Fantastic Planet (La Planéte Sauvage) 1973

 

F for Fake (Vérités et mensonges) 1973

 

Don't Look Now (1973)

 

Day for Night [La Nuit Américaine] 1973

Badlands (1973)

 

American Graffiti (1973)

 

Amarcord (1973)

 

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973) **

Upon its release, director Sam Peckinpah’s last western, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), was a box office and critical failure.  Peckinpah and then MGM president James Aubrey had a severe disagreement regarding the film’s original runtime of over two hours and Aubrey brought in outside editors to trim the film down to 106 minutes. It didn’t help that during filming Peckinpah believed he was being forced to work with substandard equipment and an inexperienced crew because Aubrey wanted to cut production costs.  Additionally, Peckinpah and screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer didn’t see eye to eye about the movie’s narrative—Peckinpah rewrote sections of the script so that Garret and Billy interact with one another in a few scenes prior to their final showdown, which Wurlitzer had intended to be the only time the characters met on screen.  When Peckinpah saw what Aubrey’s editors had done to his film he sued to have his name removed from it.  He lost, of course, and for more than ten years his directing name was besmirched by the original hot mess theatrical release of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. However, like most directors, Peckinpah had his own private preview copy that he liked to show to his friends. This version was released by Turner Home Entertainment in 1988 and led to a critical rediscovery of what Peckinpah thought was his best film ever.  While I’ve not seen all of his films, I believe I can safely say that other than The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), and perhaps Ride the High Country (1962), I’m not overly impressed with his body of work, and I certainly wasn’t overly impressed by his Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. For me, the best things about the movie are that Bob Dylan wrote “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” for it and James Coburn’s performance as Pat Garrett is riveting. You take these two things away from it and it’s just another drab, violent western.

The story follows Pat Garrett’s (Coburn) pursuit of Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson) in 1881 New Mexico.  A former outlaw himself, Garrett has been made sheriff by Billy’s arch-nemesis John Chisum (Barry Sullivan) and is ordered by the New Mexico Territory Governor, Lew Wallace (Jason Robards), to bring the Kid to justice.  This task is hampered by the fact that Billy and Pat are friends and former outlaw colleagues. Having realized the West is changing and the days of the outlaw are slowing dying, Pat chooses to wear a badge and collect money for hunting down outlaws.  This act seems repulsive to him and turns him into a very bitter man, but he still carries out his mission, no matter how loathsome it is to him.

Most of the ancillary cast is comprised of a who’s who of the western genre: Slim Pickens, L.Q. Jones, Paul Fix, Jack Elam, Matt Clark, R.G, Armstrong, Chill Wills, Katy Jurado, and Jason Robards.  They all play minor roles, but both Elam and Robards make the most of the limited screen time that they are given. I’m not exactly sure why Peckinpah chose to showcase Bob Dylan’s superfluous character, Alias, more than some of the western stalwarts in his cast, but he did—I have read that it was done as a favor to Kristofferson and because Peckinpah was impressed with the title song that Dylan wrote for the movie. Personally, I find his presence distracting—especially when I hear his songs being played while he’s onscreen.

I’d like to say that the two principal leads were evenly matched, but they weren’t.  To say that Kristofferson lacks range would be an understatement. Plus, in what world would he pass for a 21-year-old baby-faced killer? Whereas, James Coburn looks and acts like a grizzled Wild West lawman.  It also helps that he had the acting chops to play a complex character who was conflicted by his past and the future that he yearned for.  In some scenes he plays Garrett almost whimsically, while in others he must portray a man who is deeply tortured and repulsed by what he must do.  For me, Coburn’s performance is the only thing that makes Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid mildly entertaining.

While I’ve never been a fan of Bob Dylan’s music, I must say that if there was ever an appropriate song written for a bloody western, it was “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”.  Peckinpah’s use of it at the end of the film (and other sections as well) creates an atmosphere of foreboding and then unpleasant reality. Still, I could have done without the theme song that Dylan wrote for the movie.

Overall, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is somewhat enjoyable because of James' Coburn’s turn as Pat Garrett.  The movie probably would have been stronger if a more capable actor had played the Kid, but hindsight is 20/20.  The story itself is mildly entertaining, and much better than that of Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969), but I somewhat agree with Aubrey that the film drags in certain places and would have benefitted from a few cut scenes—maybe not twenty minutes worth, but there is definitely unnecessary fat that could have been trimmed. Additionally, Dylan deserves credit for creating a highly memorable song, “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”, for the picture.

