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

This one I haven't seen, either.

 

Isn't this about a beagle? I used to have a beagle. Wonderful dogs.

 

87. The Way We Were

The Way We Were is a 1973 American romantic dramatic film directed by Sydney Pollack. The screenplay by Arthur Laurents was based on his college days at Cornell University and his experiences with the House Un-American Activities Committee.

A box office success, the film was nominated for several awards and won the Academy Award for Best Original Score and the Academy Award for Best Original Song for The Way We Were. The soundtrack recording charted for 23 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and eventually sold in excess of one million copies.


The film is both a romance about star-crossed lovers and a morality tale about the importance of commitment to one's ideals. Told in flashback, it is the story of Katie Morosky and Hubbell Gardiner, who meet at college in the 1930s. Their differences are immense: she is a stridently vocal Marxist Jew with strong anti-war opinions, and he is a carefree WASP with no particular political bent. She is drawn to him because of his boyish good looks and his natural writing skill, which she finds confident and captivating, although he doesn't work very hard at it. He is intrigued by her conviction and her determination to persuade others to take up social causes. They meet, romantically, for the first time on the night that the Duke of Windsor marries Mrs. Simpson.

The two meet again at the end of World War II. She is working at a radio station, and he, having served as a Naval officer in the South Pacific, is trying to return to civilian life. They fall in love and marry despite the differences in their background and temperament. Soon, however, Katie is incensed by the cynical jokes Hubbell's friends make and is unable to understand his acceptance of their insensitivity and shallow dismissal of political engagement. At the same time, his serenity is disturbed by her lack of social graces and her polarizing postures.

When Hubbell seeks a job as a Hollywood screenwriter, Katie believes he's wasting his talent and encourages him to pursue writing as a serious challenge instead. Despite her growing frustration, they move to California, where he becomes a successful albeit desultory screenwriter, and the couple enjoys an affluent lifestyle. As the Hollywood blacklist grows and McCarthyism begins to encroach on their lives, Katie's political activism resurfaces, jeopardizing Hubbell's position and reputation.

Alienated by Katie's persistent abrasiveness, Hubbell has an affair with Carol Ann, his college girlfriend and the ex-wife of his best friend J.J., even though Katie is pregnant. Katie and Hubbell decide to part when she finally understands he is not the man she idealized when she fell in love with him and will always choose the easiest way out, whether it is cheating in his marriage or writing predictable stories for sitcoms. Hubbell, on the other hand, is exhausted, unable either to live on the pedestal Katie erected for him or to face her disappointment in his decision to compromise his potential.

In the film's final scene, Katie and Hubbell meet by coincidence, several years after their divorce, in front of the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Hubbell, who is with a stylish beauty and apparently content, is now writing for a popular sitcom as one of a group of nameless writers. Katie has remained faithful to who she is: flyers in hand, she is agitating for the newest political causes.

Katie, now re-married, invites Hubbell to come for a drink with his lady friend, but he confesses he can't. Katie's response acknowledges what they both finally understand: Hubbell was at his best when he was with her, and no one will ever believe in him or see as much promise in him as she once did. Their past is behind them; all the two share now, besides their daughter, is a memory of the way they were.

 

I've never heard of this film, but I found the synopsis you posted for it fascinating.

 

It's an OK flick. A better Pollack romance than Out of Bloody Africa, that's for sure. I think the music carries a lot of it, but there's no shame in that. The leads are good, the writing is good... it's most certainly a product of its time, but we're talking about possibly the best decade in film history.

 

For what it is, I think it's pretty good. Redford seems perfect for the part, but I had a hard time accepting Streisand as a college girl, though her strident, domineering personality seems a perfect fit with her role as Katie.

It's interesting to see what Sydney Pollack thought of it, a few years after release:

Pollack discusses the Way We Were

 

She's so damn annoying you want to shoot her.

 

Well, they shoot horses, don't they? Whoops, sorry wrong Pollack film.

Seriously, I think that's why Redford's character is unfaithful and they divorce. He just can't take her anymore.

 

No kidding. And I don't blame him.

 

86. The Ruling Class

The Ruling Class is a 1972 British comedy film. It is an adaptation of Peter Barnes' satirical stage play which tells the story of a paranoid schizophrenic British nobleman (played by Peter O'Toole) who inherits a peerage. The film costars Alastair Sim, William Mervyn, Coral Browne, Harry Andrews, Carolyn Seymour, James Villiers and Arthur Lowe. It was produced by Jules Buck and directed by Peter Medak. Peter O'Toole described the movie as "a comedy with tragic relief".

