1971 in film.

Top ten box-office films of 1971:

1. Fiddler on the Roof
2. Billy Jack
3. The French Connection
4. Summer of '42
5. Diamonds are Forever
6. Dirty Harry
7. A Clockwork Orange
8. Carnal Knowledge
9. The Last Picture Show
10. Willard

What are your top three films for 1971? We will keep a running tally and eventually have some sort of bracket. For me it would be:

1. The Last Picture Show
2. Harold and Maude
3. A Clockwork Orange

What are some of the forgotten gems from the year? What is overrated? What did you discover at a young age and what did you discover later?

YEARS IN FILM • forum.chorus.fm

 

I was surprised that 2001 was a high-grossing film when it came out, but I am shocked that something as violent and off-putting as A Clockwork Orange could crack the top ten.

 

1. Harold and Maude
2. The Last Picture Show
3. Dirty Harry

pretty easy top 3 for me but the order was challenging. i really wanted to give it to last picture show but H&M is such a winning film

 

Two Aussie new wave films in my top three this year.

1. Walkabout
2. Wake in Fright
3. A Touch of Zen

Walkabout is a beautiful Nicolas Roeg film about two children lost in the outback, who are saved by an aboriginal young man living off the land. Beautiful cinematography and a really tender and sympathetic dual coming of age story, from two very different cultures.

Wake in Fright is the opposite, a grimy, dirty and sweaty film about a man trapped for what seems like forever in an onomatopoeic town called Yabba - with all the local pleasantries. It's pure nihilistic hedonism and destruction on film, everyone permanently pissed up, and treading the line between sanity and anarchy.

A Touch of Zen is King Hu's three hour long, truly beautiful looking Wuxia film. It's paced and shot like a spaghetti western, though instead of building up to gunfights, we have martial arts fight in the fog of a bamboo forest. Would love to see this in a cinema one day. It also features very early roles for Sammo Hung and Jackie Chan.

Other great stuff this year for me include A Clockwork Orange, The Last Picture Show, Bay of Blood and Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets.

 

Walkabout is one of those films I have seen but don't remember enough to comment on. The more I see the more often I encounter something that I have logged as seen but can barely remember.

 

1. A Clockwork Orange
2. Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory
3. Duel



Honorable mentions:
Diamonds Are Forever
Dirty Harry
Fiddler on the Roof
Harold and Maude
Vanishing Point

 

1. Last Picture Show
2. A Clockwork Orange
3. Harold and Maude

Haven’t seen Two Lane Blacktop in years but I liked it a lot when I saw it. French Connection rules. Like was said it’s wild that A Clockwork Orange was a high grossing film the year it came out but can you imagine a movie like Last Picture Show being one of the 10 highest grossing films of the year now?

 

The You Must Remember This season on Polly Platt was a fabulous listen, for fans of hers or Bogdanovich’s work

 

1. Harold and Maude
2. Two Lane Blacktop
3. A Clockwork Orange

 

Missed out on 1970 but not seen that much from that year anyway so no biggy which isn't the case for this year, easily one of my favorites that we have done so far.

1. Duel
2. The French Connection
3. Duck, You Sucker

Could have easily picked the following though; A Clockwork Orange, Dirty Harry, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, The Andromeda Strain, The Cat o’ Nine Tails, or Vanishing Point.

 

1. Bedknobs and Broomsticks
2. Klute
3. Fiddler on the Roof

Movies I really like:
Dirty Harry
The Last Picture Show
Walkabout
Carnal Knowledge
Macbeth
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Bananas
Harold and Maude
Nicholas and Alexandra

Good ones:
The French Connection
The Go-Between
A Clockwork Orange
Murmur of the Heart
Shaft
The Abominable Dr. Phibes
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
The Hospital
Sunday Bloody Sunday
The Emigrants
Straw Dogs

Solid/fine:
Sometimes a Great Notion
Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song
And Now for Something Completely Different
The Andromeda Strain

Not a fan:
Diamonds Are Forever
W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism

 

1. The Ceremony
2. McCabe and Mrs. Miller
3. A New Leaf

additional shouts to: Mandara, A Touch of Zen, Wake in Fright, Dirty Harry, and Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets.

After seeing it 3 times, WR still leaves me baffled, but I think I am coming around to it after initially disliking it strongly.

This is probably the weakest overall year for me so far.

 

Oh jeez I forgot Klute. That might slot in above Clockwork for me

 

That movie is just oozing atmosphere. Honestly scares me more than most horror movies somehow. Just a constant lurking threat

 

i know what i’ll be watching

 

I’m overwhelmed by this year and don’t know where to even start. Klute is my number one, but there are at least a dozen perfect contenders for the other spots. Need to get some energy to write a ton down.

 

1. Wake in Fright
2. A Clockwork Orange
3. The Last Picture Show

A lot of great choices this year. Wake in Fright is such a unique horror film, I have had the experience of feeling stuck in a small town and that movie made me feel all the terror that can have.

 

A tough year to choose

1. Harold and Maude (maybe my #1 of the 70s?)
2. A New Leaf
3. The Last Picture Show

 

There’s a bleak and terrifying documentary from a few years ago called Hotel Coolgardie about two backpackers in Australia who take a job in a middle of nowhere pub, and it feels like a real life Wake in Fright.

Nothing horrendous happens to them exactly, but it’s an extremely uncomfortable watch that reminded me exactly of Wake in Fright, with that tumbling out of control fatalism that it captures so well.

 

Seen:

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
Dirty Harry

On My List:

Two Lane Blacktop
A Touch of Zen
Wake in Fright
Walkabout
Emitai
Carnal Knowledge
Harold and Maude
The Last Picture Show
The French Connection
A Clockwork Orange

 

watch harold and maude

 

I'd barely even heard of Harold and Maude before this thread, so clearly a big blind-spot for me there, seeing as everyone else seems to love it! I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention this film in person, in conversation before.

Will hopefully get around to it shortly.

 

Harold and Maude is such a big influence on "indie" comedies, but they almost never capture the heart.

 

Along with Cassavetes, it basically feels like the foundational text for Sundance-style American "indies" - although yes, much better than most of those films, in my opinion. It's been 7-8 years since I saw it, so I'm not sure how it would hold up for me, but I was a massive fan at the time.

 

It’s incredible. Hal Ashby is a top three director for me, and that run he had from his debut all through the 70s is truly special. And the Cat Stevens/Yusuf soundtrack is so so perfect. The booklet in the Criterion release goes into some nice detail about how out of time and unique the whole movie always feels. It inspired generations of indie films but still nothing else feels like it.