20 From 71: My Favorite Movies Of 1971

  To be quite honest, this movie may not really be good enough to recommend to anyone or even to include on this list.
But I do have it on this list simply because I think it's a great way to start off a list, whether it be about favorite horror films or just about any other subject matter.
Plus, any film that can take a tried-and-true horror genre like vampirism and imbue it with the sexual allure of girl-on-girl action, particularly during the cinematically stiff period of the early 70's, deserves some kind of credit.
So, strap-on a wooden stake or a massive black donkey-sized dong, and let's get going on a super-long journey through many of my preferred choices when it comes to fright filled escapism.
Or, if the mention of Vampyros Lesbos makes you feel the inclination, go watch some internet porn. Either way is a good way to "kill off" some time.



  BTW, if you think that putting this movie in the 20th spot is kind of cheating and not true to the nature of a list that's supposed to be about my "favorite movies of 1971" then just pretend that VL is not on this list and replace it with Murmur of the Heart. It's a French coming-of-age story about a boy whose dad is a gynecologist and who has a habit of engaging in some of the more innocent taboos of the day. Like masturbation. Which means he probably would mind that Vampy Lez is on this list.

 The Earth's populace must come to grips with its tendency of abundantly accumulating and disposing its vast amounts of tonnage of garbage out into the sea. Which eventually will result in The King of All Monsters having to take on a giant shambling mountain of red-eyed sludge that terrorizes the island of Japan by transforming itself into a flying smog-billowing force of pollution incarnate.
 Kinda makes you want to start recycling, huh?



 Okay, 

let’s admit it….

 The whole concept of kaiju cinema is one of the weirdest oddities to ever be brought forth from overseas cinema. The idea that many series of films were created based off of giant radioactively spawned creatures which were actually men running around in really cheap looking, ultra unrealistic rubber outfits, and stomping all over cardboard, buildings, and toy cars, with their big floppy feet, I mean, seriously, WTF? 
 I mean, don't get me wrong, as someone who grew up watching this on creature feature programs that aired on local TV stations during the weekends, I love the stuff. But, now that I'm older, I can't help looking at it all, and thinking to myself about the absurdity of the whole thing. And this is one of those movies that best displays that absurdity. It's definitely one of the most outrageous ideas that was born onto celluloid, but it's also one of those weird things that is best enjoyed when one doesn't think too much about it.
  Which is why I'm just gonna stop typing in this entry now....

The first half of the 70's decade was one of the most popular times for fast car flicks of the more rebellious mold. In 1971, movie theaters showcased quite a tankful of 'em, with three from this particular year making it onto this list. The first of these is a critically approved cult classic by the name of Two-Lane Blacktop.



In the music world, he may be the Handy Man whose seen Fire and Rain, but in early 70's cinema, James Taylor tries to go against his mellow music style as "The Driver", a rough and tumble drag racer who makes his way in the world by burning rubber. With his partner "The Mechanic", the two criss cross along the nationally long two lane blacktop of Route 66, picking up hitch-hikers, adventures, and the occasional trouble-bound Girl.

  I remember being a very little kid when I first watched this made-for-TV movie about two football players who become BFFs at a time when the idea of buddies of a different racial background was finally taking ahold of the sensibilities of that part of the 60's generation and that spent the decade of flower power fearing such things as racial integration, free love, and white rabbits. And I also remember bawling my eyes out as I watched it, even moreso than when I first saw the "Baby Mine" scene in Dumbo. (although now that I think about it, the fact that I was watching this along with two of my older tweeter cousins who were female, and who also had their waterworks flowing at the highest level, probably didn’t help).



  As I mentioned, this was a movie that was a story made for television, due to its overwhelming popularity, the producers decided to give it a theatrical release. Which was pretty unusual, not just at the time, but I think at this point, it’s unheard of. Thus, it could be said that this film is. a bit of an anomaly. However, when you look at how the two lead actors really seem to bring their A game to their roles, and the waiver script managed to really get the viewers to get in touch with the “feels”, it becomes easier to see how such a decision that existed outside the boundaries of the norm would’ve been made. Considering the low level of quality that was usually the norm for television flicks of the time, this was a story which rose a few notches above the standard and was secure enough in its own confidence in a way that managed to truly encapsulate the feeling of amorous friendship between two straight men of different color.
  In short, Brian's Song is a prime example of interracial hetero man-love at its finest.

A bored and disgruntled small town school teacher decides to spend his Yuletide holiday in the big city of Sidney. Midway through the journey however, he finds himself stuck in another small town the locals call "The Yabba". Though it might as well be named "Hades" considering that he soon finds himself slowly descending into his own personal drink-binging, kangaroo-killing, bar-brawling hell. A tale from down under that goes even further down under.
In short, a Christmas vacation, the outback way.

An outsider police detective comes to town investigating a case, meets a prostitute who can probably help him, and naturally, the two fall in love.
In other words, imagine the movie Pretty Woman, except totally and completely different.
Klute is a film whose story was probably enhanced beyond it's premise by the high calibur performances of it's two lead actors, the always intelligent and distinctive Donald Sutherland,
and the even more intelligent and always beautiful Jane Fonda.

Do you know what is likely to happen to someone if they move out of the country to get away from violence?
Odds are, they're gonna experience some kind of violence in the new country they moved to.
And whether it's because of ironic coincidence, karma, or just dumb luck, if the reasoning of why it happened is beyond the logic of an analytical mindset of an astrophysicist (as is the case in this movie),
then that will probably be enough to break the straw on a proverbial dog's back.

Blaxploitation crosses into the mainstream as a movie titled Shaft. And the basic premise is that it's about the adventures of a black private dick who's a sex machine to all the chicks.
Now, now,
get your mind outta the gutter....it's not what you might think.
You see, this cat Shaft is a bad motherf*....
well, this is a family site, so I think I better just shut my mouth.
But, y'all know that I'm talkin' about Shaft, right?

In this massive missive of martial arts mayhem, Bruce Lee stars as Cheng, a common workingman who earns his living as a foreman in an ice factory. He and his fellow laborers soon discovered that manufacturing ice is just a cover for distributing "snow". After the Big Boss learns that his secret is out, he orders Cheng's family to be disposed of. And thus are the conditions set for fists to fly with the kind of fury that only a true Dragon can dish out.

A 1951 black & white movie shot in 1971, in black & white.
The Last Picture Show is a film that, despite it's bleak theme of an era that is coming to an end, not to mention despite this film's visual lack of color,
it's wide shots of a dusty little town on the brink of its own extinction is just as beautiful to look at as is the rapturous debut of it's young stunning starlet, Sybil Sheppard.

Kowalski is a singled named road rebel who is a on trip to defy the law, to defy societal convention and to make it to San Francisco before 3:00 the next day.
Vanishing Point is a road action film that demonstrates that the car flicks that became notorious during the 70's had begun gaining top speed early in the decade.



Fast, gritty and with liberal amounts of cinematic symbolism, this was a mach-moving motor movie that provided many fans of the genre with full tanks of anti-establishment fixes while at the same time satiating their needs for speed with lots of chase scenes featuring the coolest muscle cars of the day.

Clint Eastwood begins his tour de force as the San Francisco cop with a 70's machismo-sized chip on his shoulder and a Smith & Wesson Model 29 in his shoulder holster. Inspector Harold Francis "Dirty Harry" Callahan is an on-the-street inspector who consistently talks thru incessantly gritted teeth, enjoys pissing off his starch-collared superiors and welds big hefty handguns like they were just a natural extension of what makes him so dirty to begin with.



In other words,
he's mad as hell and he's not gonna take it anymore, punk!

Well, the same year that Dirty Harry made his movie debut, Evelyn Draper came along in Play Misty For Me and showed all the men that not only is she as angry as the rule busting inspector, but more importantly, that she is a woman scorned.
And we all know about the fury that results from that of a woman who has been scorned....
it's enough to make the Magnum .44 or any other gun from Smith & Wesson look like a pea-shooter.



