Category Archives: 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

The Last Picture Show
Directed by Peter Bogdanovich
Written by Larry McMurtry and Peter Bogdanovich from McMurtry’s novel
1971/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Sonny Crawford: It could have been worse.
Sam the Lion: Yeah. You can say that about nearly everything, I guess.

What a year 1971 was for all those film school graduates!  In this one, young critic Peter Bogdanovich peaks early with a sophomore masterpiece.

The setting is small-town Analene, Texas in 1951.  The Old West died here years ago and the town’s death is following close behind.  The only attractions remaining are the pool hall, the cafe, and the movie theater, all owned by real-live old-time Texan Sam the Lion (Ben Johnson).  So both adults and teenagers seek excitement behind closed doors.  The principal teens we get to know are sensitive Sonny (Timothy Bottoms), slightly goofy Duane (Jeff Bridges), and his pretty girlfriend Jaycee (Cybill Shepherd).  Jaycee dreams of using her beauty as a ticket to bigger and better things.  Her pretty mother Lois (Ellen Burstyn) has similar ambitions for her daughter. Ambitions that do not include the hapless Duane.  Lois is having an affair with one of her oil man husband’s employees.

Jaycee isn’t doing too hot with the big city “in-crowd” and burns her way through both Duane and Sonny in her so far futile efforts to do so. In the meantime,  Sonny has an affair  his coach’s lonely, isolated wife Ruth (Cloris Leachman).  With Eileen Brennan as a maternal figure who runs the cafe.

[on making The Last Picture Show] I hope I’m not repeating what happened to [Orson Welles]. You know, make a successful serious film like this early and then spend the rest of my life in decline.  — Peter Bogdanovich

The plot sounds like a soap opera and in a way it is.  But the script reaches so far into the souls of its characters that the story turns out to be much much more.  The ensemble cast is perfect.  Bogdanovich shows his film geekery in all his films but by some special alchemy this one turned out to be less homage and more the definitive anti-Western. An absolute must-see.

Ben Johnson won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar and Cloris Leachman won for Best Supporting Actress.  The Last Picture Show was nominated for Best Picture; Best Supporting Actor (Bridges); Best Supporting Actress (Burstyn); Best Director: Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium; and Best Cinematography.

Murmur of the Heart (Le souffle au coeur)
Directed by Louis Malle
Written by Louis Malle
1971/France
First viewing/Criterion Channel
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Tagline: Who Would Have Thought a Film About Incest Could Be So Warm, So Fresh and So Funny?

Louis Malle is one of my favorite directors but this was a let-down.

Laurent Chavalier (Benoit Ferreux) is fourteen going on fifteen.  He lives with his boring pedantic gynecologist father, his gorgeous free-spirited Italian mother, and his two older teenage brothers, who revel in playing mean pranks.  The children are basically allowed to run wild as the parents are absent for significant periods of time.  Laurent is the only scholar in the bunch

Laurent is on the cusp of manhood.  His brothers buy a prostitute for him but play a mean trick before the big moment.  Laurent makes some comically awkward advances on girls his own age with little success.  He is discovering the pleasures of pornography and monopolizes the bathroom.  Lauren also discovers that her mother is meeting a lover on the sly.

About halfway through the story Laurent is diagnosed with a heart murmur.  The treatment is bed rest followed by a month at a health spa.  Mom dotes on him during his illness.  She also spends a lot of time running around the house in her underwear.  Then they go to the spa together and are forced to share the same room. Laurent meets some girls with whom he flirts.  Then the lover shows up.  I’ll stop here.  The last two or three minutes of this film are golden.

I just don’t think spoiled brats and their mean-spirited mischief are very funny.  So I had the same problem with this as I did with Malle’s Zazie dans le metro (1960).  This movie is full of that kind of stuff.  When it focuses mostly on Laurent’s woman problems, it can be amusing and even insightful.  The incest is treated as well as it possibly could have, but it’s still kind of icky.  It’s a beautifully made film. I will give it that.

