The Nixon Era

Jesse Walker has now gotten back to 1973, when Hollywood was still in the middle (or is it at the end?) of a revolution, with new filmmakers, new stars and new techniques challenging the old ways.

Here's his top ten:

1. F for Fake
2. The Long Goodbye
3. Badlands
4. The Last Detail
5. Charley Varrick
6. The Friends of Eddie Coyle
7. Mean Streets
8. Paper Moon
9. Day for Night
10. Sleeper

Must have been quite a year, because this is quite a list.

Orson Welles thought F For Fake might save his career, and he could go on making more film essays, building them in the editing suite out of variegated material.  Instead, it was a complete financial failure and he never finished another feature.  But time has been kind to the film, and many--like Jesse--now rate it highly.  I don't know if I'd go that far, but it would probably make my top twenty, and maybe top ten.

Jesse notes Jack Nicholson was on a streak in the early 70s, but so was Robert Altman, and The Long Goodbye is one of his more fascinating works.  Badlands starts Terrence Malick's amazing career and is as beautiful today as it was then.

Charley Varrick is one of my favorite action pictures of the 70s. Or should I say "action" pictures, since action in those days could be as discursive as My Dinner With Andre.  And knowing Walter Matthau stars in a role intended for Clint Eastwood only makes it better.  Meanwhile, The Last Detail has what may be Robert Towne's best script.  (Maybe someone should do a sequel with a couple of officials extraditing Randy Quaid from Canada.)

I've never seen The Friends Of Eddie Coyle all the way through. (What I saw didn't impress me, but I missed the first half so I really can't judge.) The one film on this list I think shouldn't be here is Mean Streets. Many consider it a modern classic, but while I recognize there's some intriguing acting and memorable moments, overall I find it a bit of a mess.

Paper Moon is a lot of fun (and, little did Bogdanovich know, the end of a run--it'd be followed by three high-profile flops).  Day For Night is about a subject Truffaut loves--film itself--and in doing so creating one of his best works.  I wish the title has been translated American Night, even though it would have confused everyone over here.  Sleeper is Woody Allen at his funniest, which is always top ten.

Here are Jesse's honorable mentions:

11. Scenes from a Marriage
12. Don't Look Now
13. Serpico
14. Juvenile Court
15. Frank Film
16. High Plains Drifter
17. The Sting
18. My Name is Nobody
19. Hell Up in Harlem
20. The Marcus-Nelson Murders

Jesse also tips his hat to O Lucky Man!.

I don't consider 11 top-notch Bergman, but I can see it on a top twenty list.  I'm not always warm to Roeg films, but 12 is still pretty interesting.  13 has a good central performance but I've always found it a bit slow.

Jesse likes Frederick Wiseman, and so do I, but I've never seen 14. Haven't seen 15 eithers.  It's a sign of how strong the year is, I guess, that the Eastwood film of the year didn't make the top ten.  I think it's good for a Clint film of the time, but I don't exactly love it.

17 would make my top ten.  It's a great example of what commercial Hollywood was capable of (though, looking back, ragtime to score a Depression film is weird).  Haven't seen 18 or 19.  20 is a made-for-TV movie that led to Kojak.

And the surrealist romp O Lucky Man! would probably make my top twenty.

Jesse chose just about all the films that would have made my top ten.  In fact, there's only one that he missed, but it's a big one--might even be #1 for the year:  American Graffiti.

Other films of the year I liked:

Electra Glide In Blue, Enter The Dragon, Fantastic Planet, Heavy Traffic, Let The Good Times Roll, Love And Anarchy, The Mad Adventures Of Rabbi Jacob, The Paper Chase, That’ll Be The Day, The Three Musketeers

Of films of interest:

40 Carats, Bang The Drum Slowly, Battle For The Planet Of The Apes, Black Caesar, Blume In Love, Cahill U.S. Marshall, Charlotte’s Web, Cleopatra Jones, Coffy, The Day Of The Dolphin, The Devil In Miss Jones, Digby The Biggest Dog In The World, Dillinger, Don’t Play Us Cheap, Emperor Of The North Pole, The Exorcist, Five On The Black Hand Side, Godspell,  Godzilla Vs. Megalon, The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad, The Harrad Experiment, Harry In Your Pocket, The Homecoming, The Iceman Cometh, Jeremy, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Last American Hero, The Last Of Sheila, The Laughing Policeman, Live And Let Die, Lost Horizon, The Mack, Magnum Force, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, Oklahoma Crude, Papillon,  Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid, Save The Tiger, Scarecrow, Schlock, The Seven-Ups, Shaft In Africa, Sisters, Soylent Green, Superdad, The Thief Who Came To Dinner, Tom Sawyer, A Touch Of Class, Walking Tall, Wattstax, The Way We Were, Westworld, White Lightning, The Wicker Man, The World’s Greatest Athlete