This movie has everything, 3 great top billing actors, outstanding dialogue, adventure on the high seas, and frightening scenes that changed people's behavior. Plus, this is the movie that invented the word "Blockbuster", at least as it applies to movies.
I can't think of a more seminal 70's movie, can you?
Jaws
Godfather
Exorcist
Star Wars eluded me. To this day I never could get through 30 minutes of it
Wow, reading through the replies makes me realize what a great decade the 70s was for cinema. (That's about all, though. I lived through that decade and it really pretty much sucked.)
That said, my personal fav has to be "Dirty Harry." Landmark film. Every cop movie cliche since then comes from this masterpiece.
You're right the 70's had a lot of difficult periods, especially the first half which still had a lot of political turmoil and demonstrations..after 1975 it seemed a lot calmer, a good definition might be "hangover decade from the 60's. I can vividly remember a huge difference by mid 1980, it seemed more modern and commercial but wow, the 70's had great movies, fantastic rock music, Network TV viewers exploded, and late night comedy with Johnny Carson and SNL was at it's zenith. I do have a lot of fond memories of the 70's 80's 90's but not as fond of the 00's, 10's. these first 3 years of the 20's.
shareWhen I think of the 70s, I think of disco, polyester leisure suits, and living rooms with dark wood faux paneling and orange carpeting. Styles were just awful. Besides disco, music was okay. But for every good rock and roll song, there was a "Billy Don't be a Hero" or "Seasons in the Sun." Sixties rock was so much better. (90s was great too.) And I don't know about the later 70s being calmer. Those were the Carter years with 20% mortgage rates, gas lines, and the Iranian hostage crisis.
I graduated high school in 1979 and saw it all firsthand. Bad decade. Just bad. (But great cinema.)
I graduated in 83 so I remember a large part of the 70's(70-72 is a blur). Living in a very small town had it's own charm. Yes the styles and fads were ridiculous..remember the avocado green kitchen stove w/matching dishwasher? Seasons in the Sun did make me suicidal even for a 8 year old kid. How about those endless one hour Christmas specials with John Denver or Doris Day, The Carpenters, or Conrad Twitty? I remember when the Brady Bunch was cancelled, it played with Partridge Family back to back on Friday nights. I still defend 70's rock there was a lot of variety it wasn't just Led Zepplin and Floyd. What's weird is I vividly remember the last night of the 70's. Dec 1979 had been a really cool month I saw Star Trek with my 2 best friends, we had to wait hours because it was packed, we went over to a Waffle House and we got into a small fight, almost ruined the whole night but finally we got in and I fell asleep halfway through the movie. A couple of weeks later I saw The Black Hole, twice because I had to see it with 1 friend at a time. Around Xmas we played endless hours of the Combat tank battle game, space invaders etc..we'd run up to the local Woolco and the nice man that worked there would let us switch out video cartridges for free. Super cold midwest winter, shoveling snow shortly after Xmas, finally New Years Eve came around for some reason I thought the Woolco would be open as it had been open the whole week..It was around 9:00 PM a very cold quarter mile walk and just as I crossed into their huge parking lot I could see the lights were out. I remember standing there for a few seconds, not wanting to go back home. The 70's were over.
shareOh, I remember the avocado color, all right. That was our kitchen. (Why did nobody at the time see how bad everything looked?)
Nice metaphor. The 70s, ending not in a bang but a whimper. I'm not sure the decade deserved much more.
I dunno. I think Deep Throat was pretty seminal.
Broaden your thinking.
And Jaws created the phrase “tentpole event.” Blockbuster Video popularized the word “blockbuster.”
Are we pretending H.O.T.S. wasn't released in the 70s?
shareNot even close.
shareI can watch Grease over and over and over... nothing but good feels... I love Cabaret, too, but that has lots of bad feels...
shareStar Wars, of course!!!
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