1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[matrixschmatrix]

I think the issue I have is that a.) I feel as though I need to totally focus on the genre lists when the deadline's rolling around and b.) I usually don't program my viewing by lists unless there's one within a month or two- so as long as the two deadlines are reasonably spread out, I'm more or less ok. That said, I don't really want to be on a never-ending treadmill of switching from genre programming to decade programming, so having a good long spread where no due dates are coming up seems nice, especially as it's difficult to watch much over the holidays.

So my perspective is that I kind of like every single list getting an extension at some point, it means the phase in which I watch things heavily lasts a bit longer without feeling arduous at all.

[thirtyframesasecond]

I started the decades poll in the last round of the 80s, so I do feel in subsequent polls, I'll be catching up on films I never saw first time round. So 9 months to me feels a little excessive, but then I don't participate in genre polls, etc. For the 70s, I do think that watching films across December will be tricky, especially after the next couple of weeks, so would welcome an extension into January or even at the end of it. I know I still have loads of films I want to watch.

[zedz]

What if we just made the standard for Decade List Projects nine months instead of six, but with an understanding that there'll be no extensions? That'd push it to the end of March for this round, FYI. I mean, we always go over the arbitrary six month distinction anyways and nine months is of course a standard measurement for all humans thanks to that Hugh Grant movie

When we were coming up to the end of last decade, I extended the last couple of deadlines to about nine months (maybe more?) so that we'd be doing the 2000s list in early 2010, and that seemed to work fine. But I think the more important consideration is to get out of the way of the deadlines of any other lists projects (specifically the genre one) that are running at the same time.

[colinr0380]

Is there a sort of unofficial rule that it would take around five years to cycle through all of the decades, so that the temperature of the forum could be taken twice a decade? While it is always interesting to see the shifts in taste, changes amongst the current forum members who have been voting, and what people have been viewing change from poll to poll and so on, the point where you'd see that kind of rule working most effectively would be in the most recent decade, so we'll be tackling the 2010s for the first time soon at its half-way mark and then again around 2020 from the perspective of a 'completed decade' (although the main purpose of all of these decades lists should be to help show just how much there is still left to explore from every decade!) to see what has changed, which films have held on against newcomers or dropped down the ranks, and so on!

[the preacher]

I don't really care about the deadline. I mean, there will always be a film that I will discover after the deadline. Why I didn't see "Nezabyvayemoye", "La ragazza in vetrina", "Biyaya ng lupa", "La nave delle donne maledette", "Ulica Graniczna", "Song hua jiang shang", "Tredowata", "Dalu", "Running Wild" or "Eld ombord" (to name just a couple of recent favorites from each decade) on time?
6 or 9 months is fine with me, the better for the host.

[swo17]

Is there a sort of unofficial rule that it would take around five years to cycle through all of the decades, so that the temperature of the forum could be taken twice a decade?

Regardless of how long each individual project has taken, it's tended to come out about this way, though there's no magic to it taking five years as opposed to six or more. Also, I needn't remind you that time keeps on slippin', yes, into the future, meaning that even if we rigidly adhered to an exact six-month deadline every time, the pesky addition of new decades to the planet's collective film history would prevent us from taking our own temperature exactly twice each decade.

Generally, I think there should be enough time so that those that are the most devoted to the project are able to fit in a viewing/reviewing for all of the readily available films that they deem worthy of consideration for the decade. Whenever I've lobbied for an extension, it's been because I personally needed more time to fit in everything in my reach that I'd hoped to be able to watch.

[zedz]

And just to clarify: holding the 2000s vote in January 2010 wasn't engineered so that we could take the temperature of the decade as soon as it ended, but because the alternative was holding the 2000s vote six months before the end of the decade, which would have been silly. Actually, the bigger a gap the better in terms of getting a good picture of what the forum likes, as there were a number of key films that most of us didn't get to see until later that year or early 2011. Police, Adjective, for example, would definitely have fared much better if we'd been voting after it had worked its way through the festival circuit and been released on DVD.

[bamwc2]

Sorry that it's been a while since I updated, but with the semester kicking in to full gear, my time to watch and write on films has fallen off. And then there was Grand Theft Auto V...

