1970's Movies

[Doctor Strange]

The 70s were undoubtedly a really good period for movies, but since I experienced most of them theatrically when they were new (I was 15 in 1970), they just don't have the attraction for me that older films do. I am much more dedicated to the "classical" studio films of the 20s-50s than the new age/TV-trained directors/movie brats/whatever trends of the 60s/70s.

It's a weird aspect of my nostalgia affliction that I am far more interested in stuff before my times than of my times. (Though unlike many here, I don't have any of the angry "hate" for the 60s/70s that boiled over on now-closed threads. Sure, there was dumb stuff in those decades, but there was good stuff too, and it was hardly the end-of-the-good-old-days tragedy that some folks here seem to consider it.)

Perhaps that's just part of the nature of nostalgia, which selectively romanticizes the past - maybe if you didn't experience it first-hand at all, it's actually easier...

 

[Nathan Dodge]

The 70s were undoubtedly a really good period for movies, but since I experienced most of them theatrically when they were new (I was 15 in 1970), they just don't have the attraction for me that older films do. I am much more dedicated to the "classical" studio films of the 20s-50s than the new age/TV-trained directors/movie brats/whatever trends of the 60s/70s.

It's a weird aspect of my nostalgia affliction that I am far more interested in stuff before my times than of my times. (Though unlike many here, I don't have any of the angry "hate" for the 60s/70s that boiled over on now-closed threads. Sure, there was dumb stuff in those decades, but there was good stuff too, and it was hardly the end-of-the-good-old-days tragedy that some folks here seem to consider it.)

Perhaps that's just part of the nature of nostaligia, which selectively romanticizes the past - maybe if you didn't experience it first-hand at all, it's actually easier...

I agree with you on (nearly) every point! I haze zero nostalgia for my "coming of age" decade, the eighties, but am endlessly fascinated by what came before my time. I love both the Golden Age and the 60s-70s, though I prefer the first half of the 70s to the second half, and the last half of the 60s over the first!

And IMO the sixties didn't truly end until around 1973---there's just so much overlap, culturally speaking.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

What a flashback. I haven't seen this one since the late 70s. Bronson was the man.

I hadn't seen The Mechanic in about twenty-five years, but certain aspects of it stayed with me, and I obviously appreciate the film more now on a different level as an adult than I did as a thirteen year old.

Yes, Bronson was the man and the 70s was his decade as a superstar. I enjoyed The Mechanic so much I bought the original U.S. and Japanese posters. They would look too odd hanging in my 1924 bungalow so for now they are in storage...

Here's another worthy Bronson film: Mr.Majestyk

Bronson was born in 1921, what's so out of place? If they made Mr. Majestyk today, it would just be called "Majestyk" and Billy Bob Thornton would be the star.

So many times we hear about movie actors being "the real deal", but in Bronson's case, it's actually true. On the commentary track for Our Man Flint, it's said that genuine tough guys like Bronson, Lee Marvin, and James Coburn wouldn't even get past the studio gate for an audition nowadays...sad but true.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Nathan - The 60s ended even later on college campuses. Believe me, as somebody who was in college 1973-1977, I know. It wasn't until after Watergate and the end of American involvement in Vietnam that things really began to swing to the disco style-over-substance and self-indulgent hedonism that characterized the 70s.

But this was also true the decade before: the early (pre-Beatles) 60s were far more like the 50s than what we think of as the 60s... The classic "60s" was really more like 1964-1974.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

Nathan - The 60s ended even later on college campuses. Believe me, as somebody who was in college 1973-1977, I know. It wasn't until after Watergate and the end of American involvement in Vietnam that things really began to swing to the disco style-over-substance and self-indulgent hedonism that characterized the 70s.

But this was also true the decade before: the early (pre-Beatles) 60s were far more like the 50s than what we think of as the 60s... The classic "60s" was really more like 1964-1974.

In other words, the massive boomer sellout began full swing after 1974.

I have a mood I call my '65-'75 mood and my interests are primarily the TV shows, film music, and films of the period. For me, it begins with the James Bond craze and ends just before the premiere of JAWS in June, 1975. Though 64-74 would be more accurate, I guess.

You're right, 1963 is more like 1958 than 1968!

