Category Archives: 1978

Scared Straight
Written and directed by Arnold Shapiro
1978/USA
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube

Convict: When one of your so-called friends says to you, “Come on, let’s go steal something! Let’s go mug someone! Let’s go rip somebody off!” All they’re saying to you is, “Let’s go to prison!

1978’s Best Feature Documentary Oscar winner presents a program developed to put teens on the straight and narrow by showing prison life in all its horror.

A group of budding juvenile delinquents is given a dose of reality by inmates that are serving 30 years to life in a maximum security prison. The prisoners do not mince words and give graphic descriptions of sexual violence.

This photo is B&W but the film is in color

The film won the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary as well as two Emmys for informational T V programing.  It was presented uncensored on TV, and represents the first time the “f”-word was allowed by many stations.   The film was the granddaddy of many reality TV shows here in the US with this theme. The version I watched on YouTube had a segment showing what had happened to the participants 20 years later. Most of the prisoners and the young people seem to have benefited from the program.

Drunken Master (Zui quan)
Directed by Woo-Ping Yuen
Written by Lung Hsiao and See-Yuen Ng
1978/Hong Kong
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Jim Ti-Sam: I’ll break every bone in your body… and send you to hell.

I gave this Jackie Chan kung-fu movie a chance and regretted it.

I’ll be brief.  Jackie Chan plays the skilled and hot-headed son of a master in kung fu.  He gets in a fight with the wrong person and his father punishes him by putting him under the harsh tulelage of a master in drunken kung-fu.  I stopped paying attention about half-way in.

I put this on because I thought it might be amusing given its 7.4/10 IMDb rating.  This is a crass slapstick comedy where pratfalls are substituted with cartoonish martial arts face-offs.  The fights are almost non-stop and although the moves are meant to be funny as well as impressive, they are also over-the-top violent.  Life is really too short.

Death on the Nile
Directed by John Guillermin
Written by Anthony Shaffer from a novel by Agatha Christie
1978/UK
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube rental

Jim Ferguson: You damn froggy eavesdropper.
Hercule Poirot: Belgian! Belgian eavesdropper!

All-star cast plays second fiddle to fabulous cinematography and art and costume design in this fun murder mystery.

As the movie begins, Jaqueline De Bellefort (Mia Farrow) visits her friend heiress Linette Ridgeway (Lois Chiles) and asks her to give Jackie’s fiance Simon Doyle (Simon MacCorkindale) a job on her estate. Linnet agrees to interview Simon. The next thing we see is Linett and Simon emerging from a chapel and setting off on a luxurious honeymoon in Egypt. Jackie stalks them throughout. It would be criminal to reveal any more about the plot though it is a given that everyone is a suspect. Instead look at this supporting cast! Jane Birkin, Bette Davis, Jon Finch, Olivia Hussey, George Kennedy, Angela Lansbury, David Niven, Maggie Smith and Jack Warden all have juicy parts.

For me, neither the plot nor the actors are the high spots of the movie. It is the sumptuous  reconstruction of 1920’s dress and furnishings and the gorgeous color photography by Jack Cardiff that carried me away. To add to my enjoyment, the locations brought back memories of a cruise my husband and I took down the Nile many years ago.

Death on the Nile won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design.

Watership Down
Directed by Martin Rosen
Written by Martin Rosen from a novel by Richard Adams
1978/UK
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Frith: There is not a day or night that a doe offers her life for her kittens or some honest captain of Owsla his life for his Chief, but there is no bargain. What is is what must be.

This is quite watchable but could have been better.

The film begins with a narrator recounting the Lapine creation myth.  Lord Frith created all the animals but they were the same.  The rabbits got too big for their britches.  As punishment, he gave each kind of animal a special gift.  Many were given claws and teeth to kill the rabbits.  To the rabbits, he gave a bright white tail and speed.  The rabbits were told that they were to be the prey of any who could catch them but first they had to catch them.

