Best Music Movies of 1960

Set at the Newport jazz festival in 1958, this documentary mixes images of water and the town with performers and audience. The film progresses from day to night and from improvisational music to Gospel. It's a concert film that suggests peace and leisure, jazz at a particular time and place.

In this magical tale about the boy who refuses to grow up, Peter Pan and his mischievous fairy sidekick Tinkerbell visit the nursery of Wendy, Michael and John Darling. With a sprinkling of pixie dust, Peter and his new friends fly out the nursery window and over London to Never-Never Land. The children experience many wonderful and exciting adventures with the Lost Boys, Tiger Lily's Indian tribe, and Peter's arch enemy the dastardly pirate Captain Hook.

Ella Peterson works in the basement office of Susanswerphone, a telephone answering service. She listens in on others' lives and adds some interest to her own humdrum existence by adopting different identities for her clients. They include an out-of-work Method actor, a dentist with musical yearnings, and in particular playwright Jeffrey Moss, who is suffering from writer's block and desperately needs a muse.

Parisian nightclub owner Simone Pistache (Shirley MacLaine) is known for her performances of the can-can, a provocative dance recently outlawed for being immoral. Though her dancing delights patrons to no end, it also attracts the ire of the self-righteous Judge Philipe Forrestier (Louis Jourdan), who aims to punish her. The judge hatches a plot to photograph Simone in the act and ends up falling for her -- much to the chagrin of her boyfriend, handsome lawyer François Durnais (Frank Sinatra).

When billionaire Jean-Marc Clement learns that he is to be satirized in an off-Broadway revue, he passes himself off as an actor playing him in order to get closer to the beautiful star of the show, Amanda Dell.

Doctor Gulliver is poor, so nothing - not even his charming fiancée Elisabeth - keeps him in the town he lives. He signs on to a ship to India, but in a storm he's washed off the ship and ends up on an island, which is inhibitated by very tiny people. After he managed to convince them he's harmless and is accepted as one of their citizens, their king wants to use him in war against a people of giants. Compared to them, even Gulliver is a gnome.

When his father dies, poor Fella is left at the mercy of his snobbish stepmother and her two no-good sons Maximilian and Rupert. As he slaves away for his nasty step-family, Maximilian and Rupert attempt to find a treasure Fella's father has supposedly hidden on the estate. Hoping to restore her dwindling fortunes, the stepmother plans a fancy ball in honor of the visiting Princess Charmein whom she hopes will marry Rupert. Eventually, Fella's Fairy Godfather shows up to convince him that he has a shot at winning the Princess himself.

Stationed in West Germany, soldier Tulsa McLean (Elvis Presley) hopes to open up a nightclub when he gets out of the army. Tulsa may lack the capital for such a venture, but a chance to raise the cash comes his way through a friendly wager. Local dancer Lili (Juliet Prowse) is a notorious ice queen, and Tulsa bets everything he has that a friend of his can earn her affections. But, when that friend is dispatched to Alaska, it's up to Tulsa to melt Lili's heart.

The sheet music for Johann Strauss' "The Blue Danube" is constructed by moving musical symbols. A baton-toting conductor note tries to direct his fellow notes in performing this musical piece, but finds that one of the notes has become drunk after being inside the sheet music for "Little Brown Jug". The drunken note staggers goofily on the staves for the music of "The Blue Danube" and is chased by the conductor.