I have now viewed 36 films that were released in 1974. A list can be found here. It was one of the great years for movies.. From the 1001 Movies List, I did not watch Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia. I have Dersu Uzala and The Mirror listed as 1975 films My Favorites List is in no particular order.
Parade Directed by Jacques Tati Written by Jacques Tati 1974/France IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel
Keep the circus going inside you, keep it going, don’t take anything too seriously, it’ll all work out in the end. — David Niven
Jacques Tati kept the world laughing through his final film.
Made for French TV, Tati serves as ring master to a small circus that encourages audience participation. As usual with Tati, the humor is mostly physical with accompanying sound effects. We also get a fair amount of acrobatic clowns and a mule-taming act.
This made me laugh out loud several times, which earns it a recommendation from me.
Harry and Tonto Directed by Paul Mazursky Written by Paul Pazursky and Josh Greenfield 1974/US IMDb page
First viewing/Netflix rental
Harry: You know, the strangest thing about being old is… all your friends are dead.
Shirley: Well, all your old friends, maybe. You could make new friends, you know?
There are coming of age movies and coming to terms with age movies. This is a good example of the latter.
Harry (Art Carney) is a seventy-something who has lived for some years in the same apartment building in New York City. He has long been a widower. His most faithful friend is his cat Tonto. The neighborhood is changing in ways Harry doesn’t like and now they are demolishing the building for a parking garage. Harry has to be removed by force.
Harry’s son Burt offers to take him in. Harry’s son is welcoming but it is clear his wife and two sons are not fans of the idea. Harry’s grandson Norman is on some kind of mystical hunger and silence strike. Harry tries to talk some sense into him. Harry eventually decides that living with Burt is not for him either and announces he is going on a road trip to visit his other children: Susan (Ellen Burstyn) in Chicago and Eddie (Larry Hagman) in Los Angeles.
The problem is Tonto. The airline will not take him without doing a security screen, which Harry refuses, and when Harry tries to sneak Tonto onto a bus, the cat is not a fan of its toilet facilities. Harry’s driver’s license expired in 1958. Finally Harry buys a used car and picks up a couple of hitchhikers. He asks one of them to drive.
The driver splits off early on and Harry carries on his journey with 15-year-old Ginger (Melanie Mayron) who is running away to join a commune in Boulder, Colorado. They get talking about Harry’s first love and Ginger insists on trying to find her. She has grown up to be Geraldine Fitzgerald and is now living in a memory-care facility. They finally make it to Chicago, where Harry has a rather tense reunion with Susan. Norman is sent by his parents to locate Harry and meets up with him in Arizona. He decides to try out the commune Ginger is headed for. Finally, Harry reaches Los Angeles where his playboy son Eddie is not living the life he has described. With Arthur Hunnicutt as a quack medicine salesman and Chief Dan George as a cellmate.
Here we have a movie where the main character has to trust in the kindness of strangers and appears to be in no danger at anytime. It really was a more innocent age. This could pull at the heart strings in all the wrong way if it were not for the grounded dignified performance of Art Carney, who won the Oscar for Best Actor. The supporting cast is also solid and the script does not go overboard.
Paul Mazursky told Carney he would win the Oscar and was proved right. Carney was good in an Oscar-bait performance. Or maybe it was the goodwill earned by the actor from years of performing the role of Ed Norton hilariously in the TV series “The Honeymooners”. But was he better than nominees Jack Nicholson (Chinatown); Al Pacino (The Godfather Part II); Albert Finney (Murder on the Orient Express) or Dustin Hoffman (Lenny)? If it were left up to me, Gene Hackman’s performance in The Conversation would have won out over all of them. The film was also nominated in the category of Best Writing, Original Screenplay.
Celine and Julie Go Boating (Céline et Julie vont en bateau: Phantom Ladies Over Paris) Directed by Jacques Rivette Rivette and female members of cast credited with writing the scenario; Eduardo de Gregorio (dialogue); stories in film within the film based on works by Henry James 1974/France IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
Julie: It doesn’t hurt to fall off the moon.
Nothing exactly happens in this three-hour film within a film. But somehow it kept me engaged.
Julie (Dominique Labourier) spots Celine (Juliet Berto) who is strewing a bunch of her possessions on the ground as she departs a park bench. Julie chases down Celine to return them. They become friends and go on all kinds of crazy adventures.
