The Smiley Smile Message Board

It's tough to start something like this. I'll just rattle off a list from the top of my head of some movies I think are great for any number of reasons. Some are obvious, almost too obvious (Godfather, etc...) but they always belong on these lists because they're just that good and unforgettable. Just the list of some titles first, by no means complete:

Network
The Conversation
Charley Varrick
Chinatown
The Last Picture Show
Taxi Driver
Harry And Tonto
The Andromeda Strain
The Godfather 1 & 2
Dog Day Afternoon
All The President's Men
Rocky
Dirty Harry
The Parallax View
American Graffiti
Duel
The Sting
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Serpico

EDIT: Must add Cold Turkey to this list.  :)

Honorable Mention/Addendum:
We Can't Go Home Again - I include this one because it is absolutely one of the most bizarre, most confusing, and most visually addictive films I have ever seen, and while I can't say it's a great movie or even enjoyable to watch (I got mad several times watching it because it was so scattered), it is one of the most compelling and frustrating films I've seen in the past 10 years and I can't shake it. Has a bit of a "Smile" deal going for it too, where Nicholas Ray never finished it and was constantly tinkering with it and re-editing it up to his death, never satisfied with what he saw. I asked several times why am I watching this but couldn't stop watching it, too.

And I noticed I have no comedies on that list.  :)

I have heard of all of these but alas haven't watched most of them.  I have seen One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, it affected me quite deeply. And who doesn't love Rocky ;)   Have you seen A Clockwork Orange?  Disturbing but mesmerising, I'm a fan of Stanley Kubrick.   Another that I like from that time is Play Misty For Me, mainly because it's eerie and the beautiful scenery.   

Have you watched a documentary called Ozploitation?  It's about Australian films from the late 60's and 70's, it has excerpts of interviews with Tarantino, who is a huge fan of the genre.  I tell you they made some creepy bizarre films here!

Rocky and Network are two favorites. American Graffiti captures the youth culture that the Beach Boys came into and grew up in perfectly.

I want to like Taxi Driver.  I really do.  The direction is tight, the performances are great, the photography is outstanding, and the NYC locations are incredible.  But man, I loathe that script.  It doesn't work for me at all.

Since this is a spin off from the Two Lane Blacktop thread, has anyone seen Road Movie (1974)?  Very overlooked film.

For me personally, the most important films from this time frame are:

Two Lane Blacktop (1971)
The Last Movie (1971)
The Last House on the Left (1972)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Deep Red (1975)

That was off the top of my head so I'm sure I missed something.  I left out C0ckfighter (1974) only because Monte Hellman is already represented.

That's the problem with making these lists - off the top of our heads, we usually miss something, then going back to list all those which were missed gets crazy!

I will definitely look into the Ozploitation films, I definitely haven't seen them but they sound interesting!

One that stood out for me recently was "Rocky". Everyone knows it, it became a franchise, but I was watching a documentary on the film recently and what gets lost in the fame and reputation are the technical aspects of that film, which were groundbreaking for its time.

Most people rightfully consider a scene like the long shot from Goodfellas tracking through the Copa as one of the best, but this documentary mentioned the montage of Rocky running and training through the streets of Philly, ending in the ultimate climax of him running up the steps of the Art Museum and looking out over the morning skyline with arms raised in victory - that scene is an icon, people still copy it when visiting Philly. That was the first time the "Steadicam" had been used, and the scene was shot by the guy who invented the Steadicam! It's an amazing scene that would not have been possible without that guy or his contraption, and it's a scene that got so deeply entered into pop culture history, it's been taken for granted how amazing that must have looked when the film was new and the tech-minded film buffs were all amazed at how that scene was captured.

It's one of those neat moments that we might overlook, but one of those technical developments which made a sleeper of a film like Rocky a great film beyond its success and fame as the blockbuster it became.

And that's the issue too: I realized a lot of the films I listed were "hits" or mainstream popular, but at the same time consider just how good if not great many of these were, and how influential these were. Was it a time when art and big-money success (i.e. 'commerce') existed side-by-side? At least two on the initial list spawned a cottage industry of sequels which became pop culture icons.

This happens to be, by far and away, my favourite era of American cinema. There's a lot of great movies to choose from and all the ones you listed were great. In the same vein, I love Robert Altman's Nashville, Terrence Malick's Badlands, and John Cassevetes' A Woman Under the Influence. In terms of comedy, I think that Woody Allen's movies from that era are great too, from the zany absurdist comedies to the more "sophisticated" movies like Annie Hall and Manhattan.

