Category Archives: 1971

A Touch of Zen (1971)

Posted on September 11, 2020 | 2 comments

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.

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 1971

10 Rillington Place (1971)

Posted on September 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

10 Rillington Place
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Written by Clive Exton from a book by Ludovic Kennedy
1971/UK
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

John Reginald Christie: This stuff I use, 1 in 10 might die from it.
Timothy John Evans: Die!
John Reginald Christie: Well, that’s an acceptable medical risk.

Solid true-crime thriller is blessed by a couple of fine performances.

In the first five minutes of the movie we see John Christie (Richard Attenborough) administer kitchen gas to a young woman he is supposedly treating for bronchitis and follow up by starting a sexual assault on her. He buries her in the garden.

Christie lives in squalid quarters at 10 Rillington Place with his rather beaten down wife Ethel. Young Timothy (John Hurt) and Beryl Evans (Judy Geeson move in. They have a baby daughter, Geraldine. The couple is barely making ends meet. Timothy is illiterate. They fight constantly about Beryls spendthrift ways.

Christie claims to have some sort of medical knowledge derived from being in the war though he’s not inclined to give explanations or answer questions. He also brags of his service in the War Reserve Police. Christie is big on enforcing “rules” and soon puts himself in charge of the couple. They find that they are about to be in even worse financial straits because Beryl is now pregnant. But the devious Christie says he knows how to fix Beryl’s problem. I will stop there for those who don’t know the rest of the story.

I really enjoyed this better-than-average serial killer movie. The superb performances of Attenborough and Hurt make the movie special. Despite the subject matter, there is little to no gore or nudity.

1971

Posted on September 10, 2020 | 4 comments

The old Hollywood continued its transition to the “New Hollywood” and nothing was ever the same. We welcomed the debut performances of F. Murray Abraham, Kathy Bates, Daniel Day-Lewis, Gerard Depardieu, and Cybill Shepherd, among others. And thanked Harold Lloyd, Glenda Farrell, Michael Rennie, Van Heflin, Louis Armstrong, and Max Steiner for the memories.

At the Oscar Ceremony on April 15, 1971, Lillian Gish received an Honorary Oscar for “superlative artistry and for distinguished contribution to the progress of motion pictures”. Orson Welles was honored for his “superlative artistry and versatility in the creation of motion pictures.” Ingmar Bergman won the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award and Frank Sintatra won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

The Magic Kingdom at Disney World opened for business. An adult ticket cost $3.50. Each ride was paid for separately using tickets. “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night was the number one single of the year, spending six weeks atop the Billboard Charts. Jim Morrison died. No Pulitzer Prize was awarded for literature. “The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the Moon Marigolds” by Paul Zindel won for drama. President Richard Nixon was Time Magazine’s Man of the Year.

The New York Times published sections of the Pentagon Papers showing the US Government had been lying to the American People about multiple facets of the Viet Nam War. Military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who had leaked the documents, was initially charged with conspiracy, espionage, and theft of government property; the charges were later dismissed,

The 26th Amendment to the Constitution gave American 18-year-olds the right to vote. Cigarette advertising on American television was banned. The microprocessor was invented. The first CAT scan machine was produced. The Soviet Union launched the first space station.

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The time has come for me to pick up some speed. I promised myself to do a fairly exhaustive exploration of each year’s movies from 1929-1970. Now that the Golden Age is but a fond memory, I am going to take a more relaxed approach. I’ll devote six weeks to each “year” and watch what most appeals to me. There’s a lot of good stuff I haven’t seen and I can get through a decade a year with that system. The list I’ve come up with to choose from is here. I have no intention of revisiting A Clockwork Orange or Straw Dogs or sitting through The Devils or W.R. The Mysteries of the Organism. Neither The Sorrow and the Pity nor Red Psalm are available to me. Tell me if I’m missing something essential.