"It Was Just '66 And Early '67"

The Limey, Steven Soderbergh's 1999 film, remains relatively unknown, sandwiched between two of his hits, Out of Sight (excellent, and the best movie made by both George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez) and Erin Brockovich (mediocre), but is worth watching.  Terence Stamp plays Wilson, a career criminal from Britain, recently released from his third stint in prison, and come to America to seek vengeance for the death of his daughter, a daughter who turned him in because of his refusal to change his ways.

Wilson's ultimate target is Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda), a jaded Hollywood record producer with a much younger girlfriend, the replacement for Wilson's daughter after her death, who now dabbles in drug deals to support his lavish lifestyle.  In one scene, Valentine's girlfriend asks him what the Sixties were like and in response he offers a soundbite of the superficially profound insights of that decade, and then admits even that was limited in time; "It was just '66 and early '67.  That's all it was".

Soderbergh cleverly uses casting and editing (a lot of cross-cutting and time shifts) to show the wreckage of the 60s.  In Stamp's case he uses footage from the 1967 film Poor Cow, in which he appears, looking young and optimistic, singing a Donovan song, in contrast to the white-haired, craggy, and deadened spirit we see now.  With Fonda (59 at the time of filming), we have one of the icons of the 60s, always associated with Easy Rider, now vainly cleaning the whitened teeth embedded within his plastic surgery face as he muses about the '60s from his perch atop the Hollywood Hills.  Here's the scene:



Intricately plotted, with striking cinematography, and Stamp cutting like a knife through the screenplay, The Limey is both violent and poignant, with some unexpected twists.

As an insight into the scrambled nature of THC's mind, the title line of this post popped into my head when my iPod shuffle brought up Monday, Monday by The Mommas & Pappas, released in March 1966, a song emblematic of that brief time Terry Valentine refers to in The Limey.


1966 was also the year of Sunshine Superman, Good Vibrations, and Revolver.  By early 1967 we see the first of the darker themed American bands appearing on the scene.  On January 4, The Doors released their first album.  First cut, first side: