100 Greatest Movies of the 70's: 41. All the President's Men

I like deep, honest artistic portrayals of the human condition as much as the next guy (actually probably more than the next guy, because he
usually wants lots of explosions, profanity, crude humor, and minimal dialogue) but honestly, reading that description of Cries and Whispers
was not appealing. It sounds like a movie that would make you want to slit your wrists.

 

That would be "Persona"...

 

47. Coming Home

Coming Home is a 1978 drama film directed by Hal Ashby and starring Jane Fonda, Jon Voight and Bruce Dern. The screenplay, written by Robert C. Jones, Waldo Salt, Nancy Dowd and Rudy Wurlitzer (uncredited), is based loosely on the novel of the same name by George Davis. The plot follows a love triangle between a young woman, her Marine husband and the paralyzed Vietnam War veteran she meets while her husband is overseas.

In the spring of 1968 in California, Sally (Jane Fonda), a loyal and conservative military wife, is married to Bob Hyde (Bruce Dern), a Captain in the United States Marine Corps who is sent over to Vietnam. As a dedicated military officer, Bob sees it primarily as an opportunity for progress. At first, Sally dreads being left alone, but after a while she feels liberated. Forced to find housing off the base she moves into a new apartment by the beach and buys a sports car. With nothing else to do, she decides to volunteer at a local veteran's hospital. This, in part, is motivated by her bohemian friend Vi Munson, whose brother Billy has come home after just two weeks in Vietnam with grave emotional problems and now resides in the VA hospital.

At the hospital, Sally meets Luke Martin (Jon Voight), a former classmate. Like his friend Bill (Robert Carradine), Luke had gone to Vietnam but came back wounded. He is recuperating at the hospital from the injuries he sustained in the Vietnam War and which left him a paraplegic. Filled with pain, anger, and frustration, Luke is now opposed to the war. Luke at first is a bitter young man, but as he is increasingly thrown into contact with Sally, a relationship starts to develop. Eventually, Luke is released from the hospital, and, newly mobile with his own wheelchair, begins to rebuild his life. His relationship with Sally deepens. She is also transformed by him and her outlook on life starts to change. They have happy times, play at the beach, and the two fall in love. Meanwhile Billy, traumatized by his experiences at war, commits suicide by injecting air into his veins. After Billy?s suicide, Luke has only one obsession: do anything to stop sending young men off to war.

Sally and Luke eventually make love, confronting his handicap. It is the first time Sally has been unfaithful. However, she remains loyal to her husband, and both she and Luke know their relationship will have to end when her husband returns home. Bob does return, too soon, having accidentally wounded himself in a leg. He is also suffering from post traumatic stress disorder from what he has seen in combat. Bob then discovers Sally?s affair from Army Intelligence; and both Sally and Luke agree that Sally should try to patch things up with Bob. Bob loses control; menacingly confronting the lovers, but ultimately turns away. The film ends with Bob swimming out into the ocean in utter despair, presumably to kill himself. As Sally enters the supermarket at the end, the two doors close behind her, accidentally forming the symbolic phrase "Lucky Out". She and Luke are now free to pursue their romance.

 

I haven't seen this one.

 

46. Badlands

Badlands is a 1973 American crime drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick, starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. Warren Oates and Ramon Bieri are also featured. Malick has a small speaking part although he does not receive an acting credit. The story, though fictional, is loosely based on the real-life murder spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, in 1958, though such a basis was not acknowledged when the film was released.

In 1993, five years after the United States National Film Registry was established, Badlands was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Badlands is narrated by Holly (Spacek), a teenage girl living in a dead-end South Dakota town. One day she meets Kit (Sheen), a rebellious young greaser who charms her and takes her as his accomplice on a cross-country killing spree. Holly's narration, describing her adventures with Kit with romantic clichés, is juxtaposed with the grim reality of Kit's sociopathic appetite for grisly violence. The two are eventually arrested; Kit is executed for his crimes, while Holly receives probation.

Malick, a protégé of Arthur Penn (whom he thanked in the film's end credits), began work on Badlands after his second year as a student at the American Film Institute. "I wrote and, at the same time, developed a kind of sales kit with slides and video tape of actors, all with a view to presenting investors with something that would look ready to shoot," Malick said. "To my surprise, they didn't pay too much attention to it; they invested on faith. I raised about half the money and executive producer Edward Pressman the other half."

