THE MOVIE OF MY LIFE PHASE ONE: Candidates for 1975

Welcome to 1975, The Year of The Divorce.  I’m still on 76th Street in Woodhaven, still walking some eight blocks to go to school--and shipped off to my natural father in Richmond Hill every Sunday for church services, Boston cream pie and scrambled egg sandwiches. A lot of this year is a Big Ol’ Blur to me.  I do know that I’m still hanging with my next door neighbors...and I may have started hanging out with Joe, who was A Bad Influence and stole my Neal Adams X-Men.

Anyway, your candidates are:

LISZTOMANIA

As you may have gathered from my rather...vigorous defense of the great Philippe Mora, I do have a taste for, let’s say, flamboyant directors.  And no one is more flamboyant that Ken Russell, who directed two films in 1975 starring Roger Daltrey of The Who; the other was Tommy.  Like Tommy, this is a musical with Rick Wakeman (who pops up as Thor.  Yes, the God of Thunder) providing updated arrangement for the works used and Daltrey providing lyrics.  Because I didn’t know there was something as Gloriously Daft as a Ken Russell film when I was 11, I didn’t see it.  I would like to correct that now.

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES’ SMARTER BROTHER

I may have stated elsewhere how impressed I was by Gene Wilder as an actor; I always contended that his Willy Wonka is a downright terrifying figure, and I regret that he rarely got a chance to do non-comedic work.  He also directed five movies, of which this is the first.  Not surprisingly, Wilder relied on a lot of his peers in the Mel Brooks Company--this is one of two candidates this poll that feature Madeline ‘The Funniest Woman Who Ever Walked This Earth And I Will Fight You If You Disagree’ Kahn.  It also features a bevy of amazing English character actors of the time; hell, we’ve got Leo McKern of The Prisoner and Rumpole of The Bailey as Professor Moriarty and Roy Kinnear as his henchman!  I want to see this for obvious reasons.

AT LONG LAST LOVE

I couldn’t find a trailer, but here’s a ‘highlight reel’ of the musical numbers.

This is a Notoriously Bad Jukebox Musical.  If you want to learn more about it, I highly recommend checking out Diva’s dissection of it on Musical Hell.  As you may have gathered, I’m something of a fan of the stunning and infinitely talented Madeline Kahn, and I have admitted in the past to crushing fiercely on Cybill Shepherd.  I am an admirer of Eileen Brennan, Burt Reynolds and M. Emmitt Walsh.  I like John Bogdonavich as a director, even though he’s a little problematic. I’ve stated before, I love musicals.   I just need to know where this all went so Horribly, Horribly Wrong.  And I am willing to suffer to find out.

BOSS...*AHEM*

Yeah...

I love Fred Williamson, who pretty much is a sub-genre all his own self.  He usually starred, directed, wrote or had a hand in producing these over-the-top blaxploitation films and did it with a true style.  Unfortunately, there are some of his films that are titled in such a way that it would be problematic for a white essayist like myself to cite them out loud--no matter how much I want to sing along to its kick-ass funk theme song.  I could refer to it as it was referred to in some markets, The Boss, but I feel that will be disrespectful to Williamson and his intent.  Let’s just say it’s a word that is....divisive.

Anyway, this is a blaxploitation western with Fred Williamson, a man who made it clear that he had to  always win and always get the girl in his contract, and directed by 50‘s sci-fi legend Jack Arnold (If you don’t know the name, you probably know his work, which includes The Incredible Shrinking Man, Creature From The Black Lagoon, High School Confidential and many, many more).  I would like to see this film, unfortunate title and all.

There you go.  You have until next Friday to vote at my Twitter Page, and I ask that you retweet the Poll after you vote.

This will be the last Poll until June, because I am devoting May to The 31 Characters 31 Days Challenge.  Click on the link to learn a little more, or watch this space for more information.

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