We segue into the main story.  Fiver is a skittish psychic kind of rabbit who gets a premonition that something terrible is going to happen to his whole warren.  Hazel (voiced by John Hurt), his brother, talks many of the other rabbits into seeking out a new home.  Other rabbits prefer to remain behind.

The rabbits go through many dangerous situations and have several adventures along the way.  They meet an injured seagull named Kehaar (voiced by Zero Mostel) and nurse him to health.  Kehaar becomes a potent asset as a spy and warrior.

Finally, the rabbits meet up with a warren run by a dictator.  They want Hazel’s group to join their warren – or else.

This is not a children’s film.  The rabbits are not cute and have many scary enemies.  It tells a cautionary sermon about habitat destruction.  I thought it was pretty good until it starts getting all Animal Farm-ish toward the end and lost me.

Koko: A Talking Gorilla (Koko, le gorille qui parle)
Directed by Barbet Schroeder
1978/France
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

It’s a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when you’re tired – you quit when the gorilla is tired. — Robert Strauss

A fascinating documentary about a gorilla who learned to use sign language, and more broadly, man’s relationship to animals.

Koko was born at the San Francisco Zoo and lived there until she was one year old.  She became ill and was then cared for by Stanford University researcher Penny Patterson who undertook to teach her American Sign Language.

She eventually learned over 1,000 signs and understood more than 2,000 words of spoken English.  She put together primitive sentences and created new words by combining signs she already knew.  She lived to be 48 years old and was quite the celebrity.

The subject matter is interesting on it’s own is even more interesting for the questions it raises.  What are the ethics of removing an animal from its own kind?  What are the ethics of training an animal to be “human”?  How much of the communication arose from Patterson’s subjective interpretation?  Recommended.

The Buddy Holly Story
Directed by Steve Rash
Written by Alan Swyer and Robert Gittler from a book by John Goldrosen
1978/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing; Amazon Prime

I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died – “American Pie” by Don McLean

This rather standard biopic is elevated by Gary Busey’s amazing performance and the great music of Buddy Holly.

Charles Hardin becomes “Buddy Holly” (Busey), to the great consternation of his parents, in his home town of Lubbock, Texas. He plays in a trio with a bass fiddle player (Charles Martin Smith) and a drummer (Don Stroud).  Later in the film the back up band will be named “The Crickets”.  Buddy Holly marches to his own drum and is all about his music. The trio gets its first break when a disk jockey records a set they play at the roller skating rink and circulates it as a demo.

Eventually, this brings the boys to Nashville where producers are shocked to discover they are a white band.  Eventually they go to New York and get booked at Harlem’s Apollo Theater under the same assumption.  They are warmly accepted and go on tour with Sam Cooke and other Black artists of the day.

In New York, Buddy falls in love at first sight with a record studio executive’s secretary Puerto Rican Maria Elena.  They marry.  Buddy’s star continues to rise.  The backup band longs to be home in Lubbock and leaves him as a solo act.  Then, the studio executive talks him into going on a winter tour of the Midwest with the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens.  The tragedy to come is not covered in the film.

Gary Busey and all the other actors in the film did their own singing.  And they are fantastic!  Busey is perhaps more raucous than Holly was in real life but he is on fire.  And I love Holly’s music so I enjoyed the film very much.

I left movies to one side when my younger brother had his stroke.  He is still in rehab trying to connect his brain and his left side once again.  Anyway, I began working on this paint by number painting all day everyday.  Highly therapeutic and the image just takes me to my happy place.  It will be a gift to my brother for his birthday.  But I couldn’t stay away forever!

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Rockers
Directed by Ted Bafaloukos
Written by Ted Bafaloukos
1978/Jamaica
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

I watched this about 2 weeks ago on YouTube.  There were no subtitles for the Jamaican patois and a lot of it flew right over my head.

The heroes are Rastafarians who battle corrupt local gangsters.

I wouldn’t watch this again without subtitles but it does feature a great reggae soundtrack from some of the greats like Peter Tosh and Junior Murvin.