It's been fifty years since the term summer blockbuster entered the modern lexicon. That's largely attributed to Steven Spielberg's Jaws being one of the greatest box office success stories ever; as well as being culturally impactful, even today. Therefore, it would lay down the blueprint for event movies ever since.
Picks:
Autopsy (Armando Crispino)
Brannigan (Douglas Hickox)
Bucktown (Arthur Marks)
Countess Perverse (Jesús Franco)
Deep Red (Dario Argento)
The Devil's Rain (Robert Fuest)
The Eiger Sanction (Clint Eastwood)
Eyeball (Umberto Lenzi)
Footprints on the Moon (Luigi Bazzoni, Mario Fanelli)
French Connection II (John Frankenheimer)
Ilsa, She Wolf of the S.S. (Don Edmunds)*
Jaws (Steven Spielberg)
Lips of Blood (Jean Rollin)
The Man Who Would Be King (John Huston)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones)
Night of the Seagulls (Amando de Ossorio)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Milos Forman)
Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir)
Race with the Devil (Jack Starrett)
Rollerball (Norman Jewison)
Shivers (David Cronenberg)
Supervixens (Russ Meyer)
Switchblade Sisters (Jack Hill)
Glaring Blind Spots:
Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet); Hard Times (Walter Hill); and Night Moves (Arthur Penn).
Could have added a few more to the list, like The Stepford Wives, but way too much time has passed since last seeing any of them. No idea if they still hold up.
* Still banned outright today by the BBFC.
10 comments:
The year I was born.
Is Ilsa, She Wolf of The S.S the one with the hairy midget creature in the cage? The handful of Naziploitation movies I've seen have blurred into one in my mind.
Nah, but I know exactly the film you're on about: That's Luigi Batzella's The Beast in Heat (1977).
Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS is a Canadian nazisploitation film starring the buxom Dyanne Thorne.
That's the one. Should have guessed it was the Italians behind that one 😄
It's an understandably loathsome subgenre; even more cruel and depraved than the Women in Prison formula it borrows heavily from. Bizarrely, Ilsa... is the most re-watchable, despite being the most notorious of the lot.
Unrelated, but Propulsion by Francis Monkman, the same composer for The Long Good Friday, is another winner from the Prisoner Cell Block H soundtrack library.
Oh shit. That one sounds vaguely familiar. Making me wanna re-start my Prisoner binge.
Binged my way to episode 10. Felt gutted for Eddie when Marilyn went back on the game.
Can't turn a hoe into a housewife... or can you? 🤔
The legend Richard Moir AKA the future Tony Twist in series 1 and 2 of Round The Twist.
Outside world scenes seem to spell trouble for Wentworth's former jailbirds.
That scene where Bea shot her old man as soon as she was freed was about as gangster as you can get, though.
More than a few of my favorites made it onto your '75 list. It was quite a year; the first of Cronenberg's sci-fi horror classics, perhaps Argento's greatest film, and something that tells me that Spielberg fella could really amount to something someday. AUTOPSY is an odd giallo that deserves more attention. ROLLERBALL's themes (and concerns) are more valid than ever today.
Agreed.
In terms of Rollerball, I watched it again some years back and was shocked by how prophetic it's become in some instances. The obvious being corporations running us all.
A few other '75 films I want to revisit:
The Giant Spider Invasion
Trilogy of Terror
Bug
Deadly Strangers
Night Train Murders
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