 

[Doctor Strange]

Yeah, more or less. We shouldn't over-generalize, but I will say this (again, based on my own experience):

I don't know that I'm typical of my mid-boomer cohort (born 1955), but when I was a junior/senior in college, I could see the difference between myself and people just a couple of years younger. I was still enthused with 60s idealism, an English major with vague dreams of getting into the film business, but most of the incoming freshmen were far more dedicated to making big bucks and having steady careers - pre-med, pre-law, business, and poly-sci majors. The enormous cultural shift of 1980, when idealism was abandoned for self-interest, was on the horizon...

I felt totally lost in the America of the 80s, an outdated idealist, but the folks a few years behind me (i.e., the late boomer cohort) were primed for it.

 

[just_me]

Nathan - The 60s ended even later on college campuses. Believe me, as somebody who was in college 1973-1977, I know. It wasn't until after Watergate and the end of American involvement in Vietnam that things really began to swing to the disco style-over-substance and self-indulgent hedonism that characterized the 70s.

But this was also true the decade before: the early (pre-Beatles) 60s were far more like the 50s than what we think of as the 60s... The classic "60s" was really more like 1964-1974.

Exactly right. The first half of the 70s was really an extension of the late 60s. To me the 60s were two distinctively different eras within one decade. The same with the 70s.

It was interesting, but many years ago a bunch of people I worked with threw a 60s party. Only people old enough to remember where they were when JFK was killed were invited. Everyone was asked to dress in what they thought of when they thought of the 60s.

There was a wide range from very straight, preppie collegiate types to Mary Quant type miniskirts and white disco boots to anti-war hippies. I was completey surprised because I thought everyone would come dresses similarly to me. lol

 

[Nathan Dodge]

BTW, a book I'm interested in reading is Easy Riders and Raging Bulls which chronicles this period of movie history. I think there's a corresponding documentary, as well.

Another 1970s movie I like a lot is Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Don't know your view of Peckinpah, but I find his ascent and precipitous decline one of the more interesting stories of the period. It'd be interesting to see what kind of movies he'd be doing today...same goes for his frequent collaborator, composer Jerry Fielding. Two leading lights that left us too soon.

 

[Feraud]

BTW, a book I'm interested in reading is Easy Riders and Raging Bulls which chronicles this period of movie history. I think there's a corresponding documentary, as well.

I've seen parts of the documentary and it is good. The IFC channel frequently shows it.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I'm not really a big Peckinpah fan. I like some of his movies (e.g., The Ballad of Cable Hogue), but I tend to prefer other 60s stylists like John Frankenheimer, Arthur Penn, Sidney Lumet, Franklin Schaftner, Tony Richardson, etc.

That's definitely a good book, BTW.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

I like all those directors you listed.

BTW, IMO Stella Stevens projects more charm, charisma, screen presence, and sex appeal in her first thirty seconds of screentime in The Ballad of Cable Hogue than most of today's "stars" have in their entire careers. She should've been Oscar nominated for that performance. But the public wanted "Bloody Sam" Peckinpah movies, not heartfelt character studies. Too bad Ballad wasn't made later in the decade, after the tumult had subsided.

 

[Pilgrim]

As someone who was in college from 1968-73, I agree that the 60's and 70's were two "split" decades. Movies through about 1966 are different from those running 1967-74 or so. I also agree there was a shift in the mid-70's, around '74 when the Watergate stuff had settled down a bit.

During that Vietnam unrest/Watergate era, movies tended to have highly ambiguous themes and especially ambiguous or depressing endings. Witness the end of Easy Rider and Vanishing Point two iconic movies that end with the protagonists dead. I can also thin of Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry, which ended up with all the main characters getting hit by a train.

There was a strong thread of fatalism in contemporary movies through that period. But of course, Westerns were still coming out, but they were less straight-ahead morality plays than they had been. Note the ambiguous ending of Valdez is Coming that I mentioned earlier, and consider the 1972 Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, which cast a very negative light on the oil industry. The martial arts movie was just emerging as a respectable form, thanks to Bruce Lee (Li). The chase movie had also emerged during that time period, starting with the notable Bullitt and continuing with Two-Lane Blacktop, Vanishing Point, and films such as the screen adaptation of Alistair MacLean's wonderful book (not as good a movie) Fear is The Key, which had a good chase sequence. The chase that emerged during that era is very much a part of any action movie today, with the Transporter series perhaps the prime example.

