Top 10 (and a bit) films of … 1973

I’m blogging about the top ten (more or less) movies of every year since I was born. This week it’s time to delve into 1973 where things are starting to pick up.

As per above I’m using two sources for my top ten lists. First is IMDB filtered by year and sorted by Popularity (doing this with User Rating, which would seem the sensible way to go produces … unexpected results). Finding reliable box office rankings is a bit tricky, so for 1971 thru 1976 I’ll be using the North America box office published on The Numbers. From 1977 I’ll be able to use worldwide box office, which will be a bit less geographically biassed. Either way, the goal here is not to provide definite statistics, but simply to provide a nominal list of top movies from the year, both contemporary and retrospectively, with which I can then embarrass myself by revealing how many classic works of modern cinema I’ve failed to see!

The Exorcist

I’d all but forgotten that The Exorcist was, just like A Clockwork Orange, essentially ‘banned’ in the UK for most of my childhood (and beyond). While it was never technically a ‘video nasty’ it was among a suite of movies that were denied video certificates (a requirement for home video distribution in the UK) and could therefore only legally be shown in cinemas. Combined with its reputation—courtesy of my parents’ generation—as one of the scariest movies ever made and it’s no surprise I was a bit underwhelmed when I finally saw it sometime around the turn of the century. It was fine but maybe, dare I say, a little dated and boring?

Nevertheless, the best things only improve with age and I did take it upon myself to give The Exorcist a fresh viewing just a few months back whereupon, I’m relieved to say, my view of it was completely transformed. While there remain, arguably, a few pacing issues, and the ethics of William Friedkin’s directing methods undoubtedly cast a dark shadow, I came away fully appreciating its status as a revered slice of cinema excellence. A large part of this re-evaluation is due to my love of seventies movies—something that has only grown over the last several decades—but it is also a damn good film, elevated by its intense third act and the incredible presence of Max Von Sydow (who I only realised very recently was aged up for this movie!)

In all honesty, it’s not a movie that’s likely going anywhere near my top ten but it’s definitely one where I’m already looking forward to future viewings.

Soylent Green

I think I’ve only ever seen this once, which is a lapse I should probably remedy. Inevitably, I knew the twist long before I saw the movie but that didn’t make it any less engrossing. The only scene I really remember is the one where they put Edward G Robinson to rest—and only because it reminded me strongly of a similar scene from The Parallax View (which we shall be discussing next year). Back on the watchlist it goes!

American Graffiti

Another film that I found perfectly enjoyable on first viewing but have never particularly felt compelled to revisit—although if I were to stumble across it again sometime I expect I would happily sit down and watch it through. It’s amusing to me that this is George Lucas delivering a nostalgic paean to a lost era of growing up in the USA but, for me at least, it works equally well as a memento of a bygone age of cinema and also an echo of the early years of my life that I spent exploring the history of film. Shame George Lucas never amounted to much, eh?

The Wicker Man

It was either in my late teens or my early twenties when I really, properly started to delve into horror cinema, particularly British horror. Some of this would have come from broadening my cinematic horizons. The rest from the fact that I was an Anne Rice devouring vampire fanatic, which inevitably led to a renewed enthusiasm for the Christopher Lee / Hammer Dracula movies, which itself opened all sorts of doorways into hidden pockets of british cinema and other essential horror avenues.

The Wicker Man didn’t get a UK video release until 1990 so my first exposure to it (and to so, so many other movie classics) would almost certainly have been via Alex Cox’s legendary and essential Moviedrome series. It was, in fact, the main feature of the very first episode, back in May 8 1988 (just a few days after my 17th birthday), and some internet demigod has even uploaded an old taped copy of Cox’s intro. I believe it was also one of the many films we looked at as part of my Film Studies degree about a decade later. 

As an avid movie collector my history with The Wicker Man is tightly linked to its history on home video, through the various restorations, rereleases and alternative versions that have come out over the years. I now have the 4k edition which, I think, includes three different versions of the movie so we must surely have come to the end of that particular road now.

It’s a film that I’ve admired and enjoyed over the years and have, eventually, come to adore—possibly because it reminds me just a tiny bit of the English yesteryear in which I grew up. Yes, this is, perhaps, my very own American Graffiti. And, no, we did not typically sacrifice virginal policemen to pagan gods back then. At least, not that I remember …

The Day of The Jackal

Another masterpiece. I recall watching this with my Dad at a very early age—most likely in the late seventies, when I guess it would have first aired on UK TV. Of course, one of the things I remember most vividly, it’s the climactic (anti-climactic?) ending … I’ll demur from adding spoilers, just in case. I also very much remember the twist and turns concerning the Jackal’s real identity. 

I’ve rediscovered the movie in more recent years and absolutely love the methodical approach it takes to tracking the Jackal’s process and the parallel efforts to track him down. A deliberately unshowy movie that grips from start to finish.

