"You talking to me?" THE 70s COUNTDOWN IS DONE!

[cannastop]

#21

The Sting (1973)

70 points, 2 top 2, 2 top 4

Won 7 Oscars, including Best Picture

Quote

Hill decided that the film would be reminiscent of movies from the 1930s and watched films from that decade for inspiration. While studying '30s gangster films, Hill noticed that most of them rarely had extras. "For instance," said Hill as quoted in Andrew Horton's 1984 book The Films of George Roy Hill, "no extras would be used in street scenes in those films: Jimmy Cagney would be shot down and die in an empty street. So I deliberately avoided using extras."[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sting

[cannastop]

#20

The Exorcist (1973)

72 points, 17 lists, