Category Archives: 1971

A Fistful of Dynamite (AKA “Duck, You Sucker”/Giu la testa)
Directed by Sergio Leone
Written by Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Leone, and Sergio Donati
1971/Italy
IMDb page
First viewing/Netflix rental

John H. Mallory: Where there’s revolution there’s confusion, and when there’s confusion, a man who knows what he wants stands a good chance of getting it.

Sergio Leone has done much better than this, his last Western.

The story takes place in turn of the 20th Century Mexico.  Rod Steiger plays Juan Morales, a rough-hewn, low-life bandido with a large family and many hangers-on.  Imagine Tucco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) with less manners and a lot of mugging.  Juan has long had dreams about robbing a bank in Mesa Verde.  John Mallory (Charles Coburn) is a far more sophisticated ex-IRA operative and explosives expert.  When they meet, Juan thinks he has it made and he can force John to help him rob the bank.  Juan is not too smart.

John has no intention of doing anything with his skills and supplies except aid in the Mexican Revolution.  After much wrangling, Juan begins to see things John’s way, necessitating many explosions over the course of the film.

This is an OK Western but doesn’t hold a candle to Leone’s others. First off, Rod Steiger  was apparently told to let it all hang out and that’s always a mistake. He overdoes it painfully here.  Coburn is very good though his accent sort of meanders around Britain and the USA.  It lacks the grandeur of the previous movies and substitutes explosions and lots of lingering close-ups and slow-mo which got on my nerves eventually. Your mileage may vary.

Two English Girls
Directed by Francois Truffaut
Written by Francois Truffaut and Jean Gruault from a novel by Henri-Pierre Roche
1971/France
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

Claude Roc: I’d rather not be between you, I’d like to be able to look at both of you.

Truffaut looks at a love triangle from the distaff side. It’s pretty but it’s no Jules and Jim (1962).

The film is set in France and Wales at the turn of the last century. Young Frenchman Claude (Jean-Pierre Leaud) is an aspiring writer an a bit of a bon vivant.  He meets Ann (Kika Markham), an attractive and sensitive English woman.  Claude is smitten with Anne immediately.  She invites him to the estate of her mother and younger sister Muriel (Stacey Tendeter) in Wales.  Muriel has an eye condition that troubles her sporadically through the movie.  The three young people have fun together. Anne pushes Claude into the arms of Muriel.  Mother suggests the couple take a year separation and see how they feel about a marriage then.

Claude returns to Paris and within six months is living the high life with multiple mistresses. He breaks off the engagement.  Later Claude runs into Anne who is now an aspiring sculptor. They hook up but what about Muriel? What about Anne?  What about poor Claude?

First, the good and there’s quite a bit of it.  Truffaut and Nestor Almendros create scenes of luminous beauty, the cast is wonderful, and so is the Georges Delerue score.  The story explores religious and sexual attitudes of the period, sisterly love, guilt, and a host of other themes.  But for me it seemed like Jules and Jim, with the two ladies subbing for the gents and Leaud as the object of desire. The film lacks the sheer energy and playfulness that helped to make the earlier love-triangle melodrama a true classic.  I hate it when people can’t make up their minds and kind of torture each other for years.  If you are not an old curmudgeon you might like this film.

The Hellstrom Chronicle
Directed by Walon Green and Ed Spiegel
Written by David Seltzer
1971/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

Dr. Hellstrom: In fighting the insect we have killed ourselves, polluted our water, poisoned our wildlife, permeated our own flesh with deadly toxins. The insect becomes immune, and we are poisoned. In fighting with superior intellect, we have outsmarted ourselves.

This Oscar-winner is one odd documentary. I’m glad I gave it a try.

The film is narrated by Dr. Hellstrom who interrupts the nature photography every five minutes or so with his commentary. Some of it may be factual but most of it is alarmist pseudo-science used to prove his central thesis which is that insects will outlast man due to their superior adaptability and ability to cooperate.  Once Hellstrom uses a clip of an attacking giant ant from Them! (1954) to illustrate a point.

In between, we are treated to some beautiful shots of many different kinds of insects going about their business. Toward the end of the film the focus shifts to insects who live in colonies such as bees and ants. I learned a lot about termites!

This movie is what it looks like: some super cheesy science-fiction/horror-flavored filler narrated by an actor and intended to make a nature documentary suitable for wide-distribution to theaters. I actually enjoyed it.  The nature documentary and Lilo Schifrin score are pretty fantastic.  The other part appeals to the kid in me.

The Hellstrom Chronicle won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, Feature.

No video available from reviewed film so here’s some giant insect action from Kong: Skull Island (2017).

My Uncle Antoine (Mon oncle Antoine)
Directed by Claude Jutra
Written by Claude Jutra and Clement Perron from Perron’s story
1971/Canada
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Uncle Antoine: It takes a little punk like you to get me in a mess like this.

Beautifully shot film about growing up fast in rural Quebec.

It is Christmas time in rural Quebec sometime in the 1940’s.  It is the busiest season of the year for Uncle Antoine’s general store/mortuary. The store includes living quarters.  Uncle Antoine and Aunt Cecile also house Benoit, the 14-year-old at the center of the tale; shop assistant Fernand (played by Jutra); shop helper Carmen; and woodcutter Jos Poulin and his wife and many children.

Benoit is just at the age to start a flirtation with Carmen.   In other regards, he seems like a wide-eyed kid.  That is until he volunteers to help his uncle the undertaker pick up a body some distance away on a very cold day.  I will stop here.

Unfortunately coming of age is not always a fun-filled frolic but more an abandonment of childhood beliefs.  This is an interesting, often amusing, slice-of-life type movie  I liked it a lot.  The outstanding aspect was the beautiful images that kind of make one nostalgic for a time one never knew.

