Film Babble Blog's Top 10 Films Of The '70s

Inspired by Sam Fragoso’s “History of Film: The Best Movies of the 1970s” at moviemezzanine.com, in which ballots from staff and friends of the site contribute their top ten films from the decade many consider to be the finest decade in American cinema, I decided to post my list here (also in their comments section).



So here goes:



1. HAROLD AND MAUDE (Dir. Hal Ashby, 1971)

2. THE GODFATHER: PART II (Dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)

3. MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (Dirs. Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones, 1975)

4. ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (Dir. Alan J. Pakula, 1976)

5. THE LONG GOODBYE (Dir. Robert Altman, 1973)

6. MANHATTAN (Dir. Woody Allen, 1979)

7. TAXI DRIVER (Dir. Martin Scorsese, 1976)

8. CHINATOWN (Dir. Roman Polanski, 1974)

9. BADLANDS (Dir. Terrence Malick, 1973)

10. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND

(Dir. Steven Spielberg, 1978)

More
later…

Adventures In Altman Appraisal: CALIFORNIA SPLIT (1974)

In many ways, Robert Altman’s 1974 rambling ramshackle of a comedy CALIFORNIA SPLIT is the ultimate gambling movie. It gives us a few days in the lives of George Segal and Elliott Gould as compulsive gambler buddies who live, breathe, then almost choke on gambling (well, not really - but they get mugged twice because of it).



We follow the duo as they go on a bender playing poker (the title is slag for high-low-split poker), betting on horses and boxing matches, even waging $20 on a bar bet if they could name the Seven Dwarves, only pausing to have some drunken downtime with Gould’s prostitute room-mates (Ann Prentiss and Gwen Welles).

There’s not much of a plot beyond that, but with the backdrop of the gambling scene in Los Angeles and Reno in the early ’70s, and Altman’s trademark overlapping dialogue technique in full bloom (aided by then new eight-track stereo sound), the film gets you caught up in its authentic-feeling flow. And you can almost smell the cigarette smoke, stale alcohol, and sweat in the dingy dives and seedy surroundings in every scene.

Altman pulls off this effect by populating the film with real professional gamblers such as former world champion Amarillo Slim, and extras from Synanon (an organization for ex-addicts), and having them all blab at once (you know, like in real life). Segal and Gould blather on themselves, sometimes scat singing on the side, through the nonstop chatter until they settle on the scenario of making one last score.



Odd characters the pair encounter in their journey through the counter-culture of gaming for high stakes include a young Jeff Goldblum, who would also show up in Altman's next film NASHVILLE; Altman regulars Vincent Palmieri and Jack Riley, and Bert Remsen as a transvestite in possible the movie's oddest scene.

At first I would think that this almost 40 year old film would only appeal students of ‘70s cinema or mostly American or Canadian gamblers, but the citizens from today’s world of online gambling would surely take to the motion picture’s celebration or sorts of being a player, no matter where they hail from.Segal, who blows off his job writing for a magazine, finds himself with a large debt to his bookie Sparkie, played by the film’s screenwriter Joseph Walsh, due to a losing streak he feels was caused by Gould being out of town.

However, in the movie’s Reno casino-set finale, Gould, with a bloody bandage on his nose from a bathroom brawl, comes on like a “cooler” to his friend. Segal, back on a major winning streak, keeps sending Gould away from his table, which gets funnier and funnier as Gould sulks about not having any money, and even tries to get into another game with only a candy bar to gamble with.

A movie as much about the intense highs that people playing these games for a living will experience as it is the crushing lows. Segal is drained empty at the end, and it’s obvious that the gig is up for him. Gould however doesn’t appear to have anything else to do, and his half joke of living at the races for the rest of his life is probably the route he’ll actually take.

In Mitchell Zuckoff’s “Robert Altman: The Oral Biography (2009), Walsh was quoted at length about being disappointed that the director altered the final scene. Walsh: “He didn’t film the ending I wrote…They’re talking to each other at the end and Elliot finally says, ‘You’re going home? Oh yeah, where the fuck do you live?’ I didn’t write that. I’m sitting there thinking, ‘What happened to this character?’”

Reportedly, Segal felt that the character was spent, having won but “there was no special feeling.” Altman agreed and went with that idea much to Walsh’s chagrin.

I can understand the frustration a writer has with having their work changed without their input, but Altman didn’t get where he was by following the letter. CALIFORNIA SPLIT was so loose that at times that it hardly felt like there was a script at all (a lot of it was indeed ad-libbed), so a crucial change that occurred to an actor and approved by the director seems naturally in the spirit of Altman’s entire canon.



Out of print on DVD, CALIFORNIA SPLIT is overdue for a new re-mastered release on home video. It would be a perfect title for the Criterion Collection, as they’ve put out deluxe editions of many choice Altman titles in the last decade. In the meantime, it is available for sale or rent on Amazon Instant Video, and I’ve seen it pop up on Netflix Instant every now and then.



More later...

Ongoing Adventures In Altman Appraisal

Seeing all of the films that iconic director Robert Altman made in his half century career can be quite a task these days.

Several titles have never been released on DVD (including BREWSTER McCLOUD, HealH, and COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN) and one of his first features, COUNTDOWN, is only available as part of Warner Archives Collection’s “Burn On Demand” series so you can’t get it from Netflix.

Recently, inspired by reading the excellent “Robert Altman: The Oral Biography” by Mitchell Zuckoff, I’ve been catching up with the handful of movies of Altman’s movies that I haven’t yet seen. These 3 films are easily available but still fairly obscure - here are my thoughts:

THE JAMES DEAN STORY (1957)

The opening titles of this - one of the very first bio-docs ever - declare that this is “a different kind of motion picture.” They go on to explain: “The presence of the leading character in this film has been made possible by the use of existing motion picture material, tape recordings of his voice, and by means of a new technique – dynamic exploration of the still photograph.”

If that sounds pretentious well you haven't heard anything yet. Orson Welles-ish sounding narrator Martin Gabel reads from a script over the hundreds of photos and footage such overwrought lines as:

“He looked at the ocean, and was envious of its power.”

“He kept a revolver - which made him feel safe... but they found it and took it away.” (No more explanation is given to this)

“He tried to believe it when they said they liked him.”

“Success was nothing more than the concealing leaf which covered the tree of his loneliness, and after every job the tree was bare.”

If you can get past such irritating pretension, and the fact that this was an exploitation film rushed into production after Dean's tragic death, there is much here to enjoy. Such a wealth of black and white photographs, whether they are dynamically explored or not, is displayed - many of which I'd not seen before. I'm sure there is most likely some coffee table book out there that contains them, but this is a well edited collage worth seeking out.

Perhaps one should just turn the sound down and put on some music while watching.

Another notable aspect is that Altman re-created Dean's fatal car accident for the documentary. Producer George W. George described the incident in Zuckoff's book as "pure Bob." He elaborates: "Well, son of a bitch, he goes and figures it out by lashing a camera onto the end of a long piece of wood and putting it on the bumper of his car. And driving down the road that Jimmy Dean had taken that day! It looked like Bob was going to have a crash, but son of a bitch; he missed crashing by about two feet. He was driving the car!"

By no means an essential piece of Altman's canon, THE JAMES DEAN STORY is still an interesting curio.

QUINTET (1979) I purchased this film as part of an odd Altman boxset - the other films were M*A*S*H, A WEDDING, and A PERFECT COUPLE which I had all seen before. QUINTET is a real oddity in his filmography: a sci fi tale set in a future ice age. Paul Newman, in his second starring role for Altman (the first was BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS) plays a stoic seal hunter named Essex who finds himself in the middle of the deadly game of the title.

The movie drags quite a bit with sequences that just sit there. If tightened up considerably it could make for a gripping short film, but you really have to be an Altman fanboy to get through it as it is. I had the close captioning on when I watched it and was amused at how many times the word "groans" was used in the descriptions of sound effects i.e. "the water groans", "the ice groans", "the wind groans", etc. At one point I joked: "the audience groans."

O.C. AND STIGGS (1985) Although this is considered Altman's "least successful film" I was looking forward to watching it mainly because of Nathan Rabin's "My Year Of Flops Case File #54" entry at the A.V. Club in which he concluded that it was a "secret success". That's much more favorable a response than what I experienced. The premise of a 80's teen comedy with a "slobs versus the snobs" scenario isn't a good match for Altman even if he claims it was supposed to be a satire of the genre.

Very little satire is actually present in this tale of 2 hipsters (Daniel Jenkins and Neill Barry) who come off as a poor man's pair of Ferris Buellers. They torment a insurance mogul (Altman regular Paul Dooley) who lives in a garish house with destructive shenanigans, none of which is even remotely amusing. Altman's patented style can still be identified - overlapping dialogue and slow panning long shots - but no unity to this material can be sensed.

It's also sad to see cheap shots such as riffs on "The Pink Panther Theme" and the Doors "The End" intro when Dennis Hopper, who appears in his APOCALYPSE NOW get up, enters a scene. Of the supporting cast which includes Jane Curtin, Jon Cryer, Cynthia Nixon, and Ray Walston, only Martin Mull appears to be having a good time, but, even then, he looks like he's just bidding time until the wrap party after shooting is finished.

The only bonus feature on the DVD is an 8 minute interview entitled "Altman On O.C. And Stiggs" that should've been called "Altman Defends O.C. And Stiggs". Altman: "There was a time when these teenage films were kind of in mode. And I hated them...I just hated them. And I thought here's a chance to do satire on something I feel strongly about." The problem is that his strong hatred of the genre shows in every frame of this film more than any notion of satire. Still, as much as I disliked it, it's not my least favorite Altman film - that would be DR. T AND THE WOMEN (2000).

Okay! That's enough Altman for now. Just a few more titles to go to finish his canon - and then there's his television work (episodes of Combat!, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Bonanza, and many others) to consider so look forward to more adventures in Altman appraisal somewhere down the line.

More later...