Favourite Films of 1972
Monday is about movies. (And sometimes TV). Here we go with another Top 5 from a particular year. We are up to 1972. It’s going to be a long ride…
I started something recently here when I listed my favourite films of 1971. I decided, from time to time, I’d drop a Top 5 list, year by year, through cinema, from 1971-2023. So, it’s going to take a while…but here’s the second instalment.
I love 1972 in cinema. I love it retrospectively of course. I wasn’t born yet. I arrived at films from 1972 in the 1990s – and particularly the 00s. In some cases, including one or two on my list below, I’ve watched them only recently. But it’s the year where things really get transgressive. For a start, Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left. A wonderful horror nasty. Then there’s porn hitting the mainstream theatres with Deep Throat, but the film that really left its, erm, mark on me (and is on this list) is John Waters’ Pink Flamingos. There’s also the Pam Grier-starring prison/exploitation flick, The Big Doll House, The Rolling Stones’ debauched tour-doco, Cocksucker Blues, animated porn-silliness Fritz The Cat, a bunch of horror and martial arts flicks, and, well, that’s just on the grimy and murky side. I’ve seen all the films I’ve just mentioned there, but there’s so many more, from Woody Allen ‘sex’ comedies to classic chase action films, westerns, and some great comedies. There’s also two films that are by no stretch of the imagination ‘great’ but contain two of the greatest soundtracks of all time (Superfly and The Harder They Fall). And one of the better concert films ever (George Harrison’s all-star Concert For Bangladesh). And, yeah, some little indie flick you might not have heard about called The Godfather. Look, I’m not even putting it on my Top 5 list. Which is crazy, right? Let’s square this up immediately: I love The Godfather. Love the trilogy. But it’s on everyone’s list. So, I’m just not including it here on mine. You can leave it on yours. No shame. But I want to highlight a few other films, some obvious still, but some less so. Okay? Here we go…
In no particular order, here is my list for 1972. (See here for 1971)
I was blown away to find, only in recent years, that the extraordinarily average Ben Stiller film from 2007 called The Heartbreak Kid (which felt like a desperate attempt to recapture the magic if not reframe the essence of There’s Something About Mary) was in fact a remake of a cult/legendary 1972 dark comedy. So I had to see this original, also because I’d never quite understood the fuss about Charles Grodin. I mean, I remember him playing ‘straight’ against Martin Short in Clifford, I remember him popping up all over, but I never got the fuss about Midnight Run (him and DeNiro) and I just didn’t really have a purchase on him, beyond a few archival clips of him being a great talk show guest. Anyway, he’s absolutely dynamite here, a wonderful portrait of self-loathing, self-absorption, and bitterness. The Heartbreak Kid is really funny, and also tragic; its ending is one of the best a comedy has ever offered. I fell in love with this film as soon as I saw it, almost in its opening moments.
The Pope of Trash, John Waters, is one of my gods. I love him so. I love everything about him – his books, his CD compilations, his art experiments that stretch across so many mediums, his spoken-word shows (and a highlight of my life was getting to interview him). It didn’t start for me – here. I think my first John Waters film was probably Crybaby, or Hairspray. But it starts for him here in terms of reputation-building. This tiny little silly film was reviewed terribly, and Waters made a career out of it. He created a Midnight Movie classic that played for a generation in theatres after dark, and let the freaks fly their flags. When I finally caught up with it – in the early 00s – I was shocked. And it was a tough watch. And yet I was immediately compelled to rewind and watch again. You can almost smell it through the screen. The grime. The absurdity. It’s outlandish, and wonderfully so. And it’s filled with the most depraved scenes, and ridiculous catchphrases. And it remains a true test of just what a cinema-goer can stomach. The entire film is a question of taste – so beautifully tested again in its final scene.
If John Waters is one of my gods, then the same is true for Werner Herzog. I’m there for his acting, his interviews, his filmmaking masterclass, his books, and of course all of his feature films, shorts, docos, TV episodes, the works. It’s such a canon. And I’m still deep in the barrel. So much so, that I only got to Aguirre, one of his early definers, earlier this year, or last year perhaps. It is the first of a handful of films that were fist-fought collaborations between Herzog and Klaus Kinski. Both offer extraordinary work here in a fever-dream that is deeply impressionistic and utterly beautiful to watch – a kind of pre-Apocalypse Now, if filmed in the Amazon. Extraordinary. And Popol Vuh’s soundtrack is yet another sublime element.
Okay, so I won’t pick The Godfather, but I will include the other OBVIOUS 1972 film. Deliverance is an action-film with a twist. We all know the twist. Even if we haven’t seen it. It has become a short-hand for any backwoods environment, and was even a joke, back in the day, about driving over the Rimutakas – but gentrification clipped that ticket, thank you very much. And saw to that, eh. Deliverance is a film I first saw in the 1990s, and one I’m still thinking about. I’m about to (finally) read the novel it’s based on, and so another rewatch is imminent. It becomes one of the first examples I can think of where the horror happens in daylight. And of course, it’s as linked to the death of the hippie dream as Neil Young’s On The Beach album, or the fever-fog sadness that sat in Brian Wilson’s eyes for a decade or more.
I like early Scorsese the best, and in his very early films he created strong portraits of – and for – women. Something he could never be accused of now. My favourite Scorsese film is Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and sure, I love Taxi Driver and Mean Streets (a little bit), and The King of Comedy and even his Cape Fearremake, but Boxcar Bertha really knocked me out. And if I had only remembered Charles Grodin from Clifford until seeing Heartbreak, then it is also fair to say that Boxcar Bertha saved Barbara Hershey from just being in Beaches (in my mind at least).
Okay, here’s a few notable mentions:
One-Armed Boxer
The 1967 One-Armed Swordsman is one of my favourite martial arts films, so I’m there for these tag-along not-quite-sequels featuring the same actor strapping the same arm behind his back to perform stunts to abrasive foley work. Yes. Yes!
Five Fingers of Death
Speaking of classic martial arts, and the Shaw Brothers (One-Armed Swordsman) this film was called Kick Boxer – but renamed for the American market. I love this film. One of the best.
Play It Again, Sam
Written by, and starring Woody Allen, but not directed by him. Maybe that’s why I really like this one, over the now-so-silly Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask. The film is based on Allen’s 1969 play of the same name, and it’s smart, and funny, and weirdly charming. Not the things you say about the man or his work now. I know that. But we’re talking about 1972. And back then he was very nearly the talk of the town – and for only the right reasons.
The Getaway
Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw in a getaway film directed by Sam Peckinpah, from a script by Walter Hill, based on a novel by Jim Thompson, with music by Quincy Jones? It’s not really a question, but my answers are yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And a final yes please!
Last Tango in Paris
Big year for Brando! He was back in a big way here, and with The Godfather. I don’t love this film anywhere as much as anything out on this list. But I’d never seen anything like it when I took it home from the video store where I worked, briefly, in the 1990s. I’d heard about it, but nothing quite prepared me for the horndog-porn-iness of it. To this day I absolutely adore Gato Barbieri’s wonderful, wafting score. And several key frames from this film are seared into my brain. It’s problematic, it’s woefully scripted in some ways, it’s nasty-minded, and one-sided, but it’s a film that had an enormous impact.
So. There you go. That’s my list for 1972. See anything you’ve also seen? See anything you agree or disagree with? See anything there that you now want to see again, or haven’t ever seen and now feel you must? What would be on your list of films from 1972? What have I missed (beyond The Godfather)?
What a year, what a list. The 70’s was a golden decade for Hollywood