Principal photography took place in the summer of 1972, beginning in July, with a non-union crew and a considerably low budget of $300,000 (excluding some deferments to film labs and actors).

The film was edited by Robert Estrin; Billy Weber is credited as associate editor. Both he and the art designer Jack Fisk went on to work on all of Malick's features made to date.

Though Malick paid close attention to period detail, he did not want it to overwhelm the picture. "I tried to keep the 1950s to a bare minimum," he said. "Nostalgia is a powerful feeling; it can drown out anything. I wanted the picture to set up like a fairy tale, outside time." Malick, at a news conference coinciding with the film's festival debut, called Kit "so desensitized that [he] can regard the gun with which he shoots people as a kind of magic wand that eliminates small nuisances." Malick also pointed out that "Kit and Holly even think of themselves as living in a fairy tale", and he felt that was very appropriate as "children's books like Treasure Island were often filled with violence." He also hoped a "fairy tale" tone would "take a little of the sharpness out of the violence but still keep its dreamy quality."

Warner Brothers eventually purchased and distributed the completed film for a sum just under a million dollars.

Badlands was the closing feature film at the 1973 New York Film Festival, reportedly "overshadowing even Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets." Vincent Canby, who saw the film at its Festival debut, called it a "cool, sometimes brilliant, always ferociously American film"; according to Canby, "Sheen and Miss Spacek are splendid as the self-absorbed, cruel, possibly psychotic children of our time, as are the members of the supporting cast, including Warren Oates as Holly's father. One may legitimately debate the validity of Malick's vision, but not, I think, his immense talent. Badlands is a most important and exciting film."In April 1974, Jay Cocks wrote the film "might better be regarded less as a companion piece to Bonnie and Clyde than as an elaboration and reply. It is not loose and high-spirited. All its comedy has a frosty irony, and its violence, instead of being brutally balletic, is executed with a dry, remorseless drive." He said Badlands is "excellently cast. Sissy Spacek is a thoroughly convinci

 

I agree it's a great film, without buying what it's peddling whatsoever.

 

Scenes from a Marriage (Swedish: Scener ur ett äktenskap) is a 1973 Swedish TV series written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The story explores the disintegration of a marriage between Marianne, a lawyer, and Johan, a professor (played respectively by Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson) over a long period, using a restricted cast, a naturalist, hyper-realistic cinematic style, claustrophobic close-ups, and strings of rapid, articulate monologues. After major success in Sweden, the series became notorious worldwide when it was condemned for allegedly inspiring a spike in Scandinavian divorce rates, which almost doubled in the year of its release.

The TV version of Scenes from a Marriage is almost five hours long, split in six episodes. In the United States, a 167-minute version was released to cinemas. The film was made on a $150,000 budget and was shot mostly in Fårö, Gotlands län in Sweden. The film won several accolades including BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Liv Ullmann (Best Actress ? Motion Picture Drama), and a Best Foreign Language Film. A sequel, Saraband, was released theatrically in 2003. In 2008, a theatrical adaption by Joanna Murray-Smith was performed at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, directed by Trevor Nunn and starring Imogen Stubbs and Iain Glen.

 

I don't want to see this one.

 

44. Manhattan

Manhattan is a 1979 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Woody Allen about a twice-divorced 42-year-old comedy writer who dates a 17-year-old girl before eventually falling in love with his best friend's mistress. The movie was written by Allen and Marshall Brickman, who had also successfully collaborated on Annie Hall. Manhattan was filmed in black-and-white and 2.35:1 widescreen.

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actress (Mariel Hemingway) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. It also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film. The film was #46 on American Film Institute's "100 Years...100 Laughs". In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

The film opens with a montage of images of Manhattan accompanied by George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Isaac Davis (Woody Allen), is introduced as a man writing a book about his love for New York City. He is a twice-divorced, 42-year-old television writer dealing with the women in his life who gives up his unfulfilling job as a comedy writer. He is dating Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), a 17-year-old girl. His best friend, Yale (Michael Murphy), married to Emily (Anne Byrne), is having an affair with Mary Wilkie (Diane Keaton); her ex-husband and former teacher, Jeremiah (Wallace Shawn), also appears. Isaac's ex-wife Jill (Meryl Streep) is writing a confessional book about their marriage. Jill has also since come out of the closet as a lesbian and lives with her female partner Connie (Karen Ludwig).