Magnum Force

The second best Dirty Harry movie by a very comfortable margin. It may not have Andy Robinson at his deranged best but it does have David Soul playing a dirty cop (ahead of his Starsky and Hutch days) and it also has Hal Holbrook, who is one of my favourite stars of seventies cinema that most people won’t have heard of. Nobody plays slightly shifty yet with gravitas in the way that Holbrook does.

Live and Let Die

Fun fact: I first watched this when it debuted on UK TV and due to a misunderstanding borne of my young age I spent several years believing it had been made specially for TV. I distinctly remember being both puzzled and fascinated by this—how and why would they make Bond moves for cinema and TV? Do they alternate? Bear in mind this was an era of TV specials (we could barely  keep Tom Jones off our screens!) so it wasn’t such an unusual concept for a ten-year-old.

Anyway—epic theme song, okayish movie. Right?

Westworld

When I was at school (secondary/high school) we had an English teacher who would set up a TV and a VCR in the assembly hall on the last day of each term and screen Westworld for us. I have no idea what the rationale for this was, and there was definitely at least one instance where me and my friends took advantage of the situation to skip the movie, sneak out of the hall and hang out on the playing fields instead.

Clearly these enforced, repeated screenings didn’t dull my opinion of the film one bit as I remember recording it off TV in later years and watching it repeatedly. There are so many moments that stick with me from this one: the twist of the surefire hero character getting killed off halfway through; the deliberate tonal shifts from camp to sinister, action to horror; the magnificent Yul Brynner; even the somewhat hokey effects. A fascinating, engrossing story about human hubris that knows enough about cinema to have some fun along the way.

Robin Hood

I saw this at the cinema while on holiday in the US, probably sometime in the early eighties. I remember that, but don’t remember much about the movie except it was perfectly enjoyable and there was at least one song I remembered from an LP I owned of Disney music when I was even younger. An echo of a simpler time when men were foxes in miniskirts and princesses were also foxes, but with far more clothing.

The Long Goodbye

I think my Dad first introduced me to this one and I remember revisiting it several times after that. I treated myself to a blu-ray copy (imported from the UK) several years back and have been waiting for the right occasion to watch it again—there’s a lesson here about passively waiting for things that never happen unless you make them.

You can’t help but love Elliott Gould in almost anything and here he is in his seventies prime, playing a 1930s character stuck in an age where even his cat seems to be several steps ahead. The Long Goodbye is more of an experience than a narrative and yet it also delivers plenty of twists, turns and drama along the way.

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The Unseen

Two films that I really should have seen by now but haven’t, even though they’ve both been on my watchlist for quite a while now: The Sting, Serpico. Let’s not dwell on my failings as a cinephile. I’ll get around to these two.

Other films that I possibly should have seen but have little intention of doing so: Papillon (which honestly sounds really boring and unfun), The Way We Were (which sounds like it has a far more interesting behind the scenes story), and Paper Moon. Actually I think I’ve seen Paper Moon. I vaguely remember watching it back home when I had a TV in my bedroom. But it could just as easily have been a completely different movie.

In the films-I’ve-never-even-heard-of category we have: Holy Mountain. Actually, having just looked it up on Wikipedia, I am of course familiar with Jodorowsky but mostly in the context of his infamous attempt to bring Dune to the cinema. I suspect Holy Mountain is best watched after dropping a couple of tabs—would a nice, fresh cuppa work instead?

The Unmentioned

1973 was a pretty good year for cinema with a number of other films that are worth mentioning for one reason or another, but I’m going to limit myself to four. Firstly we have to acknowledge Badlands, starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. Not a film I’ve watched that many times, but an absolutely iconic piece of cinema.

This was also the year that Bruce Lee was supposed to have made it big in the west, with the release of Enter The Dragon. A few months back my eldest son mentioned that he was keen to watch this and I realised I’d never actually seen it myself. A quick trip to JB Hifi to pick up the remarkable cheap 4k release and we were all set. It was glorious fun and it’s a great tragedy that Lee died before the film was even completed.

Moving into an entirely different genre and a personal favourite of mine: High Plains Drifter. I was introduced to this one in my twenties by a flatmate who did a great job of selling the supernatural aspect (of which I was completely unaware: I thought it was just another western). Indeed, it works excellently as a western, but overlaid with a vengeful and haunting tone that takes it to an entirely different place at times.

Finally, we can’t ignore Don’t Look Now (initially released as a double bill with The Wicker Man). Another film that I was introduced to through Moviedrome and later studied at university. A challenging film in some ways, I rewatched this not too long ago—possibly the first time I’d seen it on bluray, thanks to the Studio Canal restoration—and, boy, is it a gorgeous film. So much red.