Sleeper (1973) **

As if poor Woody Allen didn’t have enough problems, he now, unfortunately, reminds me of a most despised man I used to work for.  Same hair, same glasses, same neuroses, and the same condescending nature.  As such, Allen films in which he both stars and directs now have an irrational way of irritating me. It doesn’t help that the main character in Sleeper (1973), Miles Monroe (Allen), has many of the same foibles that my former boss has: health food fanatic, attracted to vapid blonde women, and an unrelenting desire to overcome his inferiority complex by attempting to project that his is the most superior intellect. Now, whenever I watch Sleeper I feel as if I am being forced into some sort of trauma therapy to deal with PTSD.  Still, somehow my irrational dislike of Allen and Miles can’t make me hate Sleeper because it is mildly entertaining in its homage to Buster Keaton, Bob Hope, and the Keystone Cops—and Diane Keaton’s impersonation of Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) is hilarious.

The story, written by Allen and Marshall Brickman, finds Greenwich Village health food store owner and jazz musician Miles Monroe being defrosted by revolutionaries 200 years after being cryogenically frozen after a botched surgery for a peptic ulcer.  The revolutionaries, who have all been fingerprinted, imprinted, and given numbers, believe that they can use Miles, who has not been “Big Brothered”, to find out what the Aries project is.  Pursued by security forces who look a lot like Strumtruppen (SA Stormtroopers) but who act very much like Keystone Cops (I’m sure the irony was not lost on Nazis hiding in South America who saw this), Miles disguises himself as a domestic robot and does his best impression of what would happen if somehow life was created as the result of a threesome involving a mime, the Little Tramp, and Buster Keaton. “Robot” Miles ends up at  pseudo-intellectual and horrible poet Luna’s house where people get high from holding an orb and use a machine called the Orgasmatron to simulate sex.  After revealing his true self to Luna, Miles finds that she has alerted security forces to his whereabouts and they have to go on the run.  Once Luna realizes that the authorities want to reprogram her brain because she had been contaminated by the alien (Miles), she helps Miles with his plan to infiltrate the Aries project.  When he is captured and taken in for brainwashing, Luna joins a Maoist-esque group led by John Beck, who kidnap Miles and use him to destroy the Aries project.

Sleeper could be considered a futurist look at society, I suppose.  It would be a sad look at how little science could progress in 200 years, with cars that look like the eggship that Mork arrived in from Ork and a Sculpted House that looks like a clamshell which was actually built in the early 1960s. The only advance made in society appears to be that cryogenically frozen people can be revived and that cloning is a possibility—baa, baa says Dolly the sheep! Obviously Sleeper is a spoof on the sci-fi genre.  Miles awakens from an H.G. Wells novel (The Sleeper Awakes) in an Orwellian world (1984) where the Government controls everything. References are made to Dr. Spock and even Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971) are parodied—Alex DeLarge wishes he had Miles’ brainwashing experience, but the evil computer in Sleeper is voiced by Douglas Rain, the same man who did HAL’s voice in 2001, so it was just as creepy.

There is a lot of slapstick and attempts at physical comedy in Sleeper which is reminiscent of many Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin silent films.  Still, Woody Allen is no Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton. He lacks the daredevil nature of those physical comedy juggernauts. Allen also channels the cowardly quipper Bob Hope throughout the movie.

The absolute best thing about Sleeper is Keaton’s spot-on impersonation of Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. Personally, I could have done without Allen’s take on Vivien Leigh’s Blanche DuBois, but it was obviously necessary in order to see Keaton mimic the man who was playing her father-in-law in The Godfather films. 

Overall, Sleeper makes me recall unrelated unhappy times working for a neuroses filled ego-maniac.  Still, there are a few laughs to be had with Allen’s parodying of the sci-fi genre while honoring the early pioneers of physical comedy. 

 

Enter the Dragon (1973) **

This is a martial arts film.  Anything that doesn’t involve Bruce Lee using his fighting skills to decimate an entire legion of minions is bad…real bad.