When Isaac meets Mary, her cultural snobbery rubs him the wrong way. Isaac runs into her again at an Equal Rights Amendment fund-raising event at the Museum of Modern Art and accompanies her on a cab ride home. They chat until sunrise in a sequence that culminates in the iconic shot of the Queensboro Bridge. In spite of a growing attraction to Mary, Isaac continues his relationship with Tracy. But he emphasizes that theirs can't be a serious relationship and encourages the girl to go to London to study acting. In another iconic scene, at Tracy's request, they go on a carriage ride through Central Park.

After Yale breaks up with Mary, he suggests Isaac ask her out. Isaac does, always having felt that Tracy was too young for him. Isaac breaks up with Tracy, much to her dismay, and before long Mary has virtually moved into his apartment. Emily is curious about Isaac's new girlfriend, and after several meetings between the two couples, including one where Emily reads out portions of Jill's new book about her marriage with Isaac, Yale leaves Emily to resume his relationship with Mary. A betrayed Isaac confronts Yale at the college where he teaches, and Yale argues that he found Mary first. Isaac responds by discussing Yale's extramarital affairs with Emily, but she thinks Isaac introduced Mary to Yale. In the denouement, Isaac lies on his sofa, musing into a tape recorder about the things that make "life worth living"?the final item, after which he sets down the microphone, is "Tracy's face."

He leaves his apartment and sets out on foot for Tracy's. He arrives at her family's doorman apartment just as she is leaving for London. He says that she doesn't have to go and that he doesn't want "that special thing" about her to change. She replies that the plans have already been made and reassures him that "not everyone gets corrupted" and "You've got to have faith in people". He gives her a slight smile segueing into final shots of the skyline with Rhapsody in Blue playing again.

Not a Fan.

 

Subsequent events have overtaken this movie, perhaps.

 

Sure, Manhattan now reads like Woody Allen's personal wish fulfillment fantasy about sleeping with high school girls. But was there ever a time when it didn't read that way?

 

I guess so.

 

43. Grease

Grease is a 1978 American musical film directed by Randal Kleiser and based on Warren Casey's and Jim Jacobs's 1971 musical of the same name about two lovers in a 1950s high school. The film stars John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, and Jeff Conaway. It was successful both critically and at the box office; its soundtrack album ended 1978 as the second-best selling album of the year in the United States, behind the soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever, another film starring Travolta.

In the summer of 1959, local boy Danny Zuko and vacationing Sandy Olsson meet at the beach and fall in love. When the summer comes to an end, Sandy, who is going back to Australia, frets that they may never meet again, but Danny tells her that their love is "only the beginning". The film moves to the start of the seniors' term at Rydell High School. Danny, a greaser, is a member of the T-Birds, consisting of his best friend Kenickie, Doody, Putzie and Sonny. Meanwhile, the Pink Ladies arrive, consisting of Betty Rizzo, Jan and Marty to "rule the school". After her parents decided not to return to Australia, Sandy enrolls at Rydell and befriends Pink Lady Frenchy, who considers dropping out of school to become a beautician. Oblivious to each other's presence at school, Danny and Sandy tell the T-Birds and Pink Ladies their respective accounts of events during their brief romance.

Upon learning Danny is Sandy's lover, Rizzo arranges for the two to reunite, but Danny is forced to maintain his badboy attitude in front of his friends, upsetting Sandy. Frenchy invites the girls to a sleepover, but Sandy falls ill from trying a cigarette and drinking. The T-Birds almost crash the party, but a guilty Danny leaves, followed by Rizzo to make out with Kenickie, actually her boyfriend. The two are disturbed by Leo, leader of the T-Birds' rival gang, the Scorpions, and his girlfriend Cha-Cha, who bump into Kenickie's fender. Kenickie yells at Leo for dinging the fender. Wishing to win his way back into Sandy's affection after Danny spies her flirting with Rydell's muscular football star, Danny turns to Coach Calhoun to get into sports, eventually becoming a runner. He reunites with Sandy and they attempt to go on a date, but their friends crash it, resulting in Kenickie and Rizzo breaking up over a fight. Left alone, Frenchy is visited by a guardian angel who advises her to return to high school.