Part of the reason these movies are both hits and also artful and, in many ways, daring, is because the studio system had largely collapsed and so there really wasn't much of what we would today call blockbuster popcorn flicks being produced. Most of what was being made available were small, personal films. Even the first few Spielberg films fall under this category. It's funny because today the big studios seem to assume that people just wouldn't be interested in these kinds of movies but they certainly seemed to be in the 70s.

The Parallax View with Warren Beaty is a great 70's conspiracy thriller as is Night Moves staring the best actor ever Gene Hackman.

I also must be highly unoriginal and give a shout out to Jaws, one of my all time top 3 films. I never tire of watching it.

Watched Barry Lyndon yesterday, such a classic movie.

Clockwork orange, heeelllooo?

IMO
Taxi Driver is the most significant movie from that time period. It's weird though because I see it as a deep, philosophical movie but the screenwriter is one of those sleazy types who is all about commercial success and using the hollywood formulas for storytelling.

Godfather is the most entertaining en well put together movie.

I deliberately left off a few, again this was off the top of my head with a few minutes' thought in listing these, but one that I did leave off was because I felt the book was much better than the film. Guess which one... ;D

Seriously though, a few omissions I'd add now would be Nashville: I think Altman's overlapping dialogue and fast-talking conversations found a *perfect* match with his subject matter in Nashville's country scene at that time. That whole scene is filled with big talkers, loud talkers, boastful and bloated bullshit artists, and people who basically like to hear themselves talk loud and expect to get paid for doing so, all the while wearing outrageous clothes. Altman's frenetic dialogue matched up quite well, and I think the only comparable subject matter he tackled since filming Nashville was when he featured similar bloated fast talkers in "The Player".

And The French Connection...which I left off simply because I have still (shamefully) not seen the entire film and didn't feel I could list anything I wasn't familiar with! That is on my watch list for 2013 for sure.

I also wanted to throw something out there related to this era and some of the classics from this era. Was this perhaps the last era where realism in film was the driving force? This hit me when looking over more titles from this time, and what I saw was the most successful films of this era were either based on true stories, were featuring real people rather than fantasy characters and superheroes, and were showing what were real concerns and real everyday events rather than, say, time travel or aliens landing on Earth.

Maybe subconsciously I cut off the year at 1976 because right after this, the notion of the blockbuster fantasy and pure escapism became the order of the day from Hollywood when successful movies were being considered, and it was naturally Spielberg and Lucas among others who were leading the pack.

Was it something in society, was it just the changing nature of the audience, was it generational, or was it just a cyclical thing in audience preferences for pure fantasy escapism over reality which led to this?

Consider 1977 onward into the 80's: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Superman, ET, Close Encounters, Back To The Future, all the related sequels and knock-offs...It was so far removed from any sense of a real situation which could happen to any of us watching the movie. The big hits were taking us so far beyond reality, the fantasy became reality especially in the minds of kids who could also buy a Luke Skywalker toy or a Superman cape or an Indiana Jones whatever and live out the fantasy at home on their own terms.

Whereas a few years before, were there any Woodward and Bernstein action figures?  :-D

I think the 71-76 period may have been close to the crime dramas and film noir of the 40's and early 50's. A lot of them had flawed main characters who often got swept up into situations which were much larger than them and which they had to confront or be swallowed up inside the deeper organizations running them. But these were regular people, even though they were flawed and not always the type to be admired, and they were going about their everyday lives however seedy that might be and happened to get caught up in a bad situation.

It's the "everyman" as lead character that I think a lot of the films which were successful between 71-76 had in common. There was no superhero, no hero at all who could appear and fix all the troubles. That, at this time, seemed to be coming from television. Then after 1977, it seemed to dominate the more successful films, the notion of old-time swashbuckling heroes and larger than life characters who could save the day as an afterthought.

There is nothing wrong with either one, after all film in general is ultimately escapist entertainment, but I'm wondering what events or what kind of mindset led to the shift from reality to pure fantasy at this particular time in film.

The cynic in me thinks that says that movies became more fantasy and more geared towards children when execs realised how much $$$$ they could make through toys and other tie in merchandise. It had happened in the early 70's with Planet of The Apes but Star Wars had sent that part of the industry into - pardon the pun - orbit.

I really don't know why you're taking issue with Paul Schrader's work here. Perhaps you're annoyed with statements he may have made in commentaries or interviews, but his work as a screenwriter and director has rarely devolved into "Hollywood formula". As a result, he hasn't had much commercial success if, indeed, that's what he wanted to achieve. Given that this man is responsible for TAXI DRIVER, RAGING BULL, THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, HARDCORE and MISHIMA among other individualistic films belies any consistent artistic surrender to "formula".

As to early-70s cinema, it's a favorite era of mine as well. I'd add Bob Rafelson's THE KING OF MARVIN GARDENS as a truly great work from this period (if you'd allow films from 1970 to be included, then his FIVE EASY PIECES would be another winner).