Louis Malle received an Oscar nomination for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=597LmMREnsY&t=39s

McCabe and Mrs. Miller
Directed by Robert Altman
Written by Robert Altman and Brian McKay from a novel by Edmund Naughton
1971/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

When I left they were sleeping, I hope you run into them soon
Don’t turn on the lights, you can read their address by the moon
And you won’t make me jealous if I hear that they sweetened your night:
We weren’t lovers like that and besides it would still be all right. — “Sisters of Mercy”, lyrics by Leonard Cohen

A sad, depressing, beautiful movie.

It is the turn of the 20th Century somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.  John McCabe (Warren Beatty) is a gambler with a big dream.  He plans to make a fortune by running a saloon and brothel to occupy the workers at a remote mine.  He is kind of an oddball and greatly overestimates his business acumen.  His first attempt at the brothel is a disaster. Then Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie) arrives in town with a proposition.  She will run McCabe’s brothel and take half the profits.  Stunned by her beauty, McCabe agrees.  She brings in somewhat classier girls from Seattle.  Let the good times roll!

But McCabe’s dream was doomed by The Man from the start.  He just wasn’t savvy enough to realize it.  He falls in love with Mrs. Miller who continues to charge him for her favors.  McCabe’s outsized ego does not allow him to read the writing on the wall and sell out so he will have to be convinced by harsher means.

I have always loved this movie for its performances, its fabulous cinematography, and its great Leonard Cohen score.  It is sad as a love story and leaves me with a feeling of futility. Definitely belongs on the list though.

Julie Christie was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in McCabe and Mrs. Miller.  It certainly is a stunner!

The French Connection
Directed by William Friedkin
Written by Ernest Tidyman based on a book by Robin Moore
1971/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Tagline: Doyle is bad news – but a good cop.

Tagline not withstanding, I would argue that Doyle was a pretty bad cop and human as well.  This is a spectacular action thriller with a bleak and grimy center.

Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) is a detective on the NYPD narcotics squad.  He is crude and vulgar, swears copiously, belittles every race and nationality, and couldn’t give a damn about any “rights”, not that anybody in this movie cares much about those.  He is obsessed with his job. He’s like a 70’s Hank Quinlan (Touch of Evil (1958)).  He is respected for the frequent accuracy of his hunches and disliked for his disregard for the safety of his colleagues.  We will find later that he also has no regard for the safety of innocent civilians either.  All he cares about is proving he is right and getting his man.  He could use an Anger Management course.

The NYPD’s efforts have largely taken heroin off the streets.  Popeye gets one of his famous hunches and traces it to a car that will be arriving from France carrying millions of dollars of smack.  On the French side the effort is masterminded by the suave, unflappable Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey), who is like Popeye’s polar opposite.  The movie is violent throughout.  It ends with the famous car v. subway chase in which Popeye slams at high speed into who knows how many cars in order to get to the next subway stop. But the collateral damage doesn’t stop there.  With Roy Scheider as Popeye’s long-suffering but loyal partner.

This film has all the energy of “The New Hollywood” (Friedkin was only 26 at the time) and was extremely influential on every action film that followed.  The performances are great, including that by Hackman as the perpetually angry Popeye.  I’ve been debating whether the film is condemning Popeye’s tactics or glamorizing them.  Popeye is certainly an anti-hero, a species we will get to know well throughout the early 70’s.

The French Connection won Oscars for Best Picture; Best Actor; Best Director; Best Writing Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium; and Best Film Editing.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Supporting Actor (Scheider); Best Cinematography; and Best Sound.

Dirty Harry
Directed by Don Siegal
Written by Harry Julian Fink, Rita M. Fink and Dean Reisner
1971/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

District Attorney Rothko: You’re lucky I’m not indicting you for assault with intent to commit murder.
Harry Callahan: What?
District Attorney Rothko: Where the hell does it say that you’ve got a right to kick down doors, torture suspects, deny medical attention and legal counsel? Where have you been? Does Escobedo ring a bell? Miranda? I mean, you must have heard of the Fourth Amendment. What I’m saying is that man had rights.
Harry Callahan: Well, I’m all broken up about that man’s rights.

This is the ultimate “rogue cop who dispenses justice without regard to any pesky Constitutional rights” movie.  It is as well made as it can be.  But I don’t have to like it.

Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is a homicide detective with the San Francisco Police Department.  He is called “Dirty Harry” because he always gets the “dirty” jobs as he has a “dirty” attitude.  He back talks everyone, usually is operating outside shouting distance of his partner, and never calls for backup.  And obviously he isn’t wearing a body camera or, to be fair, military issue.

He is assigned the case of psychopath serial killer “Scorpio” (Andy Robinson).  Scorpio taunts the police and then Callahan personally and vows to keep killing until he is paid a ransom.  Callahan just wants to catch up with the guy and nail him but the mayor and district attorney want to humor him for awhile.  Several more killings ensue. The murders are all senseless and heinous.  Callahan finally catches up to Scorpio and wounds him. The creature lies sniveling on the ground whining about his rights and how he wants an attorney and medical care.  He is arrested and taken away in an ambulance but the district attorney says the killer will be released since all the evidence is tainted by Harry’s violation of his rights.

So Scorpio gets out of the hospital and really goes to town.  Now the two antagonists are at war with Scorpio humiliating Callahan on a wild goose chase through San Francisco.  At the height of his villainy Scorpio kidnaps a bus full of school children and uses them as human hostages.

This was an extremely popular movie back in the day but I have avoided for these many years because I was pretty certain I would react the way I indeed have done.  First off, this is a movie that doesn’t pull any punches on the subject of “coddling criminals” as all these relatively new Warren Court cases extended limits on police overreaching in extracting confessions or obtaining evidence.

On the other hand, for the life of me, I can’t understand why any competent proscecutor couldn’t have put together a case that would have put Scorpio out of commission for several years at the very least for his first assault on Callahan.  But the main reason I may have avoided it was on the assumption it was really for boys.  Testosterone fuels this action-packed thriller.  There isn’t even a love interest or partner.  The only females we see are victims and the school bus driver.  As a historical artifact I would call this a must-see.

Harold and Maude
Directed by Hal Ashby
Written by Colin Higgins
1971/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Maude: Dreyfus once wrote from Devil’s Island that he would see the most glorious birds. Many years later in Brittany he realized they had only been seagulls… For me they will always be – *glorious* birds.

This is the movie fated to accompany me throughout life.  I unconditionally love it.

Harold is a troubled teenager.  He lives with his thoroughly self-centered mother (the hilarious Vivian Pickles) in a gloomy old mansion.  For fun, Harold goes to funerals and stages increasingly macabre “suicides” in the vain hope of provoking some kind of reaction from his mother.  He is clearly a friendless virgin.  His mother constantly nags him about making something of himself.  She decides he should get married and sets him up with a computer dating service.  They pick some doozies for him but he is skilled at chasing them away.

In the meantime, he encounters the vivacious septuagenarian Maude (Ruth Gordon) at several funerals.  They gradually become friends as she shows him what a fully lived life can be made of.  With an unforgettable score by Cat Stevens.

This movie has the best acting, the best lines, and the best music to stand up to a time not so different from that one and leave the viewer with hope in the human race.  It has never ever failed for me an I will always be grateful to it.  Warmly and unreservedly recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQK8I6jtG_8

Get Carter
Directed by Mike Hodges
Written by Mike Hodges from a novel by Ted Lewis
1971/UK
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Jack Carter: You couldn’t run an egg and spoon race Eric.

This picture is the natural successor to all those gritty, grim “noir” gangster films coming out of Britain in the fifties and sixties.

Jack Carter (Michael Caine) is a professional enforcer for the London mob.  He is also a noted ladies’ man. Jack’s brother Frank has been killed in an auto accident in Newcastle.  Jack goes to pay his respects and comes to believe Frank was murdered.

Jack  basically becomes a killing machine as he follows the complex trail of lies and double-crosses that lead to his man.

I thought this was very good for what it was.   There’s no real good guy just a bunch of thugs struggling for dominance.  I’m not convinced that it was ground breaking must-see material.

