu, while the climactic apocalypse in Dr Strangelove (all 1964) was accompanied by Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll Meet Again’. Lindsay Anderson took a more classical approach in If…. (1968) by using the Sanctus from Guido Haazen’s Missa Luba.

And don’t forget such siren songs as those from Alfie, Georgy Girl (both 1966) and To Sir, with Love (1967), which were impeccably performed by Cilla Black, Judith Durham of The Seekers, and Lulu. Petula Clark and Marianne Faithfull also excelled on ‘This Is My Song’ (A Countess from Hong Kong, 1967) and ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’ (The Girl on a Motorcycle, 1968), which were respectively penned by Charlie Chaplin and Bob Dylan.

There are dozens of other 60s screen songs we could mention. But we’ve opted for just one from each year. 

Set in the same Soho coffee shop milieu as Expresso Bongo (1959), this BBFC-baiting delinquency drama has a harder musical edge, thanks to the stringbeat sound fashioned by Vic Flick of The John Barry Seven. It drives through the title track before turning jangly in ‘Made You’, which is sung at Chislehurst Caves by leather-jacketed blond beatnik Dave (Adam Faith) as a come-on to coolly amused teenage rebel Jennifer (Gillian Hills). The BBC banned the song from radio airplay because of its “lewd and salacious lyric”. Nevertheless, it reached No.11 on the charts and broke the cine-pop song mould created for Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard. Moreover, it featured on Britain’s first-ever film soundtrack album, which helped land Barry and Flick the James Bond theme gig.

For the first 45 seconds of Jack Clayton’s monochrome adaptation of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, the CinemaScope screen remains dark, as a girl’s voice tremulously sings ‘O Willow Waly’, a lament for lost love. Composed by Georges Auric, with lyrics by Paul Dehn, this gothic waltz-time lullaby was actually performed by Isla Cameron (who plays Anna the maid and whose single version failed to chart). But it becomes synonymous with the orphaned Flora (Pamela Franklin). She probably heard it from the tragic predecessor of her governess Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr), who finds it unsettling, whether it’s tinkling in a musical box, being hummed or weaving through the nightmare that convinces her that Flora and her brother have been possessed by malevolent spirits. Once heard, never forgotten.

No one seems to know who sang ‘Black Leather Rock’. But, with its repetitive use of words like “smash”, “crash” and “kill”, it serves as a musical MacGuffin in Joseph Losey’s allegorical Hammer adaptation of the sci-fi novel The Children of Light by H.L. Lawrence. Blaring over opening views of Weymouth, the pounding rocker wrong-foots the audience into thinking that the main threat facing this postcard seaside resort is the leather-jacketed delinquent gang led by the tweed-wearing King (Oliver Reed), who takes a violently dim view of his sister Joan (Shirley Anne Field) having a yacht-board fling with older American tourist Simon Wells (Macdonald Carey). However, a much greater danger than thuggery lurks in the coastal caves, and it’s all the more terrifying because it’s government-sanctioned. 

Judy Garland had not sung on screen since A Star Is Born (1954), but she contributed five songs to Ronald Neame’s melodrama about a singer’s first meeting with the 12-year-old son she had entrusted to the care of his doctor father (Dirk Bogarde). The film echoes Garland’s own experiences and was due to be called The Lonely Stage. Instead, it was named after its only original song, ‘I Could Go On Singing’, which had been written for Garland by ‘Over the Rainbow’ team Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg. It’s heard three times in all, most notably during the finale, as an anthem of defiance in the face of suffering. Sadly, Garland would not make another picture before she died in London in 1969, aged 47.

Partly recorded in Paris, The Beatles’ sixth single plays over the sequence in which they lark about outdoors after scampering down a TV studio fire escape. John Lennon had approved director Richard Lester on the strength of his Goon short The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1959), and the shenanigans filmed at Gatwick Airport and Thornbury Playing Fields in Isleworth were essentially an improvised nod to the title, with Lester using handheld cameras, aerial shots, undercranking and slow motion to create a vibe that reflected both silent slapstick and the nouvelle vague. Lennon had originally written ‘I’ll Cry Instead’ for the segment, but Lester felt the lyrics were too sombre. Therefore, he opted for the peppier Paul McCartney composition, which can also be heard over the later police chase. 