Viewing Log:

11 x 14 (James Benning, 1977): This was the second film of Benning's that I saw for the project, and like his other work that I've experienced, I honestly don't know what to say about it. The film features three stories, all told without dialogue, but featuring some fairly compelling imagery. A usual, his camera is entirely static here, but the film has been justifiably lauded for its use of sound. I enjoyed the stories (or at least what I could understand of them), but if there was some larger point that Benning was trying to make here, it was lost on me.

Anna and the Wolves (Carlos Saura, 1973): The more that I explore of Saura's output from the 60s and 70s, the more I fall in love with his unique vision. Here Geraldine Chaplin stars as the titular Ana, a young nanny who takes up residency in a dysfunctional Spanish household. The film is populated by unforgettable characters, some of which are saints, while others are the film's wolves who are more interested in satisfying their own selfish ends than in Ana's care of the children. The film, particularly in its final scene is rather brutal, but the overall dreamlike to the narrative was more than enough to win me over.

Le berceau de cristal (Philippe Garrel, 1976): 1960s icon Nico stars in a near dialogue free film (the only spoken words are the lyrics to three of her songs) by Philippe Garrel. Without much to do, Nico spends pretty much the entire film posing in front of the camera and looking pouty and/or angst ridden. Demonic visitors appear at various points throughout the film to add to the depths of the protagonist's misery. There's not much going on here plot wise, but the film is competent in its handling of evoking the kind of mood that would lead the the film's final shot.

SpoilerShow

No pun intended.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Hall Bartlett, 1973): One worst pieces of fluff to come out of the human potential movement of the late 60s and early 70s was Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Situated somewhere between The Dancing Wu Li Masters and The Teachings of Don Juan in terms of plausibility, Bach's "classic" tells the story of a non-conformist seagull who is banished from his flock after an obsession with being the fastest upsets their elders. He soon finds a guru seagull who teaches him the secrets of teleportation and other metaphysical mumbo jumbo, before becoming a teacher himself and completing his cycle. The film was competently shot by Hall Bartlett and the voice acting is competently handled as well, but even the gorgeous scenery fails to overcome the sheer lunacy of a story that Roger Ebert described as a children's story marked to adults because kids would have seen right through its nonsense. After watching it I can't help but feel depressed that millions of adults have fallen for this pap over the decades.

The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir (Jean Renoir, 1970): The French master's swansong is a charming, but minor note in his oeuvre. This made for TV film consists of four short stories, strung together through an introduction by Renoir. "The Last Christmas Dinner" is a melancholy story about an elderly homeless couple, while "The Electric Floor Polisher" is a whimsical story of a woman's quest to obtain the titular item from her husband. "When Love Dies" features the incomparable Jean Moreau singing the song by the same name, and the film ends with the saccharine "The Virtue of Tolerance" in which a pair of lovers heal after infidelity. Of the four, I liked the comedy the best, but they all had their merits. It's not a particularly strong outing from Renoir, but deserves to be seen nevertheless.

The Paul Lynde Halloween Special (Sid Smith, 1976): Mr. Lynde was one of the nation's crowning comedic jewels in the 1970s, and this made for prime time TV Halloween special surely won't disappoint his fans. Stacked to the gills with celebrity cameos, this variety show features Lynde battling witches (including Margaret Hamilton!), taking on the role of a super macho truck driver, and singing about the virtues of discotheques. Although the work contains three performances by Kiss, which may ultimately be my least favorite rock band of all time, the joy emanating from this TV special is infectious. It's worth watching for much more than the camp value alone.

La prima Angélica (Carlos Saura, 1974): I'd call this, the second film by Saura in this update, the weaker of the two, but still head and shoulders above most of works from the same era. José Luis López Vázquez stars as a man who returns to his Segovian family estate to bury his mother where his incestuous feelings for his cousin Angelica are rekindled as are his memories of surviving the Spanish Civil War. There is little to complain about here, but somehow the sum of the film's pieces seem to come together into something less than a masterpiece. Still, this is very good drama with strong performances all around, and an easy recommendation.

Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta desert (Marguerite Duras, 1975): I have to admit to being rather confused about the film's relationship to Duras's India Song since I've read some contradictory claims about it. Are they the same movie? Can anyone clear this up? Regardless, this is another ineffable experience that I failed to connect with on any meaningful level. The film consists mainly of monologues delivered through narration over architectural footage. What was the plot? I can't say and I'm not sure that I even care. I hope that this doesn't come off as sounding anti-intellectual, but the experimental art films in this update have left me scratching my head more than feeling any form of appreciation. According to an IMDB review, I'm already half dead for not liking it. Eh, so what?

Wedding in Blood (Claude Chabrol, 1973): It's been about nine years since I saw Les Biches. It was my first film by Chabrol, and I absolutely hated it. I didn't think that day that I'd ever see another of his films, but I am so glad that I've now seen a majority of his works. I've certainly come across a few more stinkers from him, but by and large he was a wonderful artist. The Hitchcock inspired thrillers from this era in his career are mostly fantastic, and Wedding in Blood is no exception. Michel Piccoli and Stéphane Audran star as a pair of married lovers who murder their spouses in order to be together. The two leads give superb performances and Chabrol masterfully piles on the tension by adding a hauntingly discordant melody in the early scenes where the two are together.

[knives]

I hope some day you return to Les Biches which I absolutely adore and find to be one of his very best.

[zedz]

India Song (Marguerite Duras, 1975): I have to admit to being rather confused about the film's relationship to Duras's India Song since I've read some contradictory claims about it. Are they the same movie? Can anyone clear this up? Regardless, this is another ineffable experience that I failed to connect with on any meaningful level. The film consists mainly of monologues delivered through narration over architectural footage. What was the plot? I can't say and I'm not sure that I even care. I hope that this doesn't come off as sounding anti-intellectual, but the experimental art films in this update have left me scratching my head more than feeling any form of appreciation. According to an IMDB review, I'm already half dead for not liking it. Eh, so what?

I presume that should have been Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta desert? I believe that the relationship with India Song is simply that it completely recycles the soundtrack of India Song, attaching it to entirely different (and non-representative) visuals. I haven't seen the film, but I imagine that it wouldn't make a lot of sense in isolation. India Song is hardly a conventional drama, but it's much more like a conventional drama (in that it has characters delivering the dialogue that you're hearing alienated in the other film).

[bamwc2]

I presume that should have been Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta desert?

Oops. Yes. I initially thought that that was what I was viewing until IMDB told me otherwise. Thanks for the explanation.

[swo17]

OK, here's my ruling on deadlines: Six months is clearly not enough time (the last several decades projects have ended up being extended out to 7 or 8 months) though some here seem to think that nine months is too long (and not a very representative Hugh Grant movie either). I'm thinking eight months is the sweet spot. That's how long the '60s project lasted, and that's how long this one will last if we push it out to the end of January (which I'm inclined to do, as long as matrix is fine pushing the doc deadline out another month).

EDIT: Since matrix is fine with extending the docs list into March, I've gone ahead and extended the deadline for the '70s list to January 26th. Feel free to PM me your lists at any time.

With the longer project durations, while there may still occasionally be the need for an extension to accommodate scheduling hiccups, they shouldn't ever be longer than a week or so. If you count on the extensions to have enough time to fit in everything you'd like to watch because you don't actually start watching things until the last month or two of each project, may I kindly suggest that you set your calendars forward a few months in order to trick yourself into starting earlier. I do a similar thing with my alarm clock each morning and it works wonders.

[thirtyframesasecond]

The end of January is fine with me. Thanks. Any extra time given the Christmas vacation is welcome. Still got plenty to see.

[YnEoS]

Goldig Films

A Tooth for a Tooth (1973, Joseph Kong Hung)
The Black Belt (1973, Cheung Sam)
The Inheritor of Kung Fu (1973, Chen Hung-Lieh)
The Saviour Monk (1975, Leung Chit-Foo)
Massage Girls (1976, Cheung Sam)
The Big Family (1976, Steve Chan Ho)
The Best of Shaolin Kung Fu (1976, Chan Siu-Pang)
General Stone (1976, Tao Hung)
Hot Blood (1977, Richard Yeung Kuen)
Ten Magnificent Killers (1977, Fong Yau)
The Dragon Lives Again (1977, Law Kei)
Kung Fu Master Named Drunk Cat (1978, Cheung Sam)
Kung Fu Means Fists, Strikes and Swords (1978, Law Kei)
Snake in the Monkey's Shadow (1979, Cheung Sam)
Kung Fu Genius (1979, Wilson Tong Wai-Shing)
Duel of the 7 Tigers (1979, Richard Yeung Kuen)
Two Wondrous Tigers (1979, Cheung Sam)
The Gold Connection (1979, Kuei Chih-Hung)


Goldig films was founded by Alex Gouw in the late 60s as a film distributor and they went into film production from the early 70s to the early 80s, where they moved into other business. There’s not a whole lot of information I was able to find on them in English, and they don’t appear to have been a huge driving force in the overall history of HK cinema. But among many Kung Fans, 1978-1980 seems to be considered the high point of Kung Fu film production, and quite a few of the well regarded “indies” from this era come from Goldig films. Their other big claim to fame seems to be giving Chow Yun Fat his start in the film business.

Although all my guides so far have been missing some films, in this case much more than half are unaccounted. While quite a number of their Kung Fu films were released in the UK, most of their other films were either never put out on DVD, or are out of print and difficult to track down. However, interestingly, the companies website seems to emphasize their non-kung fu films as their most important. So perhaps there’s much more of a story to tell than what will be told here.


The earliest films I’ve been able to track down are several bashers they produced in 1973. A Tooth for a Tooth is an above average example of the genre with some good choreography and nice landscape shots. The Black Belt is one of the more misogynistic examples of the genre, and otherwise doesn’t seem particularly noteworthy. The best film of this period is probably The Inheritor of Kung Fu which was directed by Chen Hung Lieh who was well known for his villain roles like in Come Drink With Me. It stars Law Kar Wing and has Sek Kin as his master. Though there’s great cast and good fight choreography here, the plot is another watch the hero bare a number of indignities until he finally breaks loose deal.

In 1975 they produced Saviour Monk, which is one of several Wuxia/Kaiju hybrid genre films that got made in Taiwan. The story deals with a reincarnated monk trying to stay true to his Buddhist beliefs despite the pressures of society to be obedient to his evil warlord father. Though most of the runtime sidetracks away from the narrative so he can roam the countryside to reform rapists, and bust up evil black magic cults. Though not a particularly exemplary example of either Wuxia or Kaiju genre, its still a pretty lively and fun film.

Exploitation films seem to have been huge staple of the companies output since their inception, but the earliest one I was able to find, was 1976’s Massage Girls, thanks to it being Chow Yun Fat’s debut film. In good old classic exploitation fashion the film focuses on exposing the evils of society, heroine addicted mothers, and fathers who sell their children into slavery to fuel their gambling habit. It also features a fight scene or two, and a big HK style finale. The Big Family runs through similar territory but in the action genre. Sek Kin plays the head of a big family and his kids get exposed to all kind of modern western corruptions, like getting a white girlfriend, firing guns, and going out to clubs. The film deals mostly with brutal revenge driven action scenes and internal family tensions, and ends with a pretty spectacular end fight.

Also in 1976, the company produced 2 ripoffs of Joseph Kuo’s bronzemen series, showing that even copycats are worth copying. The Best of Shaolin Kung Fu more directly copies Kuo’s bronzemen formula, even getting his series’ star Carter Wong to play a part! The film is a competent example of the genre with some good fights, but doesn’t really rise above the films that came before it. General Stone is a much fresher take on the genre adding in a more mysterious magic component. It also benefits from the excellent performances by Dorian Tan and Polly Shang Kwan.

There were a few different types of film I found for 1977, Hot Blood is a police drama starring Chow Yun Fat that focuses much more on developing the family and friend relations and drama than plot or action and well made though fairly ordinary. The Dragon Lives Again is a Brucesploitation film that’s gotten somewhat of a reputation in “so bad it’s good circles” for having Bruce Lee fight against a number of cinematic icons like James Bond, Zatoichi, and Clint Eastwood’s man with no name. But aside from the sillyness of its plot and costumes, the film is actually very very boring and there are plenty of other HK films with just as ridiculous premises and much better executed fight scenes.

Ten Magnificent Killers is the first shapes film I could find from the company and the whole film is almost purely made up of fight scenes. Still it keeps things fresh with some light comedy, minimal plot development, and training in between. Overall a really strong kung fu flick, but the icing on the cake is Bolo Yeung who plays an old man who’s fighting style involves not looking at his opponent and it is really a joy to watch.

