Movies from the 1970s

1969 may have had the concert event of the 1960s with Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music. A documentary of the event was release in 1970. Noy only was it the winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary, the film directed by Michael Wadleigh was the 6th favorite movie of the first year of the decade of the 70s. For the 40th anniversary of the concert, there will be a new DVD release of the Director's Cut with more added footage.

The twentieth animated feature in the Disney animation, The Aristocats, was also the fifth favorite film of 1970.

Two war movies make the top 4 with the World War II biography of Patton at Number 4. George C. Scott role of Patton won the Academy Award for Best Actor, an award that he refused to accept.

M*A*S*H by Robert Altman took place in the Korean War, but the film released during the height of the Vietnam War is obviously a protest film against war.

Airport was a best selling novel by Arthur Hailey about an Airport, the Manager trying to keep it open during a snow storm and a suicidal bomber. The movie was second best of the year earning and was one of the first of the big disaster movies that would hit the screens during the early 1970s. It also was the first in a series of Airport movies that followed. It's the best of the bunch and may be considered a classic if the others had not followed. It was the last film scored by Alfred Newman.

Erich Segal's 1970 best-selling novel Love Story was adapted by him for the screen. The tender love story between the wealthy Oliver Barrett IV, played by Ryan O'Neil and the working class girl Jennifer Cavelleri, played by Ali McGraw is considered one of the most romantic movies of all times.

Clint Eastwood returns as Dirty Harry Callahan in Magnum Force. And like all of the Dirty Harry movies there is a catch line or sentiment that appears throughout the film. In this one it was, "A man has to know his limitations".

The story of star-crossed lovers played by Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand is the plot of The Way We Were. The movie was not really what script writer Arthur Laurents thought was a good version of his screenplay. It played more on the romantic elements than the political elements he wrote. Still it was a very popular film at the box office and considered by film goers one of the most romantic films of all time. The film score by Marvin Hamlish and its title song by Hamlish and Alan and Marilyn Bergman swept the Academy Awards music categories.

The memoirs of convicted French Murderer Henri Charrière on his incarceration in a penal colony on French Guiana was the basis of the movie Papillon starring Steve McQueen in the title role. Whether his amazing adventures were Charrière's or based upon stories of other convicts, it still is an amazing story of men and their incarceration in alien prison camps of the early 20th century.

If it had not been for the success of American Graffiti it's possible that George Lucas would never had been able to make Star Wars. Lucas was a little known director, at the time his greatest claim to fame was his friendship with Francis Ford Coppola. Helooked back to his childhood and created one of the best 1960's coming of age story featuring the night life, the cars and the music in the life of pre-1963 teen. This film was one of the Best Picture nominations.

1973 brought back together the team of actors Paul Newman and Robert Redford with Director George Roy Hill, they did the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, to produce the year's Best Picture The Sting. It's the story of a pair of 1930's con men putting 'The Sting' on the Crime Boss played by Robert Shaw. Although Ragtime music was no longer popular during the 1930's, the film's time period when Jazz was the music of the day, Marvin Hamlish used the music of Ragtime composer Scott Joplin. The film won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

The Exorcist based on the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty was not only the most popular movie of 1973, it is one of the most profitable Horror film of all time. The score of the movie included many short pieces of modern (1970's) classical music including the haunting main theme of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells. The film was nominated for ten Academy Award winning two, one for Best Sound and Best Adapted Screenplay. It was one of the losing Best Picture nominations

Peter Sellers returns for the third time in the role of Blake Edwards' blumbling Inspector Clouseau in Return of the Pink Panther. This was the first of the sequels to have Pink Panther in the title since it did have the famous Pink Panther Diamond that was featured in the original.

Dog Day Afternoon was based on an actual bank robbery attempt by John Wojtowicz that occurred in 1972. Al Pacino played the role that may have been preordained for him since a Life magazine description of Wojtowicz read "a dark, thin fellow with the broken-faced good looks of an Al Pacino or Dustin Hoffman". The film was nominated for 6 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actor for Pacino. Its only win was for Writing-Original Screenplay.

