Category Archives: 1972

Night of the Lepus
Directed by William F. Claxton
Written by Don Holliday and Gene R. Kearney from the novel “The Year of the Angry Rabbit” by Russell Braddon
1972/USA
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Officer Lopez: Attention! Attention! Ladies and gentlemen, attention! There is a herd of killer rabbits headed this way and we desperately need your help!

This movie ticks every box that makes up bad movie gold.

The movie begins with shots of rabbit plagues in Australia and New Zealand with seemingly millions of bunnies eating everything in site.  We then move to Arizona, where a coyote extermination has led to a plague of rabbits.  Rancher Cole Hillman is reluctant to use poison fearing the effects on the environment.  So he calls in zoologist Roy Bennett (Stuart Whitman) for a more friendly solution.  Roy immediately begins genetically modifying domestic rabbits in hopes of producing less fertile animal, because how could that possibly go wrong?

Wife Gerry (Janet Leigh) and daughter Amanda tag along.  Amanda is an extremely annoying little kid with a love for bunnies.  Of course. she is allowed to go exploring and generally messing with things in the lab.  Amanda thinks it is funny to swap cages and rabbits.  That is how she gets a modified rabbit instead of a control rabbit when she asks for a pet.  Of course, she lets it escape.

That rabbit reproduces like a bunny and its progeny are highly fertile, carnivorous (possibly blood-sucking) creatures weighing 100 to 150 pounds.  (The size is repeatedly compared to the size of a wolf.)  The creatures travel in huge herds like stampeding cattle (complete with thundering paws), devouring cows, horses and humans in their way.  And now we leave it up to the lunkhead that created the problem to solve it.

There is no way to make a bunny rabbit look threatening no matter how much ketchup you smear on its quivering nose or how small the miniatures you put next to it.  This fact puts a ludicrous veneer on every single frame of the picture and makes already stupid dialogue that much more funny.  It could have been trimmed a bit but still is going on my non-existent Top-Ten Most Entertaining Bad Movies of All Time list. I wonder if the little cottontails that visit our back yard every day would like it?

Bonus:  Janet Leigh gets to work out her famous scream a lot.  Such a come-down.

Unused theme song – “The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game” written by Smokey Robinson

1776
Directed by Peter H. Hunt
Written by Peter Stone based on his play
1972/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

John Adams: Good God, consider yourselves fortunate that you have John Adams to abuse, for no sane man would tolerate it!

This is the perfect upbeat movie for the political season.

It is late June 1776 in Pennsylvania.  At the Continental Congress meeting to decide on and draft a Declaration of Independence, tempers flare as hot as temperatures in the non-air-conditioned meeting hall.  Hottest of heads on the faction for independence is John Adams (William Daniels) of Massachusetts.  His most prominent allies are Thomas Jefferson (Ken Howard) of Virginia and Ben Franklin (Howard Da Silva) of Pennsylvania. The Independence Faction is fought tooth and nail by conservatives from the South and mid-Atlantic states.

As the delegates continue to wrangle and complain, Jefferson is assigned to draft the Declaration but he can think of nothing but his new bride Martha (Blythe Danner), from whom he has been absent for six months.  His creative juices start flowing again when Martha comes for a visit and the rest is history.

I always enjoy watching this.  The tunes are catchy and the dialogue is witty.  The young Blythe Danner is so charming!  There is no dancing.  Kept me smiling all the way through.

Play It Again, Sam
Directed by Herbert Ross
Written by Woody Allen from his play
1972/USA
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Dick: [On the phone] Let me tell you where you can reach me, George. I’ll be at 362-9296 for a while; then I’ll be at 648-0024 for about fifteen minutes; then I’ll be at 752-0420; and then I’ll be home, at 621-4598. Yeah, right George, bye-bye. (Dick needed a cell phone)

He didn’t direct it but he did create it and this film would pave the way for Annie Hall and other romcoms in Woody Allen’s future.

Allen Felix (Allen) is a film critic.  He is obsessed with Casablanca and Humphrey Bogart. His wife (Susan Anspach) is not feeling it and dumps him.  Best friends Dick (Tony Roberts) and Linda (Diane Keaton) try to set him up with new ladies.  But although in constant communication with Bogart (Jerry Lacey), Allen messes up every date and romantic advance.

What Allen doesn’t suspect for a while, is that Linda is feeling neglected by Dick and has a real soft spot for him.  Will this be a romance for the ages?

Well, it was a real treat to watch this again.  It’s plenty funny and sometimes farcical but also has a genuine heart to it.  Keaton probably had something to do with that.  The film stands up all these years later.  Recommended.

Marjoe
Directed by Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan
1972/US
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Marjoe: Can God deliver a religion addict?

In the years before tele-evangelism, preachers like Marjoe Gortner raked in the cash doing revivals.  This documentary exposes the hypocrisy of the business and illustrates its raw power over believers.

Marjoe Gortner was “called by the Lord” to his ministry at age 4 1/2.  His father, also an evangelical preacher, may have assisted the Lord.  At any rate, Marjoe was a gifted no-holds-barred charismatic preacher from a tiny child.  He was performing marriages, to the consternation of orthodox religion, at the age of eight.  He was adept at faith healing and speaking in tongues.

He apparently took a break at some point and came back to the circuit as a young man with rock-star-level gifts to make a crowd break out its change, bills, and check books.  But Marjoe never, even as a child, had the slightest bit of religious faith.  By making this movie Marjoe hoped to break with his old life and perhaps pave the way to a lucrative new one.

This documentary is a nice blend of a lot of things.  We get soul-baring sessions between Marjoe and the crew that provide insights into his life and personality and into evangelist show business.  But it is the actual footage of the revival shows that is really compelling.  Gortner struts around with the posing and attitude of a Mick Jagger and can really work the crowd into a frenzy.  Plus we’ve got a lot of riveting gospel singing to enjoy.  If the subject matter is intriguing, I can recommend.

Marjoe won the Oscar for Best Documentary, Feature.