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Daily Archives: January 15, 2021

1973 Recap and Favorite Films

Posted on January 15, 2021 | 6 comments

I have now viewed 35 films that were released in 1973. A list can be found here. I saw a lot of good to great movies and am satisfied to move on to 1974. From the 1001 Movies List, I did not revisit The Exorcist and did not watch Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Turkish Delight, and The Mother and the Whore. I had previously reviewed Enter the Dragon. My Favorites List is in no particular order. I had 13 movies rated at 9/10 so I’m just going to list all of them.

Fantastic Planet – Directed by Rene Laloux

Amarcord – Directed by Federico Fellini

Don’t Look Now – Directed by Nicolas Roeg

The Wicker Man – Directed by Robin Hardy

Love and Anarchy – Directed by Lina Wertmuller

Papillon – Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner

Day for Night – Directed by Francois Truffaut

The Sting – Directed by George Roy Hill

American Graffiti – Directed by George Lucas

The Friends of Eddie Coyle – Directed by Peter Yates

Paper Moon – Directed by Peter Bogdanovich

Badlands – Directed by Terrence Malick

Spirit of the Beehive – Directed by Victor Erice

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Posted in 1973, Top Ten Lists

Sleeper (1973)

Posted on January 15, 2021 | 5 comments

Sleeper
Directed by Woody Allen
Written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman
1973/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/My DVD collection
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Miles Monroe: My brain? It’s my second favorite organ!

One of the last of Woody Allen’s silly movies, this combines slapstick humor, random gags, and satire. It’s pretty funny and we find out that Mid-20th Century Modern architecture still convinces as futuristic in 2173.

Miles Munroe (Allen) was a clarinetist and health food store owner way back in 1973. Complications of a minor surgery cause his body to be cryogenically frozen. He is illegally thawed out in 2173 by scientists who want to use him to help revolutionaries in the Underground infiltrate the secret Aires project. The above ground society is ruled by a Great Leader and questions nothing. The conformists are also frigid and have sex with the help of an orgasmatron machine.

Miles undergoes many obstacles on his way to Aries project disguised as a robot. First he shows up at the door of Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton), a conformist and very bad poet. She is terrified but eventually helps him.

En route Luna becomes a member of the underground and convinces a very reluctant Miles to become involved in revolution.

This movie is one gag after another – if one doesn’t make you laugh, the next probably will. We see Allen taking on increasingly sophisticated projects from a production point of view and this looks pretty fabulous. Recommended for those looking for a good time. Allen wrote the Dixieland jazz score.

This concludes my viewing for 1973. I finally got my hands on a Sleeper DVD I could play on my player the very last day!