The school dance arrives, broadcasted live on television and hosted by DJ Vince Fontaine who flirts with Marty. Rizzo and Kenickie attempt to spite one another by bringing Leo and Cha Cha as their dates, while Danny and Sandy come together. During a dance, Danny and Cha Cha reunite, once boyfriend and girlfriend, and win a dance-off. Danny tries to make it up to Sandy by taking her to a drive-in theatre but ends up making several passes on her, causing Sandy to flee. Meanwhile, Rizzo fears she is pregnant after missing a period and confides to Marty, but Sonny overhears and spreads the rumour which eventually reaches Kenickie, who is the potential father.

The race arrives, but Kenickie is knocked out by his own car door so Danny takes up the challenge. He and Leo race until Leo crashes and is left humiliated, with Danny as the victor. Sandy watches from afar, concluding she still loves Danny and decides to change her attitude and look to impress him. On the last day of school, while Principal McGee and her assistant Blanche sob about the departing class, the class celebrate their graduation at the fair on the school grounds. Rizzo discovers she is not pregnant after all and reunites with Kenickie. Danny has become a jock but is shocked when Sandy appears smoking and dressed in black leather. In song, the two admit they love each other and reunite. The film ends with Danny and Sandy departing in Danny's car which takes flight, and wave goodbye to their friends as they leave. The film ends with credits in the style of a yearbook.

 

42. Dirty Harry

Dirty Harry is a 1971 American crime thriller produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the Dirty Harry series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan.

Dirty Harry was a critical and commercial success and set the style for a whole genre of police films. The film was followed by four sequels: Magnum Force in 1973, The Enforcer in 1976, Sudden Impact in 1983 (directed by Eastwood himself), and The Dead Pool in 1988.

In 2008, Dirty Harry was selected by Empire magazine as one of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time

A serial killer and ex-Vietnam War veteran who calls himself "Scorpio" (Andy Robinson) murders a young woman in a San Francisco rooftop swimming pool at the Holiday Inn San Francisco, using a high-powered, silencer-equipped .30-06 hunting rifle from the top of 555 California Street. SFPD Homicide Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is called in to investigate, and while examining the rooftop, discovers a shell casing and a note from Scorpio promising his next victim will be either "a Catholic priest or a nigger" if the city does not pay $100,000. The chief of police and the Mayor (John Vernon) assign the inspector to the case.

That afternoon, Callahan goes to a local diner for his "usual" hot dog lunch. He asks the cook if the car that is parked in front of a nearby bank still has its engine running (exhaust fumes are being emitted from the tailpipe). The cook confirms this, and Harry tells the cook to call the police, suspecting a robbery in progress. However, before backup arrives, the bank alarm goes off, as well as gunshots. Callahan exits the diner, still eating his hot dog, walks out onto the street, and takes out his .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 29 revolver. After killing two of the bank robbers, Harry walks up to one he wounded (Albert Popwell), who lies wounded near a loaded 12 gauge Winchester Model 1912 shotgun and challenges him to pick the gun up, saying:

? I know what you?re thinking: 'Did he fire six shots, or only five?' Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I?ve kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you?ve got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk? ?

The robber surrenders rather than take the risk, but then says "I's gots to know." Callahan answers his question by aiming at the criminal and pulling the trigger. The bank robber hears the click as the hammer falls on an empty chamber and Harry smiles at him. Callahan had fired six shots. The chamber was already empty.

After getting patched up at a local hospital for buckshot wounds to his leg from the shootout, Harry heads back to Police Headquarters, where he is assigned a new rookie partner on the Scorpio case, Chico Gonzalez (Reni Santoni). The veteran officer notes that his partners always get injured or killed with him. He claims to his superior, Lt. Al Bressler (Harry Guardino), that he needs someone experienced, like Inspector Frank "Fatso" DiGiorgio (John Mitchum), but has no choice. Later that day, helicopter patrols are set up to canvass the rooftops of the city in search of Scorpio. Scorpio is soon spotted by a police chopper on a rooftop across from Washington Square, with his rifle. Scared off the rooftop, Scorpio gets away.