Comedies? All of Woody Allen's work from this period is hilarious as well as Mel Brooks' efforts. WHAT'S UP DOC? is damn funny as well!

Are we only talking about American movies?  There are a lot of other great movies from this time period, such as:

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Luis Bunuel, France)
The Phantom of Liberty (Luis Bunuel, France)
The Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, Spain)
The Traveler (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran)
The Passenger (Michelangelo Antonioni, some kind of co-production involving several countries)
The Ceremony (Nagisa Oshima, Japan)
In the Realm of the Senses (Nagisa Oshima, Japan)
Turkish Delight (Paul Verhoeven, the Netherlands)
Katie Tippel (Paul Verhoeven, the Netherlands)
Frenzy (Alfred Hitchcock, UK)

As for American movies, no one has mentioned Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller or The Long Goodbye yet.

Paul Schrader? Hollywood formula? That makes my head spin. His body of work is so spiky, strange, and isolated -- I can't imagine a less stereotypical studio system worker ant.  Now might be a good time to fire up  BLUE COLLAR or LIGHT SLEEPER.

His stuff might make you a bit depressed, but what films! Anybody who writes lyrics for Captain Beefheart is good people in my book.

(http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc6/251180_4689133910175_1398732025_n.jpg)

Can't imagine you're thinking about the right person. Are you sure you're not thinking about Robert Towne who wrote movies like Chinatown but also Mission Impossible and its sequel.

Can't believe I forgot the Antonioni film The Passenger. Incredible movie.

A little known horror gem called "Let's Scare Jessica to Death" is worth any fan of the genres time. It's director was the original director on Jaws 2 before the studio fired him. I would have loved to see what he could have done with the movie. A few of his shots are still in the final cut.

Actually Jaws 2 makes a good example of the change in Hollywood thinking after the mid 70's. The original director was fired because they thought his vision was too dark and character orientated and instead went with a much more action paced direction.

 Yes, this was one of the better eras in American movies, a time when the mainstream included many cinematic masterpieces. Then STAR WARS ruined everything....

 Nice call on LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH, a creepy little film that probably was made in part due to the impact of EASY RIDER.

 Jessica Walter deserved an Academy Award nomination for her performance in MISTY.

There is nothing wrong with either one, after all film in general is ultimately escapist entertainment, but I'm wondering what events or what kind of mindset led to the shift from reality to pure fantasy at this particular time in film.
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Yes it's an interesting question.  I was thinking that it could be partly due to advances in cinematic technology, graphics ect, which are not warranted on films such as Harold and Maude, but can be used to full effect on the big fantasy blockbusters Star Wars and the like.  I don't know about that era and the consumer public because I was only a child but I know now that I usually only go to the movies to see movies with special effects or that I think would look great on the big screen,  anything else I wait for DVD or download.  Though that wasn't really an option then, did people wait for it to come to TV,  did they have more patience than we do? ;)

When I was about 11-13 I used to stay up late when my family was in bed and watch the late old movies,  I remember Midnight Cowboy,  Dead Man's Curve, Play Misty For Me and many, many old vampire films from this time. I loved it.

 
Barry Lyndon is the only one of Kubrick's I haven't watched!!  Must rectify this..   I'm pretty sure I've read the book though?  I read a LOT.

There are a lot of interesting titles on this thread and I look forward to chasing them up.    Jessica Walter in Misty?  It's the precursor to Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.  She was terrifically psychotic.

I've got more coming, from my favorite era! But I'm glad there was a year limit on this, because despite having a few notables fall just out of range, it was literally a seismic shift after 1977 and it all changed.

I would absolutely, positively add the film "Saturday Night Fever" to the list, but officially that was 1977. And thinking about that, it hit me that it wasn't just Star Wars that spawned the cross-promotional and marketing blitz which led to all of the tie-ins, toys, licensing for everything from cereal to Chewbacca slippers.

Consider Saturday Night Fever and the impact it had on music. That soundtrack still ranks among the biggest selling albums of all time, and recall it was a double album! It was done on television, it was done in film many times before, but consider the fact that not one single artist featured on that album appears on screen anywhere in the SNF film. Yet the Bee Gees for one became mega-stars from their music appearing in the film in such a prominent role. Yet they are nowhere to be seen in the film, which was a break from the earlier pop-rock band films, or heck even the Elvis films where he was the star and he appeared on screen singing the tunes.

You had Star Wars opening up the gates for kids to beg their parents for whatever sh*t the Kenner company would put in the stores, or C-3PO cereal and whatnot, but you also had Saturday Night Fever having a massive impact on the marketing of music and film...that soundtrack was beyond massive, it was all but dominant on the charts - and usually when that happens, like Star Wars, they try to duplicate the formula because it made so much money.

