1970s

  • Sydney Pollack – Three Days of the Condor (1975)

    Sydney Pollack1971-1980PoliticsThrillerUSA
    Three Days of the Condor (1975)
    Three Days of the Condor (1975)

    In this classic conspiracy thriller, screen icon Robert Redford (Tell Them Willie Boy is Here, The Sting, All the President’s Men, Indecent Proposal) stars as CIA Agent Joe Turner. Code name: Condor. When his entire office is massacred, Turner goes on the run from his enemies…and his so-called allies. After reporting the murders to his superiors, the organization wants to bring Condor in—but somebody is trying to take him out. In his frantic hunt for answers, and in a desperate race for his life, Turner abducts photographer Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway, The Thomas Crown Affair, Eyes of Laura Mars), eventually seducing her into helping him. Every twist leads Condor to the end of his nerves…and will take you to the edge of your seat. And as he zeroes in on the staggering truth, he discovers there are some secrets people would kill to keep. Masterfully directed by Sydney Pollack (Jeremiah Johnson, Tootsie, Out of Africa, Havana) and also starring Cliff Robertson (Charly), John Houseman (The Paper Chase) and the icy Max von Sydow (Needful Things), 3 Days of the Condor endures as one of Hollywood’s finest tales of political paranoia.Read More »

  • André Delvaux – Rendez-vous à Bray AKA Rendezvous at Bray (1971)

    André Delvaux1971-1980ArthouseBelgiumDrama
    Rendez vous à Bray (1971)
    Rendez vous à Bray (1971)

    In 1917, the First World War is raging. Julien is from Luxemburg, so instead of having to go to war he studies piano in Paris. One day his friend Jacques, also a musician and now a fighter pilot on the front, invites him to spend a few days in his family’s empty house in Bray. The housekeeper, a beautiful but mute woman lets Julien in, but his friend is late and he is obliged to wait. In the meantime, he starts reminiscing of the pre-war days spent with his friend and Jacques’ girlfriend Odile.Read More »

  • Mohammed Hussain – Khoon Khoon (1973)

    1971-1980CrimeIndiaMohammed HussainMystery
    Khoon Khoon (1973)
    Khoon Khoon (1973)

    A Bombay cop tries to track down a serial killer who snipes at random victims.Read More »

  • Chantal Akerman – Hotel Monterey (1973)

    1971-1980BelgiumChantal AkermanDocumentaryExperimental
    Hotel Monterey (1973)
    Hotel Monterey (1973)

    Quote:
    Hotel Monterey is a cheap hotel in New York reserved for the outcasts of American society. Chantal Akerman invites viewers to visit this unusual place as well as the people who live there, from the reception up to the last story.New York City’s Monterey is a residence hotel; the residents we see are older, most live alone. The camera, usually stationery, begins with a look into the lobby. The film ends with a panorama from the hotel’s rooftop. There’s no soundtrack. The lobby is clean with granite floors. Men wear hats. People enter and exit an elevator. The camera looks out from within the elevator as doors open and close. People sit alone and motionless in their apartments. There are long shots of empty halls. Paint peels. The flooring on upper levels is linoleum. Hall lights are florescent. Doors open a crack then close. The film provides the feeling of what it’s like to live there.Read More »

  • Rosa von Praunheim – Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt AKA It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives (1971)

    Rosa von Praunheim1971-1980ArthouseGermanyPoliticsQueer Cinema(s)
    Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt (1971)
    Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt (1971)

    Quote:
    Praunheim’s film is at once a pedagogical caveat and political manifesto. Following naïve country boy Daniel after he moves to Berlin and encounters a thriving gay community, It Is Not The Homosexual is a provocative look at the lives of gay men in 1970s Germany. The film follows Daniel from heteronormative behaviour to finding a sugardaddy to a job in a local gay bar, making him the most eligible bachelor in town. Through Daniel’s journey Praunheim comments on everything from the shallower tendencies in gay culture to cruising for sex in the early ‘70s until Daniel meets a group of revolutionary gays who introduce him to the gay rights movement. Like many of Praunheim’s films It Is Not The Homosexual caused a scandal in both the liberal and conservative establishment as well as in homosexual circles after it was first shown on German state television in 1973. What makes Praunheim’s work so provocative as a queer director is his fearlessness, what others call audacity, to not only point the finger at society, but also at the gay community itself as guilty of homophobia.Read More »

  • Daniel Kamwa – Boubou cravate (1972)

    1971-1980African CinemaCameroonDaniel KamwaDramaShort Film
    Boubou cravate (1972)
    Boubou cravate (1972)

    A young diplomat is prey to the sarcasm of his own “boy”, who sees in him one of the many black-skinned Europeans totally lacking in authenticity and adrift between two cultures. But this adaptation of a novella by Francis Bebey is not limited to this simple contrast. The black man may well fall for the deceptive seductiveness of the blonde woman, but this same white beauty just as easily allows herself to be seduced by the mystery of black Africa. After all, the stereotype differences between Blacks and Whites can never tell the whole story. This culture clash is also the story of a master and his servant, of a director and his secretary, of the same director and the director-general, of a husband and his wife. It cannot be by chance that in the end, after a ritual invasion of his own living room, the diplomat rediscovers his identity by means of the mask, which as we know always conceals and reveals at the same time.Read More »

  • Peter Lilienthal – Noon in Tunisia (1970)

    Peter Lilienthal1961-1970DocumentaryGermany
    Noon in Tunisia (1970)
    Noon in Tunisia (1970)

    Synopsis:
    This is the two-part film “Noon in Tunisia” by Peter Lilienthal, a meeting of jazz and Arabic music at various public or open-air venues in Tunisia. Under the direction of George Gruntz, European and US jazz musicians play his suite-like composition “Maghreb Cantata”, which is based on original Bedouin dances, together with Arab performers. The highlight is the Fazani, a rhythm of Bedouin tribes from the desert region of the Libyan-Tunisian border. The recording took place from 5.5. – 24.5.1969 in and around Tunis.Read More »

  • Alan Bridges – King Oedipus (1972)

    Alan Bridges1971-1980BBCDramaUnited Kingdom
    King Oedipus (1972)
    King Oedipus (1972)

    Resolving the riddle of the Sphinx makes Oedipus the king of Thebes, but he also resolves another mystery – and it destroys him.Read More »

  • Kôichi Saitô – Yadonashi AKA The Homeless (1974)

    Kôichi Saitô1971-1980AdventureCrimeJapan
    Yadonashi (1974)
    Yadonashi (1974)

    he Japanese remake of Robert Enrico’s french film The Last Adventure, where Alain Delon & Lino Ventura have respectively exchanged their place with Ken Takakura & Shintaro Katsu… This version also stars Meiko Kaji (Lady Snowblood) and Noboru Ando (many yakuza films).

    The Homeless follows the story of two prisoners released the same day, who meets again at the brothel where they help a prostitute to escape from yakuza. And together, they go treasure hunting.Read More »

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