I’m not sure if director Robert Clouse envisioned Enter the Dragon (1973) as a Hong Kong version of a James Bond film or not, but it sure seemed as though he did.  Let’s star with Lalo Schifrin’s musical score. If you’ve heard both it and the Bond theme, then you must see some similarity. Granted, Schifrin’s theme sounds more like Asian funk (if that is even a style) than anything, but it is definitely reminiscent of the Bond theme.  I wonder if Monty Norman sued Schifrin over authorship like he did John Barry…

Then there’s Mr. Han (Shih Kien)—he is an amalgamation of Bond villains dressed like the Chairman from the Japanese version of Iron Chef.  Han is an opium smuggler—just about every Bond villain is a smuggler of something, be it gold or some type of weapon.  Han has a metal hand—Dr. No has metal hands.  Han likes to pet his cat—Blofield loved to pet his kitty.  Han has an extremely tall and mute assassin named Bolo (Bolo Young)—Odd Job was mute and Jaws was a giant.  Hopefully, by now you are seeing what I saw.

Yet another Bond-esque element in Enter the Dragon is the objectification of women. Dr. Han’s private island is not only used as a martial arts dojo, but also as a brothel.  Ahna Capri plays Tania, the resident madam to a stockpile of the United Colors of Benetton of whores.  Their sole purpose is to service the needs of Dr. Han’s guests—and serve as guinea pigs for his opium.  The one woman on the island who is supposed to be a British agent (Betty Chung) is briefly allowed to speak to Lee’s character and then plays no other role in the movie.

Really, the only reason anyone should watch this film is to see Bruce Lee in action.  Way before CGI and wire work (ala Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Lee demonstrated why he was (and still is) so revered by martial arts enthusiasts.  While I don’t believe any man could seemingly wipe out an entire island of skilled fighters, it is still amazing to watch Lee’s moves.  Even I have to admit that the mirror fight sequence between Han and Lee is something special.

It’s a good thing Lee was a master at something, because his acting was less than desired. Of course, he was in good company, because between the lame lines that he and the less than stellar cast were asked to utter and the gaping plot holes, Enter the Dragon is really a B picture dressed up as a wannabe Bond film.

The Sting (1973) ***

Other than my husband, Mr. Clooney, there never was a sexier man than Paul Newman. As such, I would enjoy watching The Sting (1973) even if the story wasn’t extremely clever and the music memorable.  Thankfully, Oscar-winning director George Roy Hill’s Best Picture winner is all of those things and so much more. Nominated for ten Academy Awards (it won seven), The Sting is loaded with great performances and is a stylish production.

The Oscar winning screenplay by David S. Ward was inspired by real life grifters Charley and Fred Gondorff.  In the film, Newman plays Henry Gondorff, an accomplished confidence man who knows how to stack the deck like no other person.  He becomes paired up with a hot-headed hustler named Johnny Hooker (an Oscar nominated Robert Redford) when a mutual friend (Robert Earl Jones) is rubbed out by no-nonsense crime boss Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw).  To “sting” the mobster out of $500,000 the pair constructs an elaborate con game based on something called “the wire”. They enlist dozens of known con artists in and around Chicago to reign down their own special brand of revenge on Lonnegan.  Along the way they must also evade a crooked cop (Charles Durning) and a cold-blooded assassin (Dimitra Arliss), and they must also try to do the one thing that no con worth their salt wants to do: they must trust one another to finish the big score.

It goes without saying that the story keeps you guessing. Will there be a double-cross? Who’s telling the truth?  How can Newman still look that hot at 48?  Ward’s script is smart and well-constructed.  I didn’t notice any fat that could have been trimmed; and, all of the elements of the plot folded together very nicely right up to the end.  I’m a fan of smart scripts, and this is definitely one of the smartest of the 1970s.

Strangely, what most people remember about the movie is its score. Marvin Hamlisch’s Oscar-winning adaptation of Scott Joplin’s rag is memorable.  For days after watching this I had the tune bouncing around in my head.  Both Joplin and ragtime saw a resurgence in popularity during the 1970s because of Hamlisch’s inspired (quite literally) soundtrack.

