2 from '68: Skidoo (Otto Preminger) & The Legend of Lylah Clare (Robert Aldrich)

The 1968 40th anniversary celebrations--or condemnations--have already passed, but I thought I would commemorate two '68 films that seem close to the spirit of the New Hollywood even though they were made by two old Hollywood stalwarts, Robert Aldrich and Otto Preminger. These "offbeat" films made by older filmmakers were the sort ignored by Peter Biskind in his "history" of the times, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls.

Although Skidoo's key art depicts a woman's naked lower torso and unbuttoned jeans with the film's title dipping into her nether regions, it's the Lylah Clare artwork that is more shocking to my eyes.  A topless Kim Novak, in bed with another man, with a thumb placed provocatively in her mouth seems daring to me in 1968 or 2009.

You can't get either Skidoo or The Legend of Lylah Clare on any home video format, but you can find the trailers online and the films have aired on TCM in recent months: