Category Archives: 1975

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Dog Day Afternoon
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Written by Frank Pierson from a magazine article by P.F. Kluge and Thomas Moore
1975/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Angie: I know you can’t stand me to say I’m fat: but, I can’t stand you being a bank robber, Sonny. That’s what love is.

Great writing and directing capped off by several powerhouse performances make for an off-beat crime classic.

Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino) is a mad man with a death complex.  He likes to yell a lot.  He is unemployed.  He has a wife and two children.  He also underwent a marriage ceremony with his gay lover Leon (Chris Sarandon).  Leon wants sex change surgery.  Sonny wants whatever Leon wants.

So Sonny decides to rob a bank.  He brings along his certifiable, gun crazy friend Sal (John Cazale).  They are inexperienced and expect everything to go smoothly.  The bank employees are cooperative.  But the bank has very little money since its cash was recently picked up.  Somehow this triggers Sonny to take the manager and tellers hostage and all hell breaks loose.

Soon enough Sonny gets a call from Detective Moretti (Charles Durning) informing him that the bank is surrounded by cops and he should surrender.  Instead,  Sonny goes out in the street and launches into a tirade ending with the famous “Attica!” chant.  Sonny’s antics attract a crowd and numerous TV cameras.  Sonny demands a helicopter to fly the robbers and hostages to a jet that will take Sonny and Sal to a foreign country.  Sal suggests Wyoming.  Sonny prefers Algeria.

As Moretti is building up a tentative sort of rapport with Sonny, the FBI shows up.  The agents are not big on talking or doing favors.

I’ve seen this movie more than once and never thought of it as a black comedy.  But in many ways it is.  The script just crackles.  Pacino is fabulous as are Cazale, Sarandon, and Durning.  Highly entertaining and recommended.

Dog Day Afternoon won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.  It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor (Sarandon), Best Director, and Best Film Editing.

Daguerreotypes (1975)

Daguerreotypes
Directed by Agnes Varda
Written by Agnes Varda
1975/France
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

They called me ‘The Ancestor of the New Wave’ when I was only 30. I had seen very few films, which, in a way, gave me both the naivety and the daring to do what I did. — Agnes Varda

 

Nobody does charming quite like Agnes Varda.

This documentary was made on Daguerre Street in Paris where Agnes Varda lived at the time she was tending to her young son.  It focuses on short interviews with the many shop keepers on the street, some of which look to have been there for a hundred years.  Varda is adept at affectionately catching all their quirks.  The vignettes are interrupted by parts of a second-rate magicians act.

Anyone with nostalgia for the old traditional Paris will adore this!  Others may merely love it.

 

Fox and His Friends (1975)

Fox and His Friends (1975) (Fustrecht der Freiheit)
Director Ranier Werner Fassbinder
Ranier Werner Fassbinder and Christian Hohoff
1975/West Germany
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Di\

Max: [referring to Franz] He’s not the sort of guy whom money makes rich.

Fassbinder give us a savage critique of gay culture, materialism, and class division.

Franz Biberkopf (Fassbinder) works at a carnival as a talking fox head during a girlie show. He’s a simple working class guy who buys a 5 mark lottery ticket each week, usually by turning tricks.  One week he is short of money and picks up the elegant Max (Karl-Heinz Böhm – Peeping Tom (1960)). Max refuses to front the money and Franz ends up swindling it from a gay florist.

A month later Max invites Franz to a party with his cultivated gay friends.  Franz is immediately attracted to the snobby Eugen Thiess (Peter Chatel), who won’t give Franz the time of day until he finds out Franz has won 500,000 DM in the lottery.  The two eventually move in together in a ritzy apartment and Franz gets a job at Eugen’s father’s factory in exchange for a large loan to the business.  Even then Eugen is constantly criticizing Franz’s lack of manners, hygiene and lowly origins.  Everybody lives the high life until the money runs out.  There is one brief scene of non-sexualized full-frontal nudity.

This is the old old story set in a modern gay milieu.  Fassbinder always makes visually striking movies.  I prefer the more melodramatic ones but this is quite OK.

No sub-titled trailer so an analysis with numerous clips

 

The Man Who Skied Down Everest (1975)

The Man Who Skied Down Everest
Directed by Bruce Nyznik
Written by Yuichiro Miura and Judith Crawley
1975/Canada/Japan/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime (free to members)

Narrator: I am alive. They say I skied 6600 feet in 2 minutes and 20 seconds. I fell 1320 feet. I stopped 250 feet from the crevasse. Numbers have meaning in the world below. But in this almost airless world, what do they mean? Was it a success or a failure? That I am alive must be the will of some higher power.

I have a weakness for books and films about dangerous mountain climbing.  This film is remarkably dull in comparison to the best of these.

In 1970 daredevil Japanese skiier Yuichiro Miura mounted an expedition with the goal of skiing down the slope of Mount Everest.  Miura had already accomplished this goal on some very high mountains.  The expedition was supported by 800 porters and a squad of sherpas, medical personnel, scientists, etc. etc.  Miura planned to use a parachute to slow down his speed on the 45 degree slope.

First the expedition had to climb the mountain.  Six sherpas were killed in a cave-in.  In the end Miura lost control of his skis and went into freefall and was lucky to escape with his life.

I thought the film was OK.  I found myself thinking about whether the expense, danger, and hardship is worth the glory of setting a record.  Especially when so many other lives are at risk.

Miura summited Mount Everest in 2003 at age 70 and again in 2013 at age 80, both climbs making him the oldest person ever to see the top of the mountain.  The film received an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary.

 

Jaws (1975)

Jaws
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Written by Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb from Benchley’s novel
1975/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Quint: Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies. Farewell and adieu, you ladies of Spain. For we’ve received orders for to sail back to Boston. And so nevermore shall we see you again.

The 27-year-old Spielberg produced a classic of action and suspense and the ultimate summer blockbuster in only his second feature film.

Surely everyone knows the plot but I need to put some text between my photos!  Amity Island is a New England beach resort community with a short tourist season that peaks on the 4th of July.  As the film begins, a couple of teenagers are out for a moonlight swim.  Menacing music is heard and the girl starts flailing and is dragged under the water.

Brody (Roy Scheider), the island’s Chief of Police, is alerted to partial remains found on shore.  The mayor (Murray Hamilton) and business community desperately want this the death to have been the result of a motorboat accident.  Brody calls in shark expert Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) who quickly determines it to have been a shark attack.

Then a shark attacks a young boy in front of a whole beach packed with tourists.  At a meeting to discuss the situation, the Mayor reluctantly agrees to close the beach for one day.  An old-timey fisherman named Quint (Robert Shaw), who speaks like a 19th century whaler, offers to catch the shark for $10,000.  This offer is declined.  Local fishermen catch a large shark.  Problem solved!  That’s what the Mayor and town businesses prefer to believe.  The Mayor refuses to let Hooper do a post-mortem to see if it is the man-eater.

A fisherman’s boat is attacked.  Still not enough to convince the town fathers and the  beach opens for the 4th of July. But a tourist sights the shark heading to an estuary and another life is lost.  Finally the Mayor is convinced to hire Quint and Quint goes out to sea with Hooper and Brody to do battle with the beast.  Many minutes of scary thrills ensue.

Hooper: I’m not going to waste my time arguing with a man who’s lining up to be a hot lunch.

Jaws, a parable for our times, with Richard Dreyfuss as Dr. Anthony Fauchi.  You have to get rid of the shark before you reopen the beach.

Well, I have to call another movie absolutely perfect for what it is.  I especially like the way the screenplay takes the time to develop the characters and its use of humor and family dynamics.  The acting is all wonderful.  I particularly  enjoy Robert Shaw in this film, so salty and sly.  The score is classic.  It looks great.  And time disappears as the story builds to an unforgettable climax.  A must-see.

Jaws won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Sound; Best Film Editing; and Best Original Score (John Williams).  It was nominated for Best Picture.

Deep Red (1975)

Deep Red (Profondo Rosso)
Directed by Dario Argento
Written by Dario Argento and Bernardino Zapponi
1975/Italy
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime (free to members)

Helga Ulmann: I can feel death in this room! I feel a presence, a twisted mind sending me thoughts! Perverted, murderous thoughts… Go away! You have killed! And you will kill again!

This movie may be the best example of the Italian thriller genre known as giallo.  It also involves many graphic and horrifically bloody murders.

The setting is contemporary Rome.  As the movie begins, we see pianist Marcus Daly (David Hemmings) rehearsing with his jazz band.  At the same time,  mind-reader Helga Ullman is addressing a conference on the paranormal.  Her speech is interrupted when she feels the presence of a twisted murderer in the room.  Someone leaves the theater. The violence of Helga’s premonitions end her talk and she returns home.  She tells one of the organizers that she thinks she may know the identity of the killer and will tell him the next day.  Tomorrow will not come for Helga as when she returns to her apartment she is brutally attacked multiple times with a meat cleaver, suffers terribly, and is pushed out the window.

Marcus is talking on the street with his very drunk friend Carlo when they hear a scream then spot a figure in a brown raincoat fleeing the scene.  Carlo leaves and then Marcus sees Helga breaking through the glass.  She is his upstairs neighbor and he rushes to help her.  She is beyond help.  Marcus decides he must find her killer and for some reason the police don’t seem to mind as he merrily contaminates evidence.  Pushy female reporter Gianna insists on tagging along.