A Touch of Zen/Xia nü
Directed by King Hu
Written by King Hu from a story by Sung-Ling Pu
1971/Taiwan/Hong Kong
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

“. . in Old Karate, you learned your Art through pain. You learned- quickly that your techniques had to be fast or powerful or both. If you did not embrace pain and it’s lessons adequately, you simply did not survive”
― Soke Behzad Ahmadi, Ryukyu Kobujutsu : Bo – Tanbo – Toifa

This wuxia classic offers a real story, characters, and epic action.  A very entertaining combination.

Ku Shen Chai is a humble scholar who earns a meager living painting portraits and writing letters in the market.  He has a nagging mother who is perpetually after him to take the civil service exam and get married.  They live together rent-free in an abandoned fort that is rumored to be haunted.

Early on Ku Shen Chang comes across a number of people whose motivation is unclear. These include a handsome portrait subject and a blind beggar.  One day, Ku decides to explore a really creepy part of the huge fort and runs into his mother and the mysterious Lady Yang.

After about an hour of this we learn that a corrupt Eunuch that heads the Eastern Guard has murdered Lady Yang’s father, who opposed him; has vowed to kill Yang’s entire family; and has hordes of soldiers searching for our heroine.  It turns out that Ku Shen Chai is not much with the fighting but is a gifted student of military strategy.  More importantly, Lady Yang studied kung fu while in hiding at a Buddhist monastery with kick-ass monks who show up at the oddest times.  The rest of the movie is comprised of battles, each more epic than the previous one.  The outnumbered good-guys use both trickery and skill to defeat the foe.

The film throws the viewer into the midst of the action and creates a number of mysteries in the first hour.  While I could have done without some of this it does make you care about the characters when the swords come out.  It’s fantasy violence with lots of wire work, incredible feats of lightening-fast accuracy, and very little blood.  I love the strong, courageous heroine.  If you are at all interested in what the genre was about this would be a good one to start with.  Hu’s Dragon Inn (1967) is also excellent.

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Il giardino del Finzi-Contini)
Directed by Vittorio de Sica
Written by Ugo Pirro and Vittorio Bonicelli from a novel by Giorgio Bassani
1970/Italy
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Giorgio’s Father: In life, in order to understand, to really understand the world, you must die at least once. So it’s better to die young, when there’s still time left to recover and live again.

A beautiful, sad film about being young at the end of an era.

The setting is Ferrara, Italy in the 1930’s.  The wealthy Jewish Finzi-Contini family live on a grand estate.  Their children are all beautiful and athletic.  An invitation to the house or tennis court is esteemed a great honor.  Middle-class Giorgio (Lino Cappolicchio) is trying his damndest to woo Micol Finzi-Contini (Dominique Sanda).

During the long lazy afternoons we spend with the family we hear rumblings as the rights of Jews are gradually stripped away.  Can love triumph over politics?  With Helmut Berger as Alberto Finzi-Contini.

I didn’t find this a powerful film but it is a very beautiful one.  A lush dream-like atmosphere envelopes the elegant world of the Finzi-Continis making it even more tragic when reality hits.

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis won the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film.  It was nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

Performance
Directed by Donald Cammel and Nicholas Roeg
Written by Donald Cammel
UK/1970
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Turner: I’ll tell you this: the only performance that makes it, that really makes it, that makes it all the way, is the one that achieves madness. Right? Am I right? You with me?

Take heaping helpings of bloody violence, couple these with psychedelic weirdness and you get a movie I just don’t like.

Psychopath Chas (James Fox) enjoys his work as hit man/enforcer for the mob. He always thinks up the most spectacular and terrifying ways of collecting debts.  One day he slips up and kills a couple of guys who were sent my the management to kill him.  He is now on the run for his life.

His travels cause him to more or less force his way into the flat of artist Turner (Mick Jagger) and his two girlfriends.  This is where the sex, drugs and rock and roll come in. After a large dose of psychodelic mushrooms Chas is in Turner’s hands.  Their personalities and appearances finally merge.  I am not clear why,

After the gratuitous gore of the first part of the movie, I more or less didn’t care what happened in the second part.  As far as I am concerned it was completely missable.

I will say James Fox gave it his all in a performance well outside his usual range.