They form a unique bond that allows them to create a private film when they suck on hard candies. The film is a melodrama involving a man whose dying wife extracts a promise never to remarry. This story repeats itself and grows more bizarre as it progresses. Eventually Celine and Julie enter into the world of the melodrama and interact with the characters to change the outcome. With Bulle Olgier, Marie-France Pisier, and Barbet Schroeder as characters in the film within a film. Do not come expecting any boating.
Absent any coherent story, your enjoyment and mine will depend on how amusing you find the shenanigans of our two crazy young heroines. I found them moderately amusing. Perhaps not 3 hrs. 14 min. worth of amusing, but amusing. It’s kind of like a late Buñuel film if all the principal characters were female. No pretension involved. I won’t be watching again but I’m glad I saw it once.
The Castle of Sand (Suna no utsuwa) Directed by Yoshitaro Nomura Written by Shinobu Hashimoto, Yoshitaro Nomura and Yoji Yamada from a novel by Seicho Matsumoto 1974/Japan IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel
There are four kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy. — Ambrose Bierce
Yoshitaro Nomura delivers a solid, intricate police procedural
An old man is found murderd in Tokyo train station. As the story starts, the police don’t even know the identity of the victim. He was a retired policeman and nobody has a bad word to say about him. He was very generous to an orphan he adopted. As the investigation spreads out to various locations in Japan the police find things are seldom what they seem. I really don’t want to reveal any of the movies secrets.
I really enjoyed this. The story has lots of surprises and kept me engrossed the whole time.
Italianamerican
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Written by Martin Scorsese
1974/US IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel
Charles Scorsese: My mother, I remember my mother scrubbin’ them floors, wooden floors, on her knees. No carpets. Wooden floors. With a brush, an iron brush. In the hallway and in the house. She used to make those floors sparkle. Wooden floors. Today they got it so soft. They got a washing machine, they got this, they got that. And they was – they never, they never cried, you know, that they’d say they were tired. There was no such thing as being tired.
The super-prolific young Martin Scorsese gives us this loving portrait of his parents and life for Italian immigrants in New York City.
The entire film looks to take place in real time. Scorsese’s mother Catherine is making her famous meat meat sauce and runs in and out of the room while she tends to it. Scorsese interviews her and his father, Charles about what it was like to grow up as a first generation American. He reminisces about his own childhood as well.
This is a charming movie, is only 45 minutes long, and contains the recipe for that meat sauce!
The Towering Inferno Directed by John Guillerman Written by Sterling Silliphant based on The Tower by Richard Martin Stern and The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson 1974/USA IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime purchase
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
James Duncan: Senator Parker is flying in for the dedication tonight. And he’s almost guaranteed to sign the Urban Renewal Contract. Now do you know what that means? Skyscrapers like this all over the country! You design ’em, I’ll build ’em.
Doug Roberts: Don’t you think you’re suffering from an edifice complex?
There was a day when you could make an explosive-filled summer blockbuster about a skyscraper that is rapidly going up in flames, the higher the body count the better. That day passed for me on September 11, 2001
Although this is still early in the cycle of disaster movies, the genre seems to be settling on a few common tropes. The disaster coincides with a major event that attracts the rich and famous, here a party celebrating the dedication of San Francisco’s latest landmark, the tallest skyscraper in the world.
The party is hosted by Jim Duncan (William Holden) who is the president of the huge construction firm that built the building. Also attending are the architect for the project Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) and his fiancee Susan (Faye Dunaway). Doug gets called away from the party by news that there is some suspicious electrical work. Not long after this we see a small fire break out in a utility room.
Nobody but Doug wants to spoil the party and evacuate the building. Even the heroism of Fire Chief O’Halloran (Steve McQueen) can’t stop the fire from going completely out of control. Many risky tactics are tried to save lives.
We also explore a few sub-plots to heighten the melodrama. One concerns Jim’s daughter Patty and her contemptible cost-cutting husband Simmons (Richard Chamberlin). One concerns a con-man (Fred Astaire) who tries to sell fake stocks to a painter (Jennifer Jones). Before their romance can blossom, however, Jennifer makes herself responsible for the rescue of a deaf woman and her children. With OJ Simpson as a security guard; Robert Vaughn as a Senator; and Robert Wagner as a philanderer.
This is a special effects extravaganza and the effects and stirring music are the real reason to see what otherwise is a trite melodrama. I had a very hard time watching the people on fire jumping from the building, etc. It’s not a movie I will return to.