Director Otto Preminger commissioned three tracks from The Zombies to play on the TV in the pub where Inspector Newhouse (Laurence Olivier) quizzes Ann Lake (Carol Lynley) about her missing daughter. The band had 10 days to write and record ‘Remember You’, ‘Nothing’s Changed’ and ‘Just out of Reach’, with the latter being heard in full to emphasise the elusive nature of a child who might not even exist. It also plays on the janitor’s radio when Ann escapes from hospital. Inspired by Nina Simone’s ‘Wild Is the Wind’, the song is performed on screen by writer Colin Blunstone. But Rod Argent took over when Preminger had it re-recorded as ‘Come on Time’, a bizarre radio promo that reminded patrons there would be no admissions once the film had started. 

When ‘singing bus driver’ Matt Monro attended the Royal Film Performance of Born Free at the Odeon, Leicester Square on 14 March 1966, he was surprised not to hear his theme tune during James Hill’s account of the relationship between Joy and George Adamson (Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers) and a Kenyan lioness named Elsa. He mentioned the fact to manager Don Black, who had written the lyrics to the stirring melody composed by John Barry. On learning that the producers felt the song was uncommercial, Black insisted on a truncated version being recorded to play over the closing credits. It promptly won the Oscar for Best Song, as did Barry’s score. Yet, even though it became Monro’s signature tune, his rendition failed to chart on either side of the Atlantic.

Thanks to Shirley Bassey’s ‘Goldfinger’ (1964) and Tom Jones’s ‘Thunderball’ (1965), the Bond theme had become a big number. Hired for this unofficial adaptation of Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel, Burt Bacharach composed bookending versions of his main theme, an instrumental by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass and a comic ditty hammily delivered by Mike Redway. Hal David wrote the lyrics, as he did for ‘The Look of Love’, a seductive bossa nova that was exquisitely performed by Dusty Springfield for the scene (filmed through a giant aquarium) in which Vesper Lynd (Ursula Andress) lures Evelyn Tremble (Peter Sellers) into her lair. The recipient of an Oscar nomination, the song was later heard in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), which it had helped to inspire.

Perhaps the song that echoes from the 1960s with the most urgency for us today concerns a bicycle made for two. In 1961, when John L. Kelly Jr and Carol Lockbaum demonstrated the IBM 7090 computer’s ability to use synthetic speech, they had it sing Harry Dacre’s 1892 ditty ‘Daisy Bell’. Arthur C. Clarke had witnessed a demonstration the following year, and he included the tune in the 2001 novel and screenplay to suggest the rogue HAL 9000 computer (voiced by Douglas Rain) reverting to a childhood-like state after Discovery One pilot Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) deactivates its memory. As HAL’s voice grows deeper, and the lyric becomes more indistinct, the audience finds itself feeling pity for an artificial intelligence that had abused its power and taken human life. 

Written by Quincy Jones and Don Black, the single culled from this iconic crime caper was Matt Monro’s ‘On Days like These’, the dreamy ballad played over the opening credits. But it has been totally overshadowed by the film’s raucous closing crawl counterpart. ‘Getta Bloomin’ Move On!’ begins with a harmonica wail, as Charlie Croker (Michael Caine) delivers the last line: “Hang on a minute lads, I’ve gotta great idea.” Better known as ‘The Self Preservation Society’, the future terrace anthem was inspired by Jones’s fascination with Cockney rhyming slang, which developed during the recording sessions at Olympic Studios. It was performed by the cast, including Caine, who considered Jones his celestial twin, as they had been born within an hour of each other on 14 March 1933.

The Young Ones is out on Blu-ray and DVD on 29 June.