Kung Fu Means Fists, Strikes, and Swords is a solid kung fu film made in 1978, but nothing that stood out to me as being particularly exemplary. A Kung Fu Master Named Drunk Cat puts a lot of period kung fu tropes into a contemporary setting, and has Simon Yuen play the master for a few scenes. It’s got a lot of fun set pieces from tons of different genres, but despite being well executed, it doesn’t really match up to the better examples of the genre tropes it invokes.

Then of course 1979 was the big year where they started pouring out great shapes action films, and really for a kung fu fan, all these films are probably worth seeing. Kung Fu Genius has a ton of great fight scenes, though it suffers a bit because of its uninteresting plot and annoying attempts at comedy. Though Chan Lung’s fighting style in this is genuinely one of the funniest things ever. Snake in the Monkey’s Shadow follows the Yuen Wo Ping/Jackie Chan formula but adds in the gimmick of having the hero learn 2 fighting styles from 2 masters. While it’s got some great fight scenes in it, I don’t think it quite measures up to the films its copying. Two Wondrous Tigers is about on a similar level as the other two, but benefits from having a nice minimal setup to play on, and some great chemistry between its two leads John Cheung and Philip Ko. Though neither of these films were my favorites of the year, they each have their supporters who swear by them. However it’s the next two films that I think are the real show stealers from 1979, and indeed are absolutely highpoints of the kung fu genre.

Duel of the Seven Tigers – Quite a few Goldig films feature pretty impressive casts, but in this film the talent is pouring out in droves. The story follows the Seven Samurai model of searching for and building up an elite team of warriors. While they search out the best, they also find a bunch of hidden kung fu masters among regular laborers, leading to a number of wonderful “profession kung fu” scenes like row boat kung fu or scaffolding kung fu. Though the story is fairly casual this film is stuffed full of some of the most amazing performances and set pieces. Oddly enough this was the only kung fu film made by director Richard Yeung Kuen, who largely worked on Goldig’s other genre pictures.

The Gold Connection – This is a crime thriller with shapes style fighting based around gold being smuggled from Vietnam. This is director Kuei Chih-Hung’s only film for Goldig, and his strong visual and narrative sense really stands out from the rest of the companies output. The film is much more focused on the drama between the characters and the action is often minimal and focused on brutality, even invoking a number of horror film conventions. Still when the shapes kung fu breaks out, its spectacular and has a really great intensity and physicality that is occasionally missing from some overly-elaborate period kung fu films. Bruce Li also shows that he has talent for a lot more than just being in cheap Bruce Lee knockoff roles.


DVD Availability: Almost all of these films were released in the UK by Vengeance Video, though a lot of them are out of print. These DVDs are usually either pan and scan or dubbed in english, or both, but The Gold Connection is subtitled for most scenes and in non-anamorphic widescreen (though possibly not the original aspect ratio). Saviour Monk is on a pan and scan DVD from Taiwan. General Stone has a widescreen subtitled dvd put out by Rarescope in the UK, though it is now out of print. In Germany The Best of Shaolin Kung Fu and Duel of the Seven Tigers have pristine widescreen restored releases, though they're german and english dub only. There's a fan-made version of Duel of the Seven Tigers which adds the original language track and english subtitles to the German DVD.

[Cold Bishop]

Good stuff. Did you ignore the Ng See-Yuen films because they only "distributed" them, or because you're planning a write-up on him?

I'm also a fan of Gold Connection, which also one of KCH's few flirtations with kung fu, and gives Bruce Li a chance to shine outside the Brucesploitation genre. Will have to track down Duel of the Seven Tigers

[YnEoS]

Yeah, lacking any kind of hard data on their production methods I decided to error on the side of caution and avoid films that seemed to have only been distributed by them, especially since they started up as a distribution company for foreign films in Hong Kong. I do hope to explore some of the films they've distributed at some point, which includes some titles I've seen highly spoken of like Clutch of Power (1977, Cheung Paang Yik) and Choi Lee Fut Kung Fu(1979, Chan Siu Pang), though that probably won't be part of any kind of guide.

Ng See Yuen is definitely on my hit list though.