That night, while canvassing the area where Scorpio was last seen, Gonzalez spots a man with a brown suitcase, the same that Scorpio was spotted carrying his rifle in. Callahan and Gonzalez park and follow the man up an alleyway, and discover that it is a false alarm. After peering through the man's window to get a closer look, Callahan is attacked by a few neighborhood residents, who have mistaken him for a peeping tom. They are soon halted by a shot from Gonzalez's pistol. Callahan lets them go and tells them to beat it. As they leave the alleyway, a call comes in for a man on a rooftop, suspected to be Scorpio. When the tw

 

41. All the President's Men

All the President's Men is a 1976 Academy Award-winning political thriller film based on the 1974 non-fiction book of the same name by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two journalists investigating the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post. The film starred Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein, respectively; it was produced by Walter Coblenz, written by William Goldman, and directed by Alan J. Pakula.

In June 1972, a security guard (Frank Wills, playing himself) at the Watergate complex finds a door kept unlocked with tape. The police arrest burglars in the Democratic National Committee headquarters within the complex. The Washington Post assigns new reporter Bob Woodward to the unimportant story.

Woodward learns that the five men?four Cuban Americans from Miami and James W. McCord, Jr.?had bugging equipment and have their own "country club" attorney. McCord identifies himself in court as having recently left the Central Intelligence Agency, and the others also have CIA ties. The reporter connects the burglars to E. Howard Hunt, formerly of the CIA, and President Richard Nixon's Special Counsel Charles Colson.

Carl Bernstein, also assigned to the story, and Woodward are reluctant partners but work well together. Executive editor Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards) believes their work is incomplete, however, and not worthy of the Post's front page. He encourages them to continue to gather information.

Woodward contacts "Deep Throat", a senior government official and anonymous source he has used before. Communicating through copies of the Times and a balcony flower pot, they meet in a parking garage. Deep Throat speaks in riddles and metaphors, but advises Woodward to "follow the money".

Woodward and Bernstein connect the burglars to thousands of dollars in diverted campaign contributions to Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP, pejoratively pronounced 'creep'). Their story appears on the front page, but not above the fold. Bradlee and others at the Post dislike the two young reporters' reliance on unnamed sources like Deep Throat, and wonder why the Nixon administration would break the law when the President is likely to easily defeat Democratic nominee George McGovern.

Through former CREEP treasurer Hugh W. Sloan, Jr., Woodward and Bernstein connect a slush fund of hundreds of thousands of dollars to White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman?"the second most important man in this country"?and former Nixon Attorney General John N. Mitchell, now head of CREEP. They learn that CREEP used the fund to begin a "rat****ing" campaign to sabotage Democratic presidential candidates a year before the Watergate burglary, when Nixon was behind Edmund Muskie in the polls. Deep Throat implies that Muskie's loss in the primaries to McGovern, in part due to the Canuck letter, was what the White House wanted.

Bradlee's demand for thoroughness forces the reporters to obtain other sources to confirm the Haldeman connection. When the White House issues a non-denial denial of the Post's above-the-fold story, the editor thus continues to support them. Deep Throat claims that the cover-up was not to hide the burglaries but "covert operations" involving "the entire U.S. intelligence community", and warns that Woodward, Bernstein, and others' lives are in danger. Bradlee urges the reporters to continue despite the risk and Nixon's re-election. A montage of Watergate-related teletype headlines from the following years is shown, ending with Nixon's resignation and the inauguration of Gerald Ford on August 9, 1974.

 

I think this one has dated a good bit.

 

I watched this movie in high school, and the only thing I remember about it was my teacher pointing out the fact that the movie's set was almost an exact replica of the Washington Post's main floor, even down to the placement of the support pillars and the fact that Bernstein always brought in the front wheel off his bicycle to lean up against his desk.

 

This one feels kind of overrated to me. It's a little too detail oriented; you kind of lose the thread of exactly what's going on, the names and dates and numbers fly at your head so fast; it gets a little draggy too. It's okay, but not great.

 

It's kind of hard to follow the story unless you know something about Watergate beforehand.