THE MOVIES OF MY LIFE PHASE ONE: Candidates for 1971

Okay, so 1971...

The interesting thing for me is in compiling this list of four candidates brought to my attention that a number of films I absolutely love were made this year--among the ones I saw on the service I’m using to access these films were The Abominable Dr. Phibes (one of my favorite films, period), Get Carter (ditto) Straw Dogs (also ditto), The Beguilded (so, so ditto), The French Connection, A Clockwork Orange and Shaft.  There are a couple of films I’m holding back for my Dread Media Patreon Exclusive Podcast The Horrors of My Life, and one--Wake In Fright--I hope to do a discussion with noted Ozploitation Royalty Brian Trenchard-Smith sometime in the future.  I suspect from here on in that my choices for films I’ve never seen before will be narrower and maybe more esoteric.

1971 is also the source of one of my earlier movie experiences.  My natural father once arrange for the daughters of his boss to take me to a matinee screening of Hercules In New York at the City Line Cinema.  However, said daughters did not show up on time, so the film I ended up seeing at the tender age of seven was The Omega Man.  It kind of scarred me for a while.

I also have memories of pretending to be scared by the phony-ass gorilla in Diamonds Are Forever when my natural father took me to the Oasis Theater in Ridgewood to see it because I was bored and wanted to go home.

Anyway, here are your choices for the year of 1971!

PUNISHMENT PARK

I suspect only the real Film Nerds know the name of Peter Watkins, who was pretty much making found footage films decades before Myrick and Sanchez first came up with the idea of The Blair Witch Project.  And even then, I was unaware of this film until I saw it referenced in, of all things, a role playing supplement.  Like all of Watkins’ work, it’s all about a government gone fascist playing games with its citizens and is apparently mainly improvised.  I’ve only seen Privilege, the most ‘conventional’ of his films (and even that one plays mind games by purporting to be a documentary), and I’m curious to see this one.

 SOMEONE BEHIND THE DOOR

I can’t find a trailer for this one (except for one that seems to be just a portion of an implied rape scene and, as such, ick), so I’m including what seems to be an excerpt from a German special on the making of the movie.  This is one of those films that fell through the cracks of time, which seems odd given that it’s a psychological thriller about Anthony Perkins trying to manipulate an amnesiac Charles Bronson into murdering Jill Ireland.  Yet this is literally minutes before that handful of films that made Bronson into an action movie icon, so I’m not surprised it’s lost in the shadow of The Valachi Papers and The Mechanic and Mr Majestyk and Death Wish.   It seems like an intriguing little film that takes advantage of Bronson’s acting chops--something he ceases to be valued for as the 70‘s reach their end--so color me intrigued.

HANNIE CAULDER

Yes, I will admit that a part of wanting to watch this is because it features Rachel Welch, the kind of sex symbol that I don’t think exists anymore.  Welch defined the 60‘s as much as Marilyn Monroe defined the 50‘s--she was ubiquitous.  But this interests me because it’s one of a couple of westerns Welch made in this period (her family was originally from Boliva--her cousin turned out to be the first female President of that country--and her latina features made her a natural for this genre) where the American western was transforming due to pressures from the Spaghetti Western on one side and the deconsructionist sagas of Peckinpah.  The film seems to be  merging old western tropes with feminist ideas, and it could be interesting to view.

THE SHADOW WHIP

In 1971, a little film called The Big Boss--or, as us Amurricans know it, Fists of Fury--hit our shores, made a star out of a fight choreographer and actor named Bruce Lee, and ushered in a tidal wave of Hong Kong martial arts cinema.  This is one of those martial arts films that came out just before those floodgates opened; all I’ve read on this seems to imply that it wasn’t released here until the ‘00s, and that on DVD.  The film features Pei-Pei Cheng ‘The Queen of Swords,’ who God Bless Her is still working to this day (she is featured in the upcoming live action redo of Mulan because....well, because Disney feels we need ‘live action’ versions of every one of their animated features and we’re gon’ get them, dammit), and it looks real fun.  Supposedly her character does battle with a whole cadre of bandits with her swordplay and, oh yeah, her titular whip.

Yes, you’ll notice I have two candidates where hot women kick some butt.  I like hot women, and I like kicking butt...especially in the martial arts genre, because wu shu kung-fu has the same athletic gracefulness as ballet does.

There’s you candidates.  Head over to my  Twitter Page starting tomorrow and let me know which of these four bad boys you want me to experience for the first time and report on!