This is one of those murder mysteries where successive prime suspects are murdered and eliminated from contention.  I’m not going to go further into the plot except to say it involves a haunted house and many bizarre clues.  So we get a set up for a murder, a  progressively more brutal murder, then go on following random clues to the next murder until only one suspect remains.  A lot of Marcus’s investigation seems to be founded on lucky guesses.  Much of the plot defies logic making the atmosphere even more creepy.

This movie is super stylish and very scary.  Argento is a master at making attacks come with a sudden jolt and then prolonging the scare with an inventive and truly horrible murder.  The cinematography and score are excellent.  If this is one of the best, I think I will skip the rest.  Not for me.

Seven Beauties (1975)

Seven Beauties (Pasqualino Settebellezze)
Directed by Lina Wertmuller
Written by Lina Wertmuller
1975/Italy
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Narrator: … The ones who have never had a fatal accident. Oh yeah. The ones who have had one. The ones who, at a certain point in their lives, create a secret weapon, Christ. Oh yeah. The ones who are always standing at the bar. The ones who are always in Switzerland. The ones who started early, haven’t arrived, and don’t know they’re not going to. Oh yeah. The ones who lose wars by the skin of their teeth. Oh yeah. The ones who say ‘Everything is wrong here.’ The ones who say ‘Now let’s all have a good laugh.’ Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Lina Wertmuller reaches greatness with this unique approach to the lot of Italians and Italy during the Second World War.

The film begins with a black and white pastiche of destruction and death during WWII set to R&B music and accompanied by a kind of “beat” poetry.  We then move to Naples.

Pasqualino Frafuso (Giancarlo Giannini) is the only man in a family consisting of his mother and seven ugly sisters.  He is a ladies man with no apparent means of support who is obsessed with the honor of his sisters, the eldest of which is in love with a pimp and dancing in a sexy music hall show.  She claims he has promised to marry her.  Instead she ends up working in a brothel and Pasqualino kills her lover.  He doesn’t do this in a smart way and the best his lawyer can do is a sentence to ten years in a mental hospital in lieu of decades in prison.

The beginning of the film has a Felliniesque comic tone but it turns progressively dark from here.  Pasqualino’s internment in the hospital becomes a living hell.  Finally a doctor tells him that she will declare him sane so he can join the Italian army.  He leaps at the chance.

But Pasqualino’s luck does not improve.  Combat is also hellish and he deserts with a comrade only to be apprehended by the Nazis and put in a POW camp.  The camp is run by a grotesque female Commandant (Shirley Stoler – The Honeymoon Killers (1969)).  Several men are selected for death by firing squad every day.  In the depths of despair and nearing death by starvation. Pasqualino decides that the only way to stay alive is to make love to the Commandant.  It’s not going to be that easy.  With Fernando Rey in a small but memorable role as a fellow POW.

You will never see a World War II movie quite like this one.  Giancarlo Giannini is brilliant both as a comedian and a tragedian and has ample opportunity to show both talents in this film. Wertmuller fills the screen with color and chaos until everything turns dark black. It has tons of heart while being politically savage. It seems to encompass the whole wartime experience in Italy through the fate of one flawed man and asks the big questions about honor and survival. How the editors of the 1001 Movies book passed this movie by is beyond me. Very highly recommended.

Seven Beauties was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Foreign Language Film, Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.  Wertmuller’s nomination was the first for a female director and one of only five such nominations to  date.

Opening montage

Clip

Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

Farewell, My Lovely
Directed by Dick Richards
Written by David Zelag Goodman from the novel by Raymond Chandler
1975/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Philip Marlowe: [opening lines] This past spring was the first that I felt tired and realized I was growing old. Maybe it was the rotten weather we’d had in L.A. Maybe the rotten cases I’d had. Mostly chasing a few missing husbands and then chasing their wives once I found them, in order to get paid. Or maybe it was just the plain fact that I am tired and growing old.

Robert Mitchum brings a world-weary persona and some gravitas to Chandler’s gumshoe Philip Marlowe.

The story is set in the days preceding the U.S. entry into WWII.  Philip Marlowe (Mitchum) is an aging, struggling private eye in Los Angeles.  One day, he is visited by Moose Malloy who more or less commands Marlowe to locate his girl Velma, for a fee of course.  Moose has just been released from several years in prison and is eager to reunite with Velma whom he merely describes as “as cute as lace pants”.  Marlowe and Moose visit the nightclub where she used to work.  She’s not there and the club’s ownership and clientele is now African-American.  The volatile Moose ends up killing a man, the first of many killings in this convoluted plot. Marlowe doesn’t even have a photograph to go on.

Marlowe always appears to be at or near the scene of the crime and he has Detective Nutley (John Ireland) and Billy Rolfe (Harry Dean Stanton) oh his case at all times. Meanwhile, a variety of people who don’t want Velma to be located use the double-cross and other means to get near Marlowe and do away with his snooping.The closer Marlowe gets to Velma (Charlotte Rampling), the more deadly the game becomes.  With Sylvia Miles as a drunken informant and Sylvester Stallone as a thug.

