Thursday, November 21, 2024

Picks of 1974

Movie picks from the same year The Wombles should have been number one; the classic British sitcom Porridge debuted on our screens; and Col. Steve Austin became better, stronger, faster:

Almost Human AKA The Death Dealer (Umberto Lenzi)
Black Christmas (Bob Clark)
Blazing Saddles (Mel Brooks)
Carry On Dick (Gerald Thomas)
Chinatown (Roman Polanski) 
The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola)
Dark Star (John Carpenter)
Death Wish (Michael Winner)
Earthquake (Mark Robson)
Foxy Brown (Jack Hill)
Frightmare (Pete Walker)
From Beyond the Grave (Kevin Connor)
The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola)
House of Whipcord (Pete Walker)
Let Sleeping Corpse Lie AKA The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue (Jorge Grau)
The Mean Machine AKA The Longest Yard (Robert Aldrich)
The Night Porter (Liliana Cavani)
The Parallax View (Alan J. Pakula)
Spasmo (Umberto Lenzi)
The Street Fighter (Shigehiro Ozawa) 
The Towering Inferno (John Guillermin)
Vampyres (José Ramón Larraz)
Young Frankenstein (Mel Brooks)

Not only was 1974 an impressive year for film, but some soundtracks were particularly just as on par with their respective films, in some cases being better. These were the crème de la crème:

Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson - Flashbulbs
Bernard "Pretty" Purdie - Lialeh
The Impressions - Mister Keyes
Terrible Tom - Boss Ni**er
Isaac Hayes - Hung Up On My Baby
The Love Unlimited Orchestra - Theme From Together Brothers
Martha Reeves - Keep On Movin' On
Dennis Coffey And Luchi De Jesus ‎- Main Theme (Black Belt Jones)
Ennio Morricone - Bambole
Franco Micalizzi - Bargain With the Devil
Douglas Gamley - The Beast Must Die 
Toshiaki Tsushima - The Street Fighter

* technically not from a specific 1974 film, but from a single which was released at the time. Sounds nothing like Jerry Goldsmith's original theme, but a great tune, regardless.

4 comments:

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

David Shire had 1974 on lock with the Pelham and Conversation soundtracks.

Spartan said...

Same goes for certain directors. Mel Brooks, Francis Ford Coppola, Umberto Lenzi and Pete Walker had an amazing year by each of them helming two killer films in 1974.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

I was just looking up music from 1974. Great year for blk ppl; fairly awful for saltines.

Spartan said...

😀

With the exception of the aforementioned folks on the soundtrack list, Bob James’s Nautilus, Average White Band’s Pick Up the Pieces and UFO’s Doctor Doctor were the only saltines worthy enough I could find while looking up music from 1974.