The Towering Inferno won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing and Best Music, Original Song (“We May Never Love Like This Again”). The film was nominated for Best Picture; Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Fred Astaire); Best Art Decoration – Best Set Decoration; Best Sound; and Best Music, Original Dramatic Score (John Williams)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Directed by Tobe Hooper Written by Kim Hinkel and Tobe Hooper 1974/US IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
Jerry: That’s the last goddamn hitchhiker I ever pick up.
That Marilyn Burns may be the best screamer in the history of movie screamers.
Five teenagers travel to back-of-beyond rural Texas to look into the reported desecration of a grandfather’s grave. They find the grave is intact and go looking for the old family place. Before they find it they pick up a Hitchhiker. Shortly thereafter they learn he is a homicidal maniac. They are able to eject the Hitchhiker from the van but catch up with him at the gas station, which just so happens to be out of gasoline. We learn that the Hitchhiker’s family are all in the meat businesses from the slaughter house to the diner near the gas station. Furthermore, they occupy grampa’s house.
The teens are lured to the place, which is disgustingly dirty and decorated with furnishings made with animal hides and bones. Closer examination reveals that some of these objects are from human remains. Then the teenagers are introduced to Leatherface and his chainsaw.
I can definitely understand why this film is on The List. It challenges the formerly unspoken limits of horror in so many different ways, blending disgust with effective scares. Actually, it may be the most horrifying movie I have ever seen. There’s also a nice grisly wit to it. It did exactly what it set out to do, so I guess it’s a 10/10 in that regard. But on my “do I want to see more of this kind of thing” scale it get’s a “not really”.
The Yakuza Directed by SydneyPollack Written by Paul Schrader, Robert Towne, and Lawrence Schrader 1974/Japan/US IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rent
There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain. — Plato
Robert Mitchum is miscast as an action hero in this guns vs. swords thriller.
Harry Kilmer (Robert Mitchum) spent many years in Japan after WWII. He fell in love with war widow Eiko. She mysteriously refused to marry him and he went back to the west where he found work as a police officer and then a private investigator.
Harry’s friend Tanner (Brian Keith) is an arms dealer. He made the mistake of taking the Yakuza’s (Japanese organized crime) money and not coming through with the goods. Now Tanner’s daughter has been kidnapped and he asks Harry for help. On his return to Japan, Harry becomes reacquainted with Eiko and her brother Ken, a swords master . It will be Harry and Ken against the entire Yakuza family.
The rest of the movie is made up of several sword fights and gun battles. Harry also discovers a shocking secret and goes to drastic lengths to atone for his part in it.
I was disappointed by this after having enjoyed Mitchum in The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) so much. He’s not bad just miscast. Otherwise I thought this was your standard thriller and one that I didn’t feel like got Japanese culture quite right.
The Cars That Ate Paris Directed by Peter Weir Written by Peter Weir, Keith Gow and Piers Davies 1974/Australia IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel
Darryl: The other thing, is the patients. Now, most of the people here are accident victims. So, what you’ve got are your veggies.
Arthur Waldo: Veggies?
Darryl: Yeah, now these are people who’ve been in accidents that are so bad that their minds all get scrambled up like scrambled eggs. Right?
Arthur Waldo: Yeah.
Darryl: In any case, you got your full veggies. Well, I doubt if he’ll let you see them. I don’t think you’ll have much to do with them. And then there’s your half-veggies and your quarter-veggies.
How could I resist a movie with a title and director like this one?
Paris, New South Wales is an Australian outback town occupied by hooligans and hypocrites. The town’s income comes from arranging for car crashes and scavenging the car and victim. One day, George and Arthur come through towing a huge caravan which hurtles off a cliff. George, the driver, is killed in the accident while Arthur emerges relatively unscathed. He reports having seen a light coming from the other direction before the crash. For some reason, instead of eliminating this witness, the Mayor adopts him.
The remainder of the film carries forward the car crash theme. Eventually the young gang members that cause the accidents decide to stop abiding by the establishment’s rules and all hell breaks loose.
I took a little break from more serious films and took a chance on this one. Produced on a shoe string budget, the production is fairly effective. It could have perhaps used some suspense and/or laughs.
Celine and Julie Go Boating (Céline et Julie vont en bateau: Phantom Ladies Over Paris)
I really enjoyed this. The story has lots of surprises and kept me engrossed the whole time.
