I have great
memories of movies from the 70's. My mom and I would go to the movies on
Saturday, and I would be so stoked after seeing one movie that we would go see
another,... and sometimes we out on Sunday afternoon for another!! Great movies,
and great memories!
I wrote the text above the day I read
the article this excerpt is from:
“When
James Caan, who played Sonny Corleone in The Godfather, appeared in Cannes this
week, he delivered a stinging slap to modern Hollywood. “Most of the films
they’re doing, in Hollywood anyway, are these franchise films,” he said. “I’ve
become very negative about the films of today… I was very fortunate in the
1970s to work with the best actors, the best directors, and the best
cinematographers.”
One
might, perhaps, be tempted to dismiss it as the nostalgia of a veteran actor for
his own glory days, except that many other leading figures in cinema seem to
share his view. Caan’s latest film, Blood Ties, is set amid organised crime in
1970s Brooklyn – almost as though its director, Guillaume Canet, yearned to
dive back into the era and the city that spawned that decade’s gritty
masterpieces, from Mean Streets to Serpico.”
__________________________
Today I
did some research, and made a list of movies that we went to the theaters to
see… I compiled my list from this link after reviewing the first 350 movies on
their seemingly endless list…..
To
begin with I read the teen magazines (16, Tiger Beat, Spec, etc.), which
initially were passed down by one of my older nieces. So, in my memory the first movie I asked my
mother to take me to see was Romeo and Juliet http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063518/ starring Len Whiting and Olivia Hussey, in
1968. I was a child, and my mother asked
me several times if I was sure I wanted to see this movie…. I think I was 8
years old. My mother was totally
mystified by my request, nonetheless she took me to see the movie, at a movie
theater that used to exit on the north side of the Randhurst Mall shopping
center in Mount Prospect, Illinois. I of
course had no clue what this movie was going to be, I just knew that I read
about and it was a “must see” movie. I
LOVED IT!! Kind of adult themes, if you think about it, but I understood it
enough –I knew that Juliet was not really dead, and I was horrified to realize
what Romeo was doing. My first
introduction to the power of love. I am
not sure, in retrospect, whether to be happy or horrified that my mother took
me to see this movie before I was even 10 years old. But that was the real beginning of my intense
love of movies and actors. And when I
say “actors” that, for me, encompasses any actor: female or male.
It
is absolutely true that occasionally we would see one movie as early in the day
as possible, and then travel to another movie house and view a second movie in
the same Saturday. And then see another
movie on Sunday….
The
listing I reviewed, prior to this writing, was only the TOP 350 films released
between 1970 and 1979, so there are a plethora of movies that we saw in
theaters that I don’t have on my list.
Of course some movie titles remind me of other movies we saw, so it will
follow that I will include movies not on that particular list here.
And
I agree completely with James Caan: “the 1970s ….. the
best actors, the best directors, and the best cinematographers.” The BEST movies, because they just don’t make them like that any
longer. That is why I am writing this. I
am so grateful to my mother for indulging my need to go to the movies, and to
see more, more, more movies. And at the
same time, looking at that list of 350 films –we saw only a handful! It boggles
the mind.
From Paper Moon to Blazing Saddles and
Young Frankstein,…. The Panic in Needle Park to Billy Jack to The Way We Were….
we went to the movies and saw a great cross-section of what Hollywood was
churning out, and every one was a new story, there was no predictability, it
was mind-boggling and amazing.
 |
| Tatum O'Neal as Addie and Ryan O'Neal as Mose Pray (Paper Moon) |
A lot of Robert Redford movies, but
that was the era when he made the most movies…. And I was obsessed with him for
a time…. It was my mother’s own fault.
Us girls wanted to see a rather violent, gritty movie called The Seven Ups
(starring Roy Scheider) ,… but the mom’s thought that was too violent. They
chose to take 2 thirteen year old girls to see The Way We Were,.. adult themes
and a simulated sex scene!! And Robert Redford looking so damn gorgeous in that
white Naval
uniform…….. (I never let my mother forget it!) I was in love!
 |
| Barbra Streisand as Katie and Robert Redford as Hubbell (The Way We Were) |
For the next 3 or 4 years I
purchased every magazine and newspaper I could find with anything about Robert
Redford in it. 4 scrapbooks later,
sometime after Three Days of The Condor, Redford slowed down and I was older, I
lost interest,…. I still love him, but I grew up. But along the way mom and I thoroughly
enjoyed The Great Waldo Pepper, Downhill Racer, Jeremiah Johnson, The Candidate, All the President’s Men, The
Sting, and the gorgeously filmed all-star The Great Gatsby, which will always
be my favorite movie, right after Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.
Here is a portion of my list: One Flew
Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Jaws (masterpiece!), American Graffiti, The Towering
Inferno, Bad News Bears, What’s Up Doc, For Pete’s Sake, Going In Style, Jesus
Christ Superstar, A Time To Run, MASH, SPYS, The China Syndrome, Gator (Burt
Reynold’s follow up to White Lightning), Willie Wonka and the Chocolate
Factory, The Cowboys, Billy Jack, Earthquake, Airport ’75, and so many more…
 |
| Terri Garr as Inga, Gene Wilder as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, and Marty Feldman as Igor (Young Frankenstein) |
I even talked my mom into taking me to
see some movies that gave her pause,…. Harry & Tonto –I was 13, I told her
it was about an old man and his pet cat –that was true! But there was some
pretty graphic language, and adult themes, ….
The Panic in Needle Park, “but mom, Al Pacino is in it.” and I will
still argue that it was a good idea for me to see at the age of 14 – it’s all
about heroin addicts, and it is graphic and it is gritty and realistic in
portraying an addict as a person who will sell their soul for the drug. (I never did more than smoke a little grass,
and I credit this movie with scaring me off of drugs forever.) …. And Dog Day
Afternoon, when I was 15, but mom was still objecting to the language, and what
she saw a hero worship of criminals. And I saw Pacino’s character, Sonny, as
pathetic. But I did love the films of
director Sidney Lumet.
 |
| Al Pacino as Sonny, and John Cazale as Sal (Dog Day Afternoon) |
Have I switched to director’s? yes,
off the top of my head: Sidney Lumet, Sydney Pollack, William Friedkin, David
Lean, Blatty, Coppola, Scorsese, Hitchcock (of course), Ridley Scott, and
Steven Spielberg….
Again, I am thankful that my mother
took me to the movies almost every weekend (between 1972 and 1976)…..because:
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