But some time in the mid-70's - about the time I and many other college students who bridged those decades entered the workplace - the movies changed again. The comment earlier in this thread does incline me to think that the maturing of that college generation had something to do with a changing trend in movies.

One thing that came to mind as I was writing this - Vietnam and Watergate are notable because they were watershed events that showed all members of the American public that our government often lies to us. There was a clear shift in movies (as in society) to viewing government with a much more suspicious eye after Watergate. The American public viewed government differently after that period, and it shows in movies. One of the first of these movies was Three Days of the Condor (1975), in which Robert Redford's character works for the CIA - which also tries to assassinate him.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

One thing that came to mind as I was writing this - Vietnam and Watergate are notable because they were watershed events that showed all members of the American public that our government often lies to us. There was a clear shift in movies (as in society) to viewing government with a much more suspicious eye after Watergate. The American public viewed government differently after that period, and it shows in movies. One of the first of these movies was Three Days of the Condor (1975), in which Robert Redford's character works for the CIA - which also tries to assassinate him.

The early 70s was a "Golden Age" for paranoia and fear of government. Scorpio, The Conversation, The Parallax View, and most notably All the President's Men all dealt with this. By the mid-1970s the superseriousness of the preceding decade must have given way to escapism. By 1977, stuff like Star Wars, Smokey and the Bandit, and Saturday Night Fever took the place of the more sophisticated plots of the first half of the 70s.

Great food for thought, everyone.

 

[HadleyH]

All of the movies already mentioned - plus - "SuperFly", "Cleopatra Jones" and "Shaft" this last one with its amazing soundtrack!

 

[SamMarlowPI]

can't forget Pam Grier...

 

[Feraud]

The early 70s was a "Golden Age" for paranoia and fear of government. Scorpio, The Conversation, The Parallax View, and most notably All the President's Men all dealt with this. By the mid-1970s the superseriousness of the preceding decade must have given way to escapism. By 1977, stuff like Star Wars, Smokey and the Bandit, and Saturday Night Fever took the place of the more sophisticated plots of the first half of the 70s.

Great food for thought, everyone.

Indeed.

 

[just_me]

When I think of movies in the 70s, besides a lot of the moves already mentioned, I also think of these:
Bless the Beasts & Children
The Harrad Experiment
The Strawberry Statement
Butterflies are Free
Harold and Maude
Billy Jack
Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me

 

[Pilgrim]

The comment about escapism is interesting, and I think it's on target.

Consider the depression - a high water mark of musicals and "feel good" movies designed to help people escape their daily lives and cheer up. Perhaps after the cynicism of the early 70's, people were ready for 1977's Saturday Night Fever (although it wasn't entirely an upbeat story) and the disco craze!

There has been speculation that the economic tribulations of the past year may prompt another round of upbeat movies, and musicals may return. I'd love to see it happen.

 

[Carlisle Blues]

All of the movies already mentioned - plus - "SuperFly", "Cleopatra Jones" and "Shaft" this last one with its amazing soundtrack!

Can you dig it?

The whole Blaxploitation genre served as a showcase for unbridled musical talent and experimentation. Not to mention the Wah-Wah pedal. lol lol

 

[Nathan Dodge]

Forgive me if I Ramble...

I'm probably just showing my age, but to me the 1970s was the last decade when movie stars, athletes, and musicians were truly "larger than life." I guess the seventies weren't nearly as "bad" as people claim they were! In that period you had actors--to name only the men-- Pacino, Nicholson, De Niro, Redford, Hackman, Hoffman, Beatty, Duvall, and Caan all doing tremendous work. There's nothing like that going on now. It was the last great age of film acting. Sure, critics decried the lack of glamour and the often graphic language and violence that came with the death of the Code, but the 1970s actors' talent was never in question.

I thought that with the passage of time the 1980s would shine. That hasn't been the case, at least for me, and I grew up during that decade. Too many empty epics and special effects extravaganzas that haven't aged well. Or maybe (*horrors*) I've just "grown up." (many would disagree with me on this). As I look back, I think my friends and I spent much of the 1980s immersing ourselves in the 1960s & 70s. We preferred Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and Lee Marvin over Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone. We also saw the TV shows of the earlier time as being superior to the shows from the 80s, save my beloved Magnum, P.I.

This thread has got me thinking, another reason why I enjoy these FL forums so much...