 

Robert Mitchum makes a fine Philip Marlowe.  The tone of this movie is quite a bit darker and more violent than the original Murder, My Sweet (1944).  Charlotte Rampling puts the fatal into femme fatale.  We see LA strictly from its seedy underbelly and Marlowe is one of the few decent characters in the film.  Richards does well in translating film noir for the 70’s.  I don’t know that the original film needed a re-make but this does make for some engrossing viewing.

Sylvia Miles was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

The Stepford Wives (1975)

The Stepford Wives
Directed by Bryan Forbes
Written by William Goldman from a novel by Ira Levin
1975/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

Bobbie Markowe: I can’t figure out this burg. It’s like maids have been declared illegal, and the housewife with the neatest place gets Robert Redford for Christmas. And believe me, if that’s the prize, I’d enter, but nobody’ll tell what the contest rules are. Cheers!

Well-done horror from the director of Seance on a Wet Afternoon and The Whisperers and the author of Rosemary’s Baby.

Joanna Eberhart (Katherine Ross) and her husband Walter (Peter Masterson), a lawyer, move to the charming, perfect little village of Stepford, Connecticut. It was Walter’s idea. Joanna was not too keen on this development as she loved living in New York City and the move interfered with her dreams of being a professional photographer.  Walter is flattered to be asked to join the town’s Men’s Association and begins spending every evening with the “boys”

But it’s not only the town that is perfect. The men are of many ages and degrees of attractiveness. All the women are young, sexy, well-dressed, and made-up at all times. They spend their days keeping a perfect house and their nights pleasing their man.

This is not Joanna at all and she finds another newcomer wife, Bobbie (Paula Prentiss) who agrees. They try and fail at consciousness raising with the local women. Meanwhile, it becomes more apparent that the husbands are plotting something during their Men’s Association meetings and the story becomes increasingly dark and eerie and then downright terrifying. This is psychological horror with zero gore.

I enjoyed this. Evidently women’s liberation advocates criticized it for being misogynistic at the time. I thought it was a stong indictment against male chauvinism and all those commercials that were making us hate ourselves for leaving a ring around the guy’s collar. We’ve come a long way baby! Not a must-see but interesting.

 

The Magic Flute

The Magic Flute (Trollflöten)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Written by Ingmar Bergman from the libretto of Emanuel Schikaneder
1975/Sweden
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

Sarastro: The radiant sun overpowers the night, And darkness surrenders to wisdom and light…

Ingmar Bergman makes one masterpiece out of another.

The story takes place in the land of myths and fairy tales.  Our hero Tamino is on a quest to find the meaning of life and true love.  He fights a dragon and faints while three Ladies-in-Waiting to the Queen of the Night slay the beast.  When they see the comely youth, they know he will be perfect for a mission highly desired by the Queen. Soon we also meet the bird-catcher Papageno, a comic coward whose quest is merely for a wife.

Pamina is the daughter of the Queen of the Night.  The Ladies come back with a locket containing Pamina’s portrait and Tamino knows at once where his quest is leading him. If Tamino can rescue Pamina from Sarastro, who has captured her, she will be his bride. The Queen provides a magic flute to use in case of emergency.  The very reluctant Papageno is ordered to accompany Tamino and is given a set of magic bells.  Finally a hot air balloon arrives bearing three little boys who will give him advice throughout the story.

Papageno finds Pamina before Tamino does and they run off to look for him.  When Tamino meets Sarastro he turns out to be a righteous god-like High Priest who rules in connection with a Brotherhood.  Tamino will need to go through three scary trials of wisdom to prove himself worthy to join the Brotherhood and wed Pamina.

When the Queen gets wind of this, she vents her fury in an unbelievable aria and orders Pamina to kill Sarastro.  Pamina is unwilling.

Papageno is promised a bride if he will accompany Tamino on these trials.  The number one ground rule is particpants must remain silent.  The very frightened Papageno fails at this miserably.  But Tamino passes the first two trials and will go through the third with Pamina.  Will Tamino complete his quest?  How will Papageno ever find a bride?

I can’t think of a better way to enjoy Mozart’s glorious opera. Bergman strikes the perfect balance between the theatrical and the cinematic. It’s a primal hero’s quest story with quite a bit of comedy thrown in. The film was made for Swedish TV and is sung in Swedish by some fantastic singers. Bergman spends the overture with the audience studying faces, including faces of some of his usual players, reacting to the music. Highly recommended to opera lovers, Bergman completists, and anyone looking for something unique and moving.

The Magic Flute was nominated for the Best Costume Design Oscar.

The Queen of the Night orders Pamina to kill Sarastro  – no subtitles