Top 10 (almost) films of … 1975

It’s the hump year of the seventies, the year that Bill Gates and another guy [Paul Allen: let’s give credit where it’s due] founded a company called Micro-Soft and the Vietnam War ended with the fall of Saigon. Meanwhile, the UK and Iceland, obviously thinking there weren’t enough wars in the world, began their third war over cod. Finally, actor Pedro Pascal, best known for his bit part in a season 5 episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, was born. Also, some films came out. Let’s talk about those.

I can’t recall the very first time I visited the cinema. I do remember going to see various Disney rereleases (such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) and I do remember my local Odeon doing a Saturday morning cinema thing. There was at least one occasion where I decided it was more fun to run up and down the aisles than to watch the film, much to the annoyance of some of the other cinemagoers. Hopefully the fact that I remember this moment means I quickly took it to heart and was less disruptive at future screenings.

All of that’s just a roundabout way of saying that 1975 might be the year I first went to the cinema but it also might not! That said, I can definitely confirm that I didn’t see any of the movies we’re about to discuss in the year of their release. Let’s move on.

Jaws

We can’t discuss Jaws without talking a little bit about box office (which is tricky given the patchy records from before 1977).  If we talk about what’s referred to as the ‘domestic’ box office, meaning the USA and Canada, then it wasn’t entirely uncommon for one or two films each year to hit the $100m dollar mark in the year of their release. This phenomenon started in the 1960s but these high-grossing films were very much outliers: most other titles in the top ten of the year would average closer to $30 million. These figures slowly crept up through the early seventies. Cinema was good business, but it wasn’t massive.

Until Jaws.

The number one film of 1974 (Blazing Saddles) made $120 million. Jaws, the number one film of 1975, made $260 million. It absolutely eclipsed everything that had come before. It was huge and it changed the film business forever (here’s a bit more about why it was so successful). It’s no surprise, then, that I’d heard plenty about Jaws before I eventually saw it; I knew the poster, I’d heard the hype, I certainly knew the music. 

Jaws was first shown on UK TV in 1981 and it’s likely this was my first experience of the movie. I vividly remember the opening scenes. I remember blood spurting from Quint’s mouth when he finally succumbs to the shark. I remember all the shocks, the tension, the thrills. It wasn’t until quite some years later that I realised that Jaws is not only great fun; it’s also a really, really good movie. It’s one I’m particularly delighted that both my kids have grown up loving too; opting on more than one occasion to watch it without any encouragement from me.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

My Dad introduced me to The Rocky Horror Picture Show sometime around 1985. It had been on TV the night before, he had recorded it and was raving about it. I watched it and was hooked right away. I watched it countless times, bought the album, and was thrilled when a new tour of the stage show was announced not long afterwards. I went to the show four or five times, eventually getting a bunch of school-friends to join me, and even dressing in drag once or twice. Such a big part of my late teens.

I watched the film again a few years ago and it made for a wonderful trip down memory lane. It’s still glorious, ridiculous fun.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

This movie made quite an impression on me when I first saw it, sometime in my twenties, and I’ve never quite managed to go back to it. I recall viscerally hating Nurse Ratchett (a credit to Louise Fletcher’s performance). I don’t believe I’ve watched it since even though I owned a DVD copy for quite some years. I should rewatch this but I’m not going to be doing it anytime soon.

Dog Day Afternoon

I was quite late to this film and, to date, I’ve only seen it once. Unlike Cuckoo’s Nest this one has been on my rewatch list for a while. I’ve been watching a few John Cazale movies recently so this is probably ripe for a fresh viewing. For my money (and this is based on distant memories) the fraught relationship between the main characters was always the driving force, with the actual bank robbery merely a vehicle for exploring that. Definitely needs a rewatch!

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

This was one of the earliest movies I rented (back when movie rentals started to become a thing). I was too young to have been brought up on Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and almost certainly hadn’t seen Life Of Brian by this point. It’s quite likely that this film was instrumental in forging my taste in comedy—in particular a love of really, really dumb jokes that bely the intelligence and cultural sophistication of the writers (and performers, in this case). Is there any sight gag more dumb and yet more cleverly founded upon the mechanics of cinema than the use of two coconut shells in place of a horse? 

I’ve seen this on multiple occasions and it never fails to make me laugh. If it’s not one classic gag that gets me, it’ll be something else (too many to list!). My eldest son grew up loving this movie and I’m so looking forward to introducing my youngest to it sometime (very) soon.

The Return Of The Pink Panther

I don’t have strong memories of this film in particular, but I do remember having a deep fondness for the Pink Panther films while growing up. It was the slapstick fight scenes with Cato, the ridiculous French accent and the general ineptitude of Peter Seller’s Clouseau that won me over every time. It was a looong time before I realised Sellers was an actor of some repute and I can totally appreciate how much he must have resented the fact that, for some time at least, he was best known for playing a prat-falling French detective.

I can’t believe I have more to say about this film than Dog Day Afternoon.