[domino harvey]

California Split (Robert Altman 1974) And here I thought Nashville was gonna be the only Altman to make my list! What everyone does here-- and the credit has to extend to not just Altman but all his actors and the screenwriter and the crew as well-- is capture the frenetic energy of manic behavior without ever being too cute in its over-layered diffuseness or, even more impressively, without being showy or annoying as hell. I was sucked in immediately and spent the remainder of the film nervous as to whether the movie could keep up the tone and loose, almost targetless trajectory. I grew especially apprehensive as things seemed aligned for a more conventional ending-- after all, when a gambler starts investing everything in One Big Chance, there's only two possible outcomes: they win or they lose. That binary restriction seems counter to the freewheeling unpredictability of the film up til then-- scenes like the Froot Loops-addled breakfast, with Gwen Welles retrieving a bowl from atop a china hutch and Paula Prentiss' sister snatching her TV guide from beneath a passed out George Segal, were fascinating because there was no conceivable roadmap through the loose structure imparted. But the film continued to surprise me with its big finish and I, joyfully, realized that I was wrong-- there's more to winning and losing than just winning or losing.

Night Moves (Arthur Penn 1975) Like a lot of the noir redux attempts this decade, I didn't get much out of this-- noir films thrive best under restrictions and the loose freewheeling nature of a lot of American films this decade kills what may have been a better film twenty years on either side.

Sooner or Later (Bruce Hart 1979) They get a bad rap, but honestly, most of the teen-oriented Movie of the Weeks and After School Specials I've seen have outclassed glossier, more "respectable" products that claim to capture youth. This is not a particularly flashy or well-constructed film, but what it does remarkably well is totally pinpoint a specific viewpoint, that of a 13 year old girl, and filter everything through this lens with warmth and easy recognition. The central story of a young girl who falls for a total hunk four years older sounds a lot more squeamish on paper than it is in actuality, but the general sweetness of how the film navigates this premise is part of the charm. Though what I liked most about the film were the moments that seemed to get at a basic truth of that awkward age of straddling the puberty line. The film's greatest moment comes early on, when the main character and her best friend talk about romance and the best friend, in one of the best encapsulations I've ever encountered of how "love" is understood by someone from the outside looking in, talks about how kissing isn't just with the lips, you know-- it can be an arm brushing against a hip, and so on. Even the best of films so rarely get one scene absolutely right. This one does. And hey, the rest is pretty good too! I'm also really glad I Googled this one after I finished watching it, because reading blog posts from women who were the target age/audience when this first aired and have since gone back to revisit it goes a long way towards examining the power these kind of well-conceived entertainments can possess.

[Cold Bishop]

If I'm going with a gambling film this decade, it's probably Karel Reisz's The Gambler. Along with Fingers, it really shows why James Toback burned out so quickly: he really nailed his fundamental pet obsessions with his first two go-rounds. However, the complete opposite of Altman's "frenetic energy".

Night Moves (Arthur Penn 1975)... noir films thrive best under restrictions and the loose freewheeling nature of a lot of American films this decade kills what may have been a better film twenty years on either side.

Another opportunity to recommend the b-movie "neo noir" of Robert Culp's Hickey and Boggs, which certainly doesn't have the time for such diversions.

Also, while it seems you're exploitation days are behind you, I still recommend The Candy Snatchers and Bonnie's Kids, two sleazy, cynical but surprisingly effective sunshine noirs/films soleil. Not the sort of film that will make my list, but definitely captures something of the decade.

[domino harvey]

I actually have the Gambler and Bonnie's Kids in the Unwatched Chasm, I'll see if I can't get 'em moved out. And tsk tsk, my exploitation days are hardly behind me, there's just fifty other "days" competing with it!

[swo17]

The Gambler--where winning and losing is all about losing. It's a very good movie if you can stomach watching James Caan consciously make one bad decision after another.

[domino harvey]

Are you sure you're not thinking of WarGames?

[swo17]

It's been a while since I've seen it, but I don't remember James Caan doing much of anything in WarGames.

[domino harvey]

When Ally Sheedy laments never learning how to swim, Caan pops up from behind the bushes wearing nothing but swim trunks and tosses her some floaties. I can't believe you forgot that part

[swo17]

I'm failing to see the bad decision there.

[domino harvey]

Swimming is for losers