1969
In 1969, Hollywood was in the midst of great change. Film was no longer THE popular entertainment--TV was. To fight this, Hollywood had had major hits in Biblical spectacles and huge musicals, but was now going broke trying to imitate former successes. Meanwhile, the censorship of the Production Code had finally been shaken off and Hollywood was free to pursue adult themes that foreign films had taken for granted for years. In fact, 1969 features the first and only X-rated film, Midnight Cowboy, the win the Best Picture Oscar. A new era of openness and depth of character was beginning--and would last less than a decade before the blockbuster mentality once again took over.
Into this scene Jesse Walker rides, with his top ten for 1969. I agreed with him quite a bit on his picks for 1979 and 1989, but the smooth sailing may end here.
He doesn't include Midnight Cowboy. I don't know if it would make my top ten, but, while dated, it features some pretty powerful performances.
His top pick is The Wild Bunch. I generally find Peckinpah overpraised, and this is the most overrated of his films.
Next is Le Boucher, which I haven't gotten around to seeing. Same for #3, The Passion Of Anna (which is a bit odd since I've seen most of his Bergman's stuff.)
Fourth is The Honeymoon Killers, a cult film I've never gotten into.
Fifth, also never seen, Goyokin.
Sixth, The Milky Way, is one of my favorite Bunuel films, and would certainly make my list. In his later years, no one was able to mix the surreal with the super-real better.
Seventh is Take the Money And Run, the first real Woody Allen film. Just about every film of his up to Annie Hall would make my top ten list.
Eighth is Easy Rider, a surprise hit that started a youth movement in film that almost bankrupted Hollywood.
It features a few interesting moments and one fine performance, but is horribly dated--though I don't understand how anyone could ever have put up with its incoherence.
It features a few interesting moments and one fine performance, but is horribly dated--though I don't understand how anyone could ever have put up with its incoherence.Army of Shadows, #9, is a fine film, though I think it's a bit overrated since it wasn't available for so many years.
Burn! I've heard a lot about, but never seen.
Interestingly, it would seem Jesse doesn't have a single conventional Hollywood film (as I'd describe it) on the list.
His honorable mentions:
11. Z (Constantin Costa-Gavras)
12. La Femme Infidèle (Claude Chabrol)
13. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill)
14. The Sun's Gonna Shine (Les Blank, Skip Gerson)
15. My Night at Maud's (Eric Rohmer)
16. That Cold Day in the Park (Robert Altman)
17. Invocation of My Demon Brother (Kenneth Anger)
18. The Adding Machine (Jerome Epstein)
19. The Cow (Dariush Mehrjui)
20. Bambi Meets Godzilla (Marv Newland)
Haven't seen 12, 14, 17, 18 or 19. (Quite a year for Chabrol.) I haven't seen all of 16, so I can't really comment on it.
Z is a pretty good thriller. Butch Cassidy was a monster hit. I like it but don't love it. My Night At Maud's would make by top ten. Bambi Meets Godzilla is an epochal event, but I don't include shorts in my lists.
Here are some other films of that year that would have had a shot at my top ten:
Alice's Restaurant, Goodbye, Columbus, The Bed-Sitting Room (an odd film even for Richard Lester), They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, The Sorrow And The Pity, The Italian Job (a good caper film with amazing stunt driving)
Some of these films have the unmistakable feeling of the 60s. There were a number of other films released that year, good and bad, that also capture that feeling, including:
Cream's Farewell Concert, The Magic Christian, Medium Cool, The Guru, John and Mary, Bob & Carol & Ted & 
Alice, Downhill Racer, Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?
Alice, Downhill Racer, Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?
Here are some films not necessarily good, but at least possessing of qualities that make them worth checking out:
Hello, Dolly! (one of those white elephants that almost sunk Hollywood, but actually isn't bad--received quite a boost from WALL-E), Popi, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Rain People, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, Return Of The One-Armed Swordsman, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, The Comic, Sweet Charity (mostly dull, but captures some amazing Fosse choreography), Support Your Local Sheriff!
Here are some other films from 1969 that were highly regarded by some at the time:
Anne of the Thousand Days, Cactus Flower, Marooned, Oh! What a Lovely War, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, Putney Swope, The Reivers, Satyricon, The Sterile Cuckoo, Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, True Grit, Winning, Women in Love
posted by LAGuy @ 12:06 AM
5 Comments:
Hmm. Does Take the Money and Run count as a conventional Hollywood movie? It certainly fits snugly in the Hollywood comedy tradition. I've heard that Allen approached Jerry Lewis to direct it before deciding to do it himself.
Butch Cassidy is a conventional Hollywood film, but I guess you were just referring to the top 10.
Anyway. You've got a point. As far as my taste is concerned, at least, it just wasn't a good era for conventional Hollywood movies. Hello, Dolly is a good example: Walter Matthau is good in it, and of course I like Louis Armstrong, but otherwise it's just a big bloated turd to me. (Barbra Streisand is particularly annoying in it. I may be the one person out there who wishes she would spend more time making airheaded political statements, because at least it keeps her from singing and acting.)
I haven't seen the pictures in your shot-at-the-top-ten list except for Alice's Restaurant, which I ought to watch again. I watched it a couple decades ago, and while I thought it was OK it didn't make much of an impression on me at the time. Still, enough people I respect are big fans of it that I should give it another chance.
Lucky for us, there are a fair number of films by great clowns at the height of their powers, but I've never considered The General or City Lights or Duck Soup to be conventional Hollywood movies. Clowns are a group apart.
Alice's Restaurant is no classic, but it's interesting to see what Arthur Penn decided to do after Bonnie And Clyde. We end up with a sweet film that captures the hippie experience (as far as I can tell) with more authenticity than any other film of the era. I admit I can only see the film through the eyes of nostalgia since by the time I caught it the era it represents had long passed.
Interesting post.
I find it particularly telling that the Best Picture pick for 1969 doesn't even make his (or your) Top 10.
Nor mine.
I saw "MIDNIGHT COWBOY" decades after its initial run, when it was re-released in theaters. Interesting sociologically, I guess, but not a very memorable movie to me.
Same thing with "THE WILD BUNCH". I saw it decades later in the Cinerama Dome. You say "overpraised", I say "concur".
We disagree about "BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID", which I consider to be one of the best westerns ever made, and probably my favorite movie from that year...
...even though I saw "TRUE GRIT" twice, possibly just to hear one of my favorite lines from that year, delivered by Robert Duvall to John Wayne, just before they "joust":
"I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man."
Oh, well - now we get "SPIDERMAN 4", "PIRATES 4", and "X-MEN 4".
Farewell, 1969.
Todd
There was a horrible film called "1969" that came out in 1988. It was meant to be nostalgic, but now more time has passed since that movie than had passed between it and the title year. Maybe we should look back in fondness on 1988, the year "1969" came out.
By the way, the best film of 1969 was the moon shot.
Butch Cassidy is a fun movie. It, Z, and La Femme Infidele were in close competition for the #10 spot on my list. What eliminated it from the running was that ridiculous "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" sequence. Say what you will about modern Hollywood, at least it no longer thinks it wise to halt the action in the middle of a movie for that kind of montage.
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