This was the second time Newman, Redford, and Hill worked together (they’d done Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969) and it showed.  There’s a familiarity to the two leads interactions onscreen that builds an instant camaraderie between their characters. Newman plays the elder splendidly, and Redford looks like he’s really taking mental notes from a master.  Personally (and perhaps selfishly), I wish Newman’s Gondorff was featured more in the film, but I can’t really complain about how much time is spent on Redford’s Hooker.  Still, a few more shots of those Newman eyes would have been nice…

Of course, no film can be good without a gifted supporting cast.  I adore Eileen Brennan, so of course I loved her Billie here.  While she may have not gotten as much screen time or dialogue as I would have liked, who can play a tough broad like Brennan?  And, of course, no one played an SOB like Robert Shaw, either.  It is reported that no one wanted to play Lonnegan and that Newman hand-delivered the script to him in London. The limp he incorporated into this role was a real one, as he had an accident one week prior to filming that injured his knee. 

Finally, kudos must be sent out to Edith Head’s Oscar-winning costume design and James Payne and Henry Bumstead’s Oscar-winning art direction.  The story takes place in 1936 and it looks like it.  The clothes, hairstyles, and mise en scène are all spot on.  Heck, they even used title cards to educate the audience on the various parts of a sting. 

Overall, I enjoyed The Sting. It’s a highly entertaining film that is filled with good performances and smart writing.  Plus, Newman just looks so damn sexy!

The Exorcist (1973) **

(This article is from guest contributor Sarkoffagus and first appeared at http://classic-film-tv.blogspot.com/.  The rating in the title is my own.)

Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) is an actress filming in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. She begins to notice changes in her 12-year-old daughter, Regan (Linda Blair): aggression, apparent seizures, speaking obscenities and profanities, etc. Chris takes Regan to various doctors and psychiatrists, but the girl’s behavior only worsens. When the medical professionals cannot adequately explain some of Regan’s more bizarre actions (one doctor suggests that muscle spasms were causing an entire bed to shake), Chris turns to Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller), a priest and psychiatric counselor. Father Karras, who has recently begun to question his own faith, eventually requests the Church’s permission to perform an exorcism. Finding a priest with experience in exorcism, the Church sends Father Merrin (Max von Sydow).

The Exorcist (1973) is based on the novel by William Peter Blatty, who also wrote the screenplay adaptation. The author had wanted William Friedkin to direct. Friedkin had recently won an Academy Award for Best Director for The French Connection (1971), and Blatty had hoped that the filmmaker’s gritty, documentary style would add realism to The Exorcist. Friedkin’s approach to the material is straightforward, a deliberately but effectively slow build to a menacing evil. On occasion, the film indeed feels like a documentary, as viewers watch Chris gradually learn what is happening to her daughter.

Blatty was not pleased with the version initially released in theaters, due to scenes that were cut from the film. Though the director has stated that he cut sequences at the bequest of the studio, the novelist felt that these scenes -- including a staircase conversation between the priests during the exorcism, with Karras questioning why Regan was chosen -- were essential to the plot. According to Friedkin, the excised scenes resulted in the two men not speaking to each other for years. Following the 25th anniversary DVD release, Friedkin returned to the source material and edited the cut scenes back into the film. Another sequence that had been removed was what has become known as the “spider walk” scene, where a contorted Regan does a reverse crawl down the stairs. Friedkin was unhappy with the effect, which was later digitally corrected (i.e., the visible cable could be erased).

There is the belief by some that The Exorcist was a cursed film. There were rumors of accidents on the set, sometimes resulting in injuries. Members of the crew or people related to them died during filming, such as Jack MacGowran, who played Chris’ director and possible love interest. Friedkin allegedly asked Father Thomas Bermingham (a technical advisor who also had a role in the film) to exorcise the set. When the film was released, viewers claimed to be possessed or experiencing extreme psychological reactions, some referencing the purported “subliminal” flashing of a demon’s face (although it’s not genuinely subliminal, since it’s clearly visible). Some audience members would prematurely exit the theater during a viewing or would become physically ill. Blatty, however, attributes this not to scenes of demonic possession but rather the sequences of Regan undergoing strenuous tests such as a pneumoencephalography (enduring a needle in her neck and having her head taped down, among other things).

