FAHRENHEIT 451 (1967)

Technically, this is more fun than you may recall. Nicolas Roeg ’s colorful Pop-Art lensing & Tony Walton ’s pinch-penny production design emphasizing real locations passing as futuristic are fun & clever. But who approved the Keystone Kops uniforms for the "firemen?" Francois Truffaut, in his sole English language pic, trots out a passel of New Wave stylistic tics, sends his camera jogging after actors & plays with POV options, but there’s only so much he can do with Ray Bradbury ’s bargain-basement riff on his betters, like 1984 & BRAVE NEW WORLD. The actors are hardly at their best (Julie Christie doubly so) and the big hippie/commune ending supplies giggles instead of the cathartic, life-affirming/humanistic note aimed at. A thumping good score from Bernard Herrmann, fresh from getting axed on Hitchcock ’s TORN CURTAIN, works especially well when Truffaut stages a pitch-perfect Hitchcockian pastiche in a school hallway. Look sharp in this scene for a glimpse of Mark Lester a year before he starred in OLIVER!