Following the death from erotic asphyxiation of Ralph Gurney, the 13th Earl of Gurney (Andrews), Jack Gurney (O'Toole) becomes the 14th Earl of Gurney (O'Toole). Jack Gurney at first thinks he is God and shocks his family and friends with his talk of returning to the world to bring it love and charity, not to mention his penchant for breaking out into song and dance routines and sleeping upright on a cross. When faced with unpalatable facts (such as his identity as the 14th Earl), Jack puts them in his "galvanized pressure cooker" and they disappear. His unscrupulous uncle, Sir Charles (Mervyn), marries him to his own mistress, Grace (Seymour), in hopes of producing an heir and putting his nephew in an institution; the plan fails when Grace actually falls in love with Gurney.

Gurney gains another ally in Sir Charles' wife (Browne), who hates her husband and befriends Gurney just to spite him. She also begins sleeping with Gurney's psychiatrist, Dr. Herder (Michael Bryant), to persuade him to cure Gurney quickly.

Herder attempts to cure him through intensive psychotherapy, but this is to no avail; Gurney so thoroughly believes that he is the "God of Love" that, ironically, he dismisses any suggestion to the contrary as the rambling of lunatics. The night his wife goes into labour with their child, Herder makes one last effort at therapy; he introduces Gurney to McKyle (Nigel Green), a patient who also believes himself to be Christ, or, as the patient puts it, "The Electric Messiah", who subjects an unwitting Gurney to electroshock therapy. The plan is to use the electroshock to (literally) jolt Gurney out of his delusions, showing him that the two men could not both be God, and so he must be operating under hallucinations. The plan works, and, as Grace delivers a healthy baby boy, Gurney appears to return to his senses and proclaims "I'm Jack, I'm Jack". But in truth he believes himself to now be Jack the Ripper.

Sir Charles sends for a court appointed psychiatrist (Graham Crowden) to evaluate Gurney, confident that his nephew would be sent to an asylum for life. He is once again thwarted, however, when the psychiatrist discovers that Gurney was a fellow Old Etonian, bonds with him, and declares him sane.

Gurney is now a violent psychopath with a fanatical hatred of women and an ability to pretend to be sane as needed. Gurney murders Sir Charles' wife in a fit of enraged revulsion when the aging woman tries to seduce him. He frames the Communist family butler, Tucker (Lowe), for the murder, and assumes his place in the House of Lords with a fiery speech in favor of capital and corporal punishment. Ironically, the speech is wildly applauded, and the lords have no idea that it is the ranting of a madman, in contrast to society's reaction when Gurney believed he was Christ. That night, he murders Grace for expressing her love for him.

The story's ending is ambiguous; Gurney's subsequent fate is left open to interpretation.

 

Now that's comedy material if I ever heard it.

 

It's okay. I remember there being so many wide shots in it that I felt no connection to what was going on. Maybe that was the idea?

 

I remember loving this movie ("from the bottom of my heart to the tip of my penis"), but I haven't seen it in years. I should watch it again.

 

85. The Candidate

The Candidate is a 1972 American film starring Robert Redford. Themes of the film include how the political machine corrupts and the pointlessness of politics. There are many parallels between the then-recent 1970 California Senate election between John V. Tunney and George Murphy; however, Redford's character Bill McKay is a political novice while Tunney was a seasoned congressman. The film serves mainly to show how a race for a seat in the Senate develops.

The film was shot in Northern California in 1971. Peter Boyle plays the political consultant Marvin Lucas. The screenplay was written by Jeremy Larner, a speech-writer for Senator Eugene J. McCarthy during McCarthy's campaign for the 1968 Democratic Presidential nomination. The film won a Best Writing Oscar and was also nominated for Best Sound.

Marvin Lucas (Peter Boyle), a political election specialist, is given the unenviable task of finding a Democratic candidate to unseat California U.S. Senator Crocker Jarmon, a popular Republican. With no big-name Democrat eager to enter the seemingly unwinnable race, Lucas seeks out Bill McKay (Robert Redford), a thirty-something, married, attractive man who couldn?t be further removed from politics. Despite being the son of former governor John J. McKay (played by Melvyn Douglas), Bill was never interested in politics and instead acts as a lawyer for liberal causes.

Lucas gives McKay a blunt proposition: Jarmon can?t lose; and since the race is already decided, McKay is free to hit the campaign trail and say exactly what he wants because none of it matters anyway. Though he now knows he will definitely lose, McKay accepts the proposition because it gives him the chance to speak to groups of people and spread his liberal values (which include support for abortion rights, busing, environmental regulation, and welfare). He rejects help or involvement from his father, wanting to make it on his own steam.

McKay hits the campaign trail and begins courting voters. His team of campaign staffers start airing pro-McKay commercials while creating ads designed to make Jarmon look old and weary. With no serious Democratic opposition, McKay cruises to the Democratic nomination on his name alone. He is then confronted by Lucas, who has distressing news: According to the latest election projections, McKay is set to be defeated by an overwhelming margin come November. While McKay counted on losing, he never counted on being ?humiliated? ? and the recent primary win means he can no longer back out and quit the race. Worried by a possible blowout, he agrees to start ?broadening? his message to appeal to more voters.

Throughout the next several months, McKay travels the state and campaigns, with his liberal statements eroding each day. His early support of abortion rights and gun control fade to mush, while his stump speech is reduced to the same few clichés and a new slogan: "For a better way: Bill McKay!" The new approach causes McKay to gain in the public opinion polls, but he has a new problem. Because McKay?s father has stayed completely out of the race, the media speculates that such silence is actually an endorsement of Jarmon. McKay begrudgingly meets his father and tells him the problem. McKay's father then tells the media he is not endorsing Jarmon, simply honoring his son?s wishes to stay out of the race. As McKay continues to do as he?s told (rather than say what?s in his heart), he continues to gain in the polls. As the campaign continues, McKay suddenly becomes self-aware that he is being manipulated and yells at Lucas to explain what the campaign has become. Though Lucas never verbalizes it, it?s evident that, in his wisdom, Lucas saw McKay as an unpolished gem ? a candidate who began with things you couldn?t buy: good looks, confidence and massive name recognition. Lucas then counted on molding McKay as the months went along. Lucas tells McKay that the shift in election strategy isn?t important. What is important, he says, is that McKay is now only nine points down ? so close, in fact, that J

 

I think it's Redford's best performance. He plays a mostly uncharismatic man, which is a switch for him, but he does it brilliantly. The satire of the film is still on point; the moment when Redford breaks down in the back of a car, reciting his standard stump speech in a herky-jerky, horrorshow fashion is just amazing.

 

84. Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Sunday Bloody Sunday is a 1971 British film directed by John Schlesinger. It tells the story of a young bisexual designer (Murray Head) and his simultaneous relationships with a recruitment consultant (Glenda Jackson) and a Jewish doctor (Peter Finch). The movie also stars Dame Peggy Ashcroft and Maurice Denham.

The film is noteworthy for being one of the first mainstream films with a homosexual theme


A Jewish doctor, Daniel Hirsh (Finch) and a young woman, Alex Greville (Jackson) are both involved in a love triangle with the same person, Bob Elkin (Head). Not only are Hirsh and Greville aware that Elkin is seeing the other, but they know each other through mutual friends. Despite this, they are willing to put up with the situation through fear of losing Elkin, who switches freely between them.

For Greville, the relationship is bound up with a growing disillusionment about her life, failed marriage and uneasy childhood. For Hirsh, it represents an escape from the repressed nature of his Jewish upbringing. Both realise the lack of permanence about their situation, and it is only when Elkin decides to leave the country that they both come face to face (for the first time in the narrative, and at the very end). Despite their opposed situations, both come to realize that it is time to move on.

The film is significant for its time period, in that Finch's character is normal and relatively well adjusted (aside from his being distraught over the impending departure of Elkin), and is not particularly upset by or obsessed with his homosexuality.

 

This is quite a famous movie, but I haven't seen it.

 

83. Klute

Klute is a 1971 film which tells the story of a prostitute who assists a detective in solving a mystery. It stars Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi, Dorothy Tristan, Vivian Nathan, and Roy Scheider. The movie was written by Andy Lewis and Dave Lewis and directed by Alan J. Pakula.

Klute was the first installment of what would informally come to be known as Pakula's "paranoia trilogy." The other two films in the trilogy are The Parallax View (1974) and All The President's Men (1976).

The film includes a cameo appearance by Warhol Superstar actress Candy Darling in the disco scene, and another by future All in the Family costar Jean Stapleton. The music was composed by Michael Small.


The film begins with the disappearance of Pennsylvania executive Tom Gruneman. The police reveal that an obscene letter was found in Gruneman's office. It was addressed to a prostitute in New York City named Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda), who had received several similar letters from Gruneman. Much to the surprise of the police, Peter Cable (Charles Cioffi), an executive at Gruneman's company, hires family friend John Klute (Donald Sutherland) to investigate the disappearance.