And I do believe the kind of success SNF had was a catalyst too in the kinds of movies to come in the next 10 years, and the kinds of possible tie-ins with music and fashion beyond the kids' stuff and toys.

Star Wars took the kids stuff from television (where it had always been since the 50's except the Saturday afternoon matinees) to the really big screen, and the toys took it into the stratosphere. I think that focus on marketing to kids pretty much killed a lot of the types of films which are on the list in this thread. I don't think studios wanted realism if there wasn't a toy campaign which could be spun around the film.

It's surprising we still were able to get Kramer Vs. Kramer or The Verdict when we did. Or is it?

My faves from that time period (in preferential order, roughly):

Love and Death
The Exorcist
Badlands
Aguirre: The Wrath of God
Jaws
Dog Day Afternoon
Barry Lyndon
Nashville
Bananas
California Split
A Real Young Girl
The Last Picture Show
Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex...
The Discreet Charm of The Bourgeoisie
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Bound For Glory

There's a lot I haven't seen.

Nice to see some votes for Bunuel (I marginally prefer Phantom of Liberty over Discrete Charm) but my very favourite director from this period is Claude Faraldo whose 'Bof' and 'Themroc' had  a massive impact on me.

I have lots of love also for Fellini ('Roma' and 'Amarcord') and Pasolini's great trilogy (The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales and Arabian Nights) as well, of course, as Salo.

Let us also not forget Lindsay Anderson's 'If' and 'O Lucky Man'.

You're right. It is a break from that style of film from the 60s where they cut away to a band playing in some kind of go-go club for a few minutes. But the SNF/Bee Gees style relationship was not entirely unprecedendent - though, as you say, the level of success they achieved from the relationship was. But Simon and Garfunkel probably had more success from The Graduate than anywhere else at that point in their careers. And wasn't Harold and Maude mostly Cat Stevens? (that film though bombed at the time, I think).


There were other good ones too and the spirit of the era still seems to be alive in independent cinema but it is different from when these type of movies dominated.

This documentary is good and may answer some questions as well as stoke the fire of our 70s era obession:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7emBSfwbgro (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7emBSfwbgro)

EDIT: Hope that video isn't national-only too...

Not to be overly reductive, but the shift away from the types of movies being made in the early 70s to the post-STAR WARS films came down to two things: 1) By the latter half of the decade, many of the major studios had been bought by corporations known for selling things other than entertainment (Coca-cola buying Columbia Pictures for example) and 2) Films aimed at a teenage audience were making huge amounts of money.

That traditional studio product was not succeeding as well as more experimental product like EASY RIDER (an American response to the French New Wave) opened the gates for the type of material that was green-lit during the early 70s. However, by mid-decade, the marketing tie-ins and teen-oriented blockbusters became a new formula that worked for the studios. While there has been a lot of shining moments since then including the rise of a more visible independent cinema, the emphasis is now increasingly on sequels, remakes and comic books, anything that can be understood in a sentence or less.

The worst thing about Hollywood now is the endless remakes. What bugs the sh*t out of me is why someone would go to watch the new Spiderman or Texas Chain Saw Massacre remakes when the films they are copying are remakes themselves and only about a decade old?

Well, Texas Chainsaw 3D isn't a remake.  It's actually a direct sequel to the original 1974 film that ignores the other three sequels (which kind of ignored each other), the remake, and the prequel to the remake.

None of this in any way invalidates your point though.  :)

From the first post;  Harry and Tonto.    Watched this last month for the 1st time in many years.  This time, I saw it through much older eyes.   For the rest of you aging boomers who haven't seen this or haven't seen it for 40 years, I would recommend finding a copy. 

I love movies from the 70's, especially those depicting New York City.

My faves from the period indicated:

Jaws
Rocky
Taxi Driver 
The Poseidon Adventure
The Conversation 
Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
Badlands
Chinatown
The French Connection 
Dirty Harry 
Harold and Maude
Straw Dogs 
Deliverance 
The Godfather 
The Godfather Part II 
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 
Marathon Man 
Network 
Shampoo
The Parallax View 
Three Days of the Condor 
All the President's Men 
The King of Marvin Gardens 
Papillon 
American Graffiti
The Exorcist
The Last Detail 
Mean Streets 
Paper Moon 
Serpico 
The Sting 
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
Harry and Tonto 
Lenny 
Death Wish 
The Longest Yard 
Dog Day Afternoon 
Carrie 
F For Fake
Outlaw Josey Wales
Silver Streak
Two Lane Blacktop
Young Frankstein