The Exorcist was such an overwhelming success that it sparked a horror subgenre of possessed people and the resulting scenes of exorcism. Not surprisingly, clones and sequels invariably followed. Some of the more interesting takes on The Exorcist were: Alberto De Martino’s L’anticristo (1975/aka The Antichrist; The Tempter), Exorcismo (1975/aka Exorcism), starring popular and prolific Spanish horror star Paul Naschy (sometimes called the “Spanish Lon Chaney”), Un urlo nelle tenebre (1975/aka Cries and Shadows; The Possessor; and even the blatant Naked Exorcism, The Return of the Exorcist, and The Exorcist 3); and La endemoniada (1975/aka Demon Witch Child; The Possessed), directed by Amando de Ossorio, better known for his Blind Dead series. A Turkish film, Seytan (1974), is clearly an unofficial remake. Similarly, William Girdler’s Blaxploitation feature, Abby (1974), starring William Marshall (perhaps best known as Blacula), was sued by Warner Bros. for copyright violation. Mario Bava’s film Lisa and the Devil (aka Lisa e il diavolo), released before The Exorcist in 1972, was reedited with new footage added and retitled The House of Exorcism for its 1975 U.S. release.

John Boorman helmed Exorcist II: The Heretic in 1977. It follows Father Lamont (Richard Burton) investigating a death resulting from the exorcism of Regan. Blair reprises her role, and von Sydow appears as Father Merrin in flashbacks. The film performed poorly at the box office. Blatty fared a little better with The Exorcist III (1990), based on his novel, Legion, which was also the movie’s original title. The author wrote and directed the film, but the studio compromised his efforts, demanding rewrites, reshoots, and a title change. It featured George C. Scott as Lt. Kinderman and Ed Flanders as Father Dyer, both characters having appeared in the first film (Lee J. Cobb, who played Kinderman in The Exorcist, died in 1976). Jason Miller also makes an appearance as Patient X (with the insinuation that he is Father Karras, a studio alteration). Reportedly, the footage that Blatty originally shot has since been lost, which has been blamed on Morgan Creek Productions. The same year as The Exorcist III, the Exorcist parody Repossessed, starring Blair and go-to funnyman Leslie Nielsen, was released.

In 2003, Paul Schrader was fired as director of an Exorcist prequel (he had replaced John Frankenheimer, who had died in 2002 before filming had started). Schrader’s work was completely revamped by director Renny Harlin, and the movie was released in 2004 as Exorcist: The Beginning. After a poor reception of Harlin’s movie, Schrader was given additional funds to finish his nearly completed film. The movie, title Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist, received limited theatrical showings and subsequent video/DVD release in 2005. Although the film likewise was not well received, it’s generally preferred by fans of the series. Blatty publicly supported Schrader’s film, while expressing discontent for the 2004 version.

In 1980, Blatty wrote and directed The Ninth Configuration, an adaptation of his 1978 novel of the same name, itself a reworking of his own 1966 book Twinkle, Twinkle, “Killer” Kane (also an alternate title for the film). The author reputedly considered it a sequel to The Exorcist. A notable connection between the two films is Capt. Capshaw (Scott Wilson, who was nominated for a Golden Globe), an astronaut with a fear of dying in outer space, and it was supposedly Capshaw to whom Regan is referring when she speaks her famous line: “You’re going to die up there.” In addition to Wilson, the film was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Drama and Blatty won for adapted screenplay. Several cast members, including Wilson, Miller, Flanders, and Nicol Williamson, would also star in Blatty’s The Exorcist III. The Ninth Configuration was not a success at the time of its theatrical release but has since gone on to achieve cult status.

Friedkin has boasted that he originally edited The Exorcist at the New York office building located at 666 5th Avenue. Radio and film actress Mercedes McCambridge provided Regan’s raspy voice during the young girl’s possession but did not initially receive a promised screen credit. She (and the Screen Actors Guild) were able to get her name added to the credits. The film’s original trailer, consisting of black and white flashes of a demonic face and a possessed Regan coupled with ear-piercing music, was supposedly banned by executives as it was deemed too frightening to play in theaters.

The film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, winning for sound and adapted screenplay. It won a Golden Globe for Best Picture, with Golden Globes awarded to Friedkin, Blair and Blatty.

Recently, Warner Bros. released The Exorcist on Blu-ray, presented in a “book” format with details of the film and trivia. The two-disc set includes the original theatrical version and the director’s cut (released in 2000 as “The Version You’ve Never Seen”), as well as previously available and brand new features.