1 9 6 4 - 'Noite vazia', 'Lampião, rei do cangaço', 'À meia noite levarei sua alma'

19 March 1964 - Paul Sylbert's 'Sugar Loaf' (Pão de Açucar) starring Italian middle-age heart-throb Rossano Brazzi, Yankee red-head Rhonda Fleming and Brazilian blonde Odete Lara with music especially written by rock'n'roller Neil Sedaka. It opened in Rio de Janeiro in March... but São Paulo only saw it 6 months later.

7 September 1964 - Six months after premiering in Rio, 'Pão de Açucar' (Sugar Loaf) is finally released in São Paulo. 

6 September 1964 - OESP columnist doesn't know much about 'Sugar Loaf' or its director but praises Annick Malvil, Carlos Alberto and Odete Lara. 

19 March 1964 - Vera Cruz production of 1951, 'Angela' with Alberto Ruchel before he became world famous due to his appearance in 'O cangaceiro'; Eliana Lage and Ruth de Souza in an Abilio Pereira de Almeida's story.

28 July 1964 - Directed by Roberto Pires based on a real story, 'Crime do Sacopã' was shot in 1963, but opened in early 1964 in Rio de Janeiro. The cast had Lieutenant Alberto Jorge Franco Bandeira, the man unjustly accused of killing a bank-clerk in a gelousy frenzy. The crime was never solved and Bandeira was eventually pardoned by President Juscelino Kubitschek. 

Lieutenant Bandeira's judgement was a media circus. 

Besides Lieutenant Bandeira the cast had Adriano Lisboa, Agildo Ribeiro, Iris Bruzzi, Mario Benvenuti.

1st August 1964 - Brazil and Brazilian things were the subject matter of the year. Brazil seen by lens of North-Americans ('Sugar Loaf') or Europeans in 'Copacabana Palace' where Bossa-Nova and Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfá were in the forefront.

Luiz Bonfá, João Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim (with Sylva Koscina) play Bossa Nova at Copacabana Beach to their admirers...

1st August 1964 - OESP columnist didn't have much to say about 'Copacabana Palace' an Italian-French-Brazilian co-production. Starred by the best European talent like Sylva Koscina, Milene Demoneot, Walter Chiari and the best Brazilian crowd like Tonia Carrero, Cyll Farney, Doris Monteiro, John Herbert, Irina Greco, Celso Faria.

At the last week of 1964 you could go out and see the best of Brazilian movies. Look at the choices:

20 December 1964 - this was the closest you ever got to a Brazilian 'super-production'. After 10 years since the release of 'O cangaceiro' in 1953, they hadn't used the genre dry yet. Leonardo Villar who had starred in 'O pagador de promessas' in 1962 was the highest paid cinema actor in the country. 'Lampião, rei do cangaço' was first released on 15 September 1963.

20 December 1964 - Walter Hugo Khouri's 'Noite vazia' (Empty night) with Norma Benguel & Odete Lara was 'everything you always wanted to know about sex but was afraid to ask' before Woody Allen thought about it. Of course it's just a joke. This was a ponderous movie about 2 middle-class couples who are bored with themselves and go out into the night in search of kinky sex. 

'Noite vazia' director Walter Khouri gives direction to Italian actor Gabriele Tinti and Mario Benvenutti in 1964. 

20 December 1964 - Suddenly it looked like the Brazilian movie indutry decided to embrace all Hollywood genres in one go: Westerns? We've got them! Horror movies? No problem! Jose Mojica Marins was an independent director who produced his own movies. 'À meia-noite levaria sua alma' (I will take your soul away at exactly mid-nigh) was perhaps the best of his career. In 1967, Mojica released his second most horrible movie called 'Esta noite encarnarei no teu cadaver' (Tonight I will take possession of your corpse'.