Only your hairdresser knows for sure and Warren Beatty starred as a hairdresser in the satirical comedy Shampoo. Tobe honest I don't think I have ever seen this movie even though it was one of the top movies of 1975.

Many who have seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show a strange little musical about a "sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania". The movie is based on the stage musical by Richard O'Brien who played Riff-Raff. Sometimes movies such as this could be a death nail for its actors, but Tim Curry, Barry Boswick and Susan Sarandon careers weren't affected.

Ken Kesy wrote his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1963, but it wasn't made into a movie until 1975 with Jack Nicholson playing the role of Randle Patrick McMurphy , a criminal that has been transferred to a mental institution . This movie won all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor in Lead Role, Actress in Lead Role, Director, Screenplay) a feat that has only happen three times the first in 1934 with It Happened One Night and again in 1991, with The Silence of the Lambs.

One of the biggest novels of 1974 became the biggest movie of 1975. Jaws was just a word until Steven Spielberg's movie was released in June of 1975. Now whenever the word jaws is mention everyone thinks the shark, one that was rarely seen in the movie and the haunting theme by John Williams. Jaws is considered the first of the blockbuster summer movies and was the first film to make more than 100 million dollars at the box office.

John Denver expanded his career of being a popular singer/songwriter with Oh, God!. This was his first starring role, but it was his co-star the 80 year old George Burns, playing God, that stole the show.

The Goodbye Girl released in November of 1977 was written by Neil Simon. During the 1960s and 1970s, Simon was a popular writer of Broadway comedies and many of these were adapted by him for film. This movie was one of his original screen production. Richard Dreyfuss was great in his role of a struggling actor and won the Oscar for Best Picture.

A couple films of 1977 really do show the feel of what the 1970s were like. One of those films is Smokey and the Bandit with Burt Reynolds as the Bandit and Jackie Gleason as Sheriff Buford T. Juctice, the Smokey. This movie pushed Reynolds to stardom, recreated Sally Fields and showed that the Guitar Man, Jerry Reed, was also a comic.

Disco was the music of the late 1970s and Saturday Night Fever shows some of the the good and the bad of the Disco Era. Listening to its soundtrack, you hear many of the best songs. From even before the film's release until the middle of 1978, the songs from Saturday Night Fever populated the popular music charts.

Richard Dreyfuss appeared in two of the most popular movies of 1977, in roles that were complete opposites. In Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind he played an electrical lineman who experiences a close encounter with a UFO and becomes obsessed with them. The out of this world music was composed by John Williams.

Star Wars by many is a movie that changed the industry. The music that blended well, in fact at times enhanced and defined the action was also composed by John Williams. Until the 2008 release of The Dark Knight, Star Wars would remain as either the Number 1 or Number 2 grossing film in the US.

The Jerk took Steve Martin from a stand-up comic and comedy writer to a movie star. And the role rags-to-riches-to-rags that Martin played fit him perfectly. Not surprisingly when considering that he also was one if the writers of the movie.

10 was the brainchild of Blake Edwards and starred a little known Dudley Moore and less known Bo Derek. Afterward both were stars and the number 10 had a new meaning.

The Muppet Movie came after Jim Henson's Muppets had become famous. First on Sesame Street and then through their half hour syndicated TV show. This was the first of the Muppet Movie series and also one of their best.

Apocalypse Now although a troubled film during its production. During the film Marlon Brando arrived on set much overweight and martin Sheen suffered a heart attack. But it still turned out to be one of the best movies to be made about Viet-Nam and was the third highest grossing film of the year.

More than 10 years after the original TV series ended and a new series was in production, but never filmed, it was decided to make the movie Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Everyone flocked to see the film during its first week of release and after attendance dropped. Fans of the show didn't like it, probably because it was more serious than the series. As the movie series goes it falls somewhere near the high middle of the series.

Kramer vs. Kramer did something that has not been done very often. It not only was the highest grossing film of the year it also won the Oscar for Best Picture. Both of the Kramers won Oscars that year as well. Dustin Hoffman won best Actor and Meryl Streep was Best Supporting Actress.