Klute rents an apartment in the basement of Daniel's building, taps her phone, and follows her as she turns tricks. Initially, Daniels appears to be liberated by the freedom of freelancing as a call girl. In visits with a psychiatrist throughout the film, however, she reveals that she wants to quit prostitution. Klute asks Daniels to answer some of his questions, but she refuses. He approaches her again, revealing his apartment and his surveillance of her. She assumes that he will turn her in if she does not cooperate, but does not recall Gruneman at all. She reveals that she was beaten by one of her johns two years earlier, but after seeing a photo of Gruneman, she says she cannot say for sure one way or the other. She is only certain that the john "was serious" about the attack.

Daniels takes Klute to meet her former pimp, Frank Ligourin (Roy Scheider). Ligourin reveals that one of his prostitutes passed off the abusive client to Bree and another woman named Arlyn Page (Dorothy Tristan). The original prostitute committed suicide, and Page became a junkie and disappeared. Klute gives his surveillance tapes to Daniels, telling her he is finished with her part of the case. But, realizing that he cannot continue the investigation without her, he re-enlists her help to track down Page.

As they search the city for the woman over several days, Klute and Daniels develop a romance. She instigates a sexual encounter with Klute, as she sleeps in his basement apartment after being spooked during the night. She admits to a deep paranoia which makes her think that she is being watched. Throughout the film, she is frequently shown from the perspective of a stalker in a building across the street.

When the couple finally track down Page, she says that the "freak" (john) was not Gruneman, but an "older man". Shortly after the meeting, a boat in Kill Van Kull turns up Page's body, another apparent suicide. Klute deduces a connection between the two suicides of the prostitutes who have been with the mysterious abusive client, surmising that the client probably also killed Gruneman and may kill Bree next. He revisits all of Gruneman's contacts anew, to try to find connections with the case. By typographic comparison, the supposed obscene letters of Gruneman are traced to the top executive Cable, with whom Klute has been meeting regularly to report on his investigation.

Klute asks Cable for an additional $500 to buy the "black book" of the first prostitute who committed suicide. He tells Cable that he is certain the book will reveal the identity of the abusive client. This flushes Cable out, as he confronts Bree and reveals that he sent her the letters. Cable explains that Gruneman had interrupted him when he was attacking a prostitute. Certain that Gruneman would use the incident as leverage against him within the company, Cable attempted to

 

82. The Garden of Finzi Continis

In the late 1930s, in Ferrara, a group of young friends get together for afternoons of tennis and happy times. Some of them are Jewish and a rising tide of Fascism has imposed increasingly anti-Semitic restrictions in their lives. Barred from the regular tennis clubs, they go to play at the grand, walled estate owned by the Finzi-Contini, a wealthy, intellectual and sophisticated Jewish family. The two young Finzi-Contini, Alberto and his sister Micol, have organized a tennis tournament. Oblivious to the threats around them, life still seems to be sunny at the large Finzi-Contini estate, keeping the rest of the world at bay.

Among the visitors there is a man vying for the beautiful, tall and blond, Micol Finzi-Contini. Her middle class Jewish, childhood friend Giorgio, who feels entitle to her heart. A series of flashbacks show how Giorgio used to wait outside the walls of the estate, hoping for a glimpse of Micol. As teenagers they became fast friends. Now as adults, they enjoy their mutual company and Micol gives Giorgio special attention. Escaping a sudden downpour in a gazebo, Giorgio tries to touch her, but she rejects him. Alberto, who has a fragile health, enjoys a close friendship with Bruno Malnate, a darkly handsome gentile with socialist sympathies. Giorgio's father considers the Finzi-Contini so different that they don?t even seem to be Jewish. Wealth, privilege and generations of intellectual and social position have bred them into a family as proud as it is vulnerable. The other Jews in the town react to Mussolini's edicts in various ways: Giorgio is enraged; his father is philosophical. But the Finzi-Continis hardly seem to know, or care, what is happening.

Giorgio, who is about to graduate, becomes a frequent visitor to the Finzi-Contini's villa where he is allowed to use their extensive library. He is love with Micol,and she seems to return his feeling, but unexpectedly she leaves to stay in Venice with her uncles. On her return Micol changes coldly rejecting any show of affection from Giorgio. Instead she carries on affair with Bruno Malnate, a man she claims to despise as too vulgar, crude, and leftist for her tastes. Peeking through a window Giorgio discovered Bruno and Micol naked together. Heartbroken Giorgio is comforted by his father.