Fata Morgana
Directed by Werner Herzog
Written by Werner Herzog
1971/West Germany
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Perhaps I seek certain utopian things, space for human honour and respect, landscapes not yet offended, planets that do not exist yet, dreamed landscapes.  —  Werner Herzog

If you are going to watch a film in which nothing happens, it might as well be directed by Werner Herzog.

Herzog, his cinematographer Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein and a small crew wandered around the deserts of North Africa for 13 months taking pictures of things that interested them in 1968 and 1969.  Herzog came up with the concept for the film after shooting was completed.  

There is no narration other than a reading of a Mayan creation myth in the first time of the film nor are there any interviews. Mostly it is long takes through desert landscapes. But this is no Lawrence of Arabia desert.   There are shots of oil refineries, dead animals, an other evidence of the long reach of Western civilization.

Herzog has claimed that this is the film’s structure. “The planet Uxmal is discovered by beings from the Andromeda Nebula. They produce a cinematic report in three parts. “The Creation”: a plane lands, primeval landscapes unfold, burning vents and oil tanks come into the picture. “Paradise”: in the grip of nature and the remains of a civilization, people talk about the disaster. “The Golden Age”: a brothel singer and a matron sing. All three parts end with the greatest of all hallucinations, a mirage.” He obviously has a better imagination than I do.

I actually watched this because of the Leonard Cohen soundtrack. While Cohen’s songs “That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” and “Suzanne” are used in a portion of the film, the majority is scored with other (pretty good) music. Can’t recommend this except to completists.

The Andromeda Strain
Directed by Robert Wise
Written by Nelson Gidding from a novel by Michael Crichton
1971/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Netflix rental

Dr. Mark Hall: Most of them died instantly, but a few had time to go quietly nuts.

A wordy, but visually impressive, movie about a deadly organism from outer space.  Turns out fact is scarier than fiction.

A satellite returns to Earth and the inhabitants of a nearby town all drop dead (literally in their tracks).  That is all but an aging wino with an ulcer and a perpetually squalling six-month-old baby. A team of scientists (Arthur Hill, David Wayne, Kate Reid and James Olson) are all summoned immediately to the massive and strictly hush-hush Wildfire Laboratory to try to identify and defeat the killer.

I hope it is not too much of a spoiler to reveal that we are dealing with a crystalline organism, which may be an intelligent alien being.  The story is devoted to the methodical efforts of the scientists to understand how the organism works, how it spreads and how to defuse it.  They also have to worry about the lab self-destructing if they are unsuccessful.

If I have to pick between an alien plague that is taken seriously and the current situation in my homeland where a real-life deadly, but containable, virus is made the subject of politics and virtually ignored or derided by a sizable chunk of the population, I know which one I would choose.  Would that life could resemble art.

As a movie, this is a little talkier than I would prefer but the effects and the settings are amazing.  Considering this was done before CGI makes it even more spectacular.  Wise does his usual competent job and even tries out a few of the New Hollywood’s tricks.

The Andromeda Strain was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Film Editing.

Walkabout
Directed by Nicholas Roeg
Written by Edward Bond from a novel by James Vance Archer
1971/Australia
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

The Girl: You must look after your blazer. It’s got to last! We don’t want people thinking we’re a a couple of tramps!
White Boy: What people?

This film works on many different levels.  I seem to get more out of it each time I see it.  My definition of a true classic.

I think it would be best to come to this film for the first time knowing as little as possible about it. The film opens with scenes of bustling city life then focuses on one family.  None of the characters is named. The father takes his 14-year-old daughter (Jenny Agutter) and 6-year-old son (Luc Roeg) on a picnic in the Outback. The children end up stranded there alone with very few provisions and no transport.  They wander around for days.

When they have just about reached the end of their strength, they are spied by a young aboriginal man (David Gulpilil) who is on his coming-of-age walkabout surviving alone off the land.  He makes the girl very nervous but her little brother begins to communicate with him. The trio make a long trek toward a distant road.  Will they learn to understand each other?

Cinematographer-director Roeg creates some of the most beautiful nature, and other, images ever.  The story is multi-layered. Ancient ways and modern civilization are contrasted with a rather heavy hand.  But there are also themes of coming-of-age, sexual tension, race relations and so much more.  The ending seems sadder to me each time I see the movie.  But the film just gets better and better.  The John Barry score is the icing on the cake.  Highly recommended.

Duel
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Written by Richard Matheson from his story
1971/USA
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1,000 horror films on They Shoot Zombies, Don’t They?

David Mann: You can’t beat me on the grade. You can’t beat me on the grade!

I generally don’t review TV movies but this, Steven Spielberg’s feature-length debut, is too good to leave out.

David Mann (Dennis Weaver) is your average Joe trying to make a living, in his case as a traveling salesman.  He is driving through remote desert terrain to make it to his next appointment, when he finds a 40-ton oil tanker just ahead of him.  The tanker refuses to let him pass.  Finally, David manages to do so and then it is all out war.

When it isn’t trying to block the traffic, the truck can drive at incredible speed – faster than David’s sedan.  It (we never see the driver) is relentless.  David tries to outsmart the truck. For a time he will, but the truck reappears just when he thought he was in the clear.  Oh, how David needed a cell phone!  I shall go no further.

Spielberg made this movie in 10 days and it looks like a million dollars.  He would sub in a killer shark for the killer truck to great effect four years later.  The suspense is real, Weaver is excellent, the stunt driving is unbelievable and I would recommend it to anyone interested in this kind of thing or to Spielberg completists.