In other words,
she's crazy as hell and she's not gonna take it anymore, Clint!

Warren Beatty and Julie Christie team-up in their first of three movies in which they will co-star with each other. In this one, they play John McCabe and Constance Miller respectively, a high-stakes hustler and a high class hooker who decide to double up their talents and go into business together.
Excellently directed by the always reliable Robert Altman, McC & Mrs. M is an Old West ditty that follows the trend of the anti-Western film that had begun the year earlier with works like Little Big Man and Monte Walsh. Following the formula of this then-burgeoning sub-genre, it a perfect example of how when it comes to the liberal attitude toward the typical big screen shoot-em ups, the times they were a'changing.

Before George Lucas went the lucrative way of the Force,
he dabbled into the Kubrickesque themes of THX 1138.
Quality science fiction that delves deeper into it's story than just laser-blasting guns, lightsabre swordfights and fuzzy-faced Ewoks.

A unique, sharp and about as off-beat as you can get comedic tale of a May-December romance.
Or more specifically,
a May-December romance in which the two months used to describe the relationship are separated by about sixty years.
Harold and Maude is the kind of coupling that inspires plenty of comedic elements, not to mention a few mental pictures that will most likely make you go "ew".

Michael Caine takes on one those types of seminal roles that tend to mark an actor's career. Considered one of the best movies to ever come out from across the pond, it is a British Mafia crime film about a usually emotionally indifferent gangster, Jack Carter, who has set his sights on finding out the truth of his brother's mysterious death. Venturing outside his normal stomping grounds, he soon finds himself in the kind of underground web that requires the kind of underground justice that only an underground criminal (such as himself) can administer.

While I usually try to keep only films that were released in movie theaters on these lists 'o' mine, every once in a while I come across a piece of TV cinema that's so good, that for me, it's quality ranks up there with the best of theatrical releases.



Duel is a good example of this type of smallscreen cinematic excellence. Not surprising, considering that it is Steven Spielberg's major film debut (well, at least from my memory it is). And with just the use a big ol' rusted semi-truck, a lone driving Dennis Weaver and a desolate desert road, the Spielmeister is able to demonstrate why he will eventually become a king of energetic, exciting blockbuster-fare.

Every once in a while, a part comes around that helps to define the career of a certain actor. For Gene Hackman, that could have been a lot of direct roles considering how long long his list of  acting accomplishments he had accumulated in his lifetime. But as any hardcore cinephile will agree on, the one movie character that probably displays his talents at its best is Popeye Doyle's from 1971’s French Connection. From here on in, I always viewed Mr. Hackman's roles as a guy with a friendly smile, though with a slight slant of sinister intent.
Officer Doyle, as portrayed in this film was a guy out to do good, but is so determined to catch the bad guy, that he is willing to beat a suspect for info or haphazardly speed dangerously down a New York city street. In the end, he'll make sure the law wins, even if he has to break a few rules (and a few skulls) along the way.
Or rampage a stolen car thru rush hour traffic in a chase scene that all car chases from here on end will be measured by.

For me, this movie exemplifies everything that I like about all things Kubrick. IMO, he tends to make movies that are an inch away from being abstract beyond understanding, but yet keeps the flow of the film reeled in just enough to make it seem like it makes sense on some kind of creative level. And while I don't mind discussing what the underlying meaning(s) of ACO might be, I find that too much discussion on it tends to get in the way of the enjoyment that I get from noticing things like how colorfully crafted the art-direction is for a movie that doesn't bat a single lashed eye towards subjects like ultra-violence and the old in-&-out.



Visually, a beautifully crafted film with such a bite in it's theme that it acts as a well-balanced counterweight against the brightly set designs. Seldom do we see the contrast of light and darkness stitched on film in a manner that is instinctual, crazy and perfect all at the same time.