The political events close in. A journey to visit his brother Ernesto in Grenoble exposes Giorgio to news of the Nazi persecution, but he returns to Ferrara. With the beginning of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Bruno is recruited and sent to the Russian front. By 1943 all the young Jews who used to visit the Garden of the Finzi-Continis have been arrested. Malnate has been killed in the Russian front.

By the time the frail and sick Alberto dies, Italian soldiers are hunting down and rounding up the Jews of Ferrara. The Finzi-Continis are abruptly taken away from their contentment and illusory isolation. Separated from her parents Micol and her frail and distraught grandmother are placed in a former classroom. They are surprised to find Giorgio?s father. Anxiously she asks him about Giorgio. He tells her that he hopes that Giorgio and the rest of his family has made it abroad. The fate of the Jews of Ferrara is being deported to the concentration camps. Giorgio's father hopes that at least they won't be separated.

Images shown happy days of Nicole, Alberto, Ernesto and Bruno playing tennis and now the empty tennis court. the sequences is accompanied by the Kadish, a Jewish lament for the death.

 

This is a famous film, which I unfortunately have not seen.

 

81. Breaking Away

Breaking Away is a 1979 American coming of age film, the story of four teenagers in Bloomington, Indiana who are unsure what to do with their lives. It stars Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern (his first film role), Jackie Earle Haley, Barbara Barrie and Paul Dooley. The movie was written by Steve Tesich (an alumnus of Indiana University) and directed by Peter Yates.

It won the 1979 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Tesich, and was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Barbara Barrie), Best Director, Best Music, Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score and Best Picture.

The film is 8th on the List of America's 100 Most Inspiring Movies compiled by The American Film Institute in 2006. In June 2008, AFI announced its "Ten top Ten"?the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres?after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Breaking Away was acknowledged as the eighth best film in the sports genre.[1][2]

A short-lived television series based on the film, also titled Breaking Away, aired in 1980.


Dave (Dennis Christopher), Mike (Dennis Quaid), Cyril (Daniel Stern) and Moocher (Jackie Earle Haley) are four working-class friends, living in a college town, who have recently graduated from high school and are not sure what to do next. They often clash with the more affluent Indiana University students in their hometown of Bloomington.

Dave is obsessed with bicycle racing. His down-to-earth, blue-collar father, Ray (Paul Dooley), is puzzled and exasperated by his son's love of Italian music and culture, which Dave associates with bicycling, and his precious Italian Masi road racing bicycle. However, his mother, Evelyn (Barbara Barrie), is more understanding. Dave masquerades as an Italian exchange student to romance a university student (Robyn Douglass), even serenading her one evening outside her sorority house window.

When a professional Italian bicycling team comes to town for a race, Dave is thrilled to be competing with them. However, the Italians become irked when Dave is able to keep up with and even talk to them in Italian during the race. One of them jams a bike pump in Dave's wheel, causing him to crash. This leaves him disillusioned and depressed.

Dave's friends soon persuade him to form a cycling team for the annual Indiana University Little 500 bicycle race. They race under the name "Cutters" (a euphemism for "stoners", the industrial stonecutters who worked the Indiana Limestone quarries of southern Indiana) against university intramural teams. Dave is so much better than the other competitors, he rides without a break and builds up a large lead, while the other teams have to switch cyclists every few laps. However, he is injured and has to stop. After some hesitation, Moocher, Cyril and Mike take turns pedaling, but soon their lead evaporates. Finally, Dave has his feet taped to the bike pedals and starts making up lost ground; he overtakes the leader on the last lap and wins. Dave's father is immensely proud of his accomplishment. Dave himself later enrolls at the university.

 

This is a great, totally underrated film. The Rookie reminded me of it because Breaking Away, like The Rookie, is a slow, meditative movie with some genuinely funny comedy and a father/son relationship at its heart. Paul Dooley is career best here. I mean, he infuriates you one second, puts you on the floor laughing the next and has you choking up the next.

 

Yeah, Breaking Away is quite solid. Paul Dooley is best in show, no doubt. Although I think the best Peter Yates film I've seen is easily The Dresser, this is probably the second best effort from him.

 

Not seen it.

 

Every time my college cycling team stayed at a hotel we always brought two movies with us--American Flyers and Breaking Away, as they were the only two movies we knew of that featured cycling, so I've seen this one half a dozen times or so. Very good inspirational coming of age film. Watching some of the bike racing scenes though is kind of painful as they're rather unrealistic.