Three Days Of The Condor

Surprisingly, given my love of seventies paranoia thrillers, it was only a year or two ago that I finally watched this for the first time. It’s not the strongest entry in the genre (in my view) but it was perfectly ok. Perhaps the most gripping moment is the opening, when the staff of an entire office is gunned down in cold blood (except, conveniently, for Robert Redford who is off on his bicycle getting a sandwich). It’s hard to up the tension after an opening like that (and it’s a baffling plot contrivance that the primary killer sort of ends up being the good guy at the end—spoiler!). It’s also terribly dated, most egregiously in the way that Robert Redford’s character treats Faye Dunaway’s female lead. You definitely wouldn’t find a script being written like that today!

Tommy

I watched this on TV at a very young age with my Mum (quite enjoyed it even) and in a classic case of mandela effect had a very clear memory of Tina Turner being swamped in baked beans for many years afterwards. I was prompted to give the album a listen about three or four years back and got quite immersed in the whole thing: I listened to the Who’s original work (in 5.1 surround, no less); I listened to the more recent stage musical a few times: and eventually checked out the film again one Saturday evening. It held up pretty well and it was fun, this time around, knowing the music and seeing how it was retrofitted to the visuals; how the music itself was tweaked, especially with a variety of artists taking over the vocals; and how Jack Nicholson doesn’t really sing at all but it was cool to see him in it anyway.

There are plenty of films (and pieces of music) that I still enjoy simply because I used to like them when I was younger. Tommy is a great example of something that I remember from years ago but have rediscovered and reevaluated and has subsequently earned a fresh place in my select box of entertainments.

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Unseen

A quick acknowledgment of some films I haven’t seen from this year and probably won’t get around to watching: Salo, Barry Lyndon, Funny Lady. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Shampoo and I’m pretty sure it will have dated horribly if I was to ever watch it again.

Despite being a horror fan growing up, I never really had a giallo phase so I’ve missed out on seeing Deep Red to date. I would like to watch it sometime. Death Race 2000 is most notable to me for being a film that my school friends would talk about a lot (probably from those golden times before UK video releases needed certificates so we could go out and rent all manner of inappropriate fare), so it’s one of those films that acquired a bit of a mythic status. I think I might have seen it at some point but, of course, the film itself could never match up to the image that had built up in my head.

The unheard of

There are two films I’ve never heard of in the top ten this year, so let’s just make some wild assumptions as to their plots. The Other Side Of The Mountain is clearly a horror movie revolving around a community of peaceful folk who live on one side of the mountain while the other side, permanently shrouded in night, is host to dreadful creatures of the undead. One day a curious child wanders to the other side of the mountain and the blood-sucking denizens finally realise the chompfest they’re missing out on.

Mr. Ricco is a bit harder to deduce. Films that are titled after their main character usually cover some sort of character arc, or a scenario in which the title character makes a fundamental difference to the lives of the other protagonists. This can often revolve around a life of crime, but a name like Mr Ricco implies something more frivolous. Therefore this film must, inevitably, revolve around a lovable but aimless rogue who progresses through a gallery of jobs (postman, painter, shopkeeper, etc) touching the lives of all around him until he finds his true calling—which I won’t reveal because: spoilers.

The previously unmentioned

Quick nods to early works from two significant directors that landed this year: Shivers (which I’ve not actually seen) marks David Cronenberg’s feature film directorial debut. Meanwhile, not his first film, but Peter Weir gave us the much-loved, much-admired Picnic at Hanging Rock.

I’m also surprised to see such a low showing for French Connection II (both in the box office top ten, and the IMDB list). I think it’s a great film and my understanding was that it was renowned as a particularly good and successful sequel. However, it does herald from an era when it was generally accepted that sequels would only ever draw in a fraction of their predecessor’s box office. Also it arrived four years after the original, so maybe these are factors.

One of my very favourite films also arrived in 1975: The Stepford Wives. This is a film I remember seeing when I was very young and it made enough of an impression that I wanted to revisit it some years later. It fits nicely into that 1970s conspiracy thriller oeuvre, but shifts the genre a little more over towards horror (and the premise only gets more and more horrific the more you watch it). It’s got a great hook, and an unforgettable denouement, but does a great job of ramping up the tension and mystery with plenty of little tip-offs along the way as to what’s really going on.

UK Top 10

1. The Towering Inferno
2. Funny Lady
3. Rollerball
4. Death Wish
5. Shampoo
6. Escape To Witch Mountain
7. French Connection II
8. The Man With The Golden Gun
9. Jaws
10. Tommy

Given I grew up in the UK it makes sense to take a quick look at what was going on over there in 1975. Right away we can see that the delays inherent in having a limited number of physical film prints that can be physically shipped around the world mean that some of the big films of 1974 ended up being the big films of 1975 in the UK. Also interesting to see that French Connection II (which only reached 25 in the North American box office) is a top ten release here—this from the country that put Herbie Rides Again at number 3 the previous year. That said, middle-grade Disney is well represented here with a respectable showing for Escape From Witch Mountain (which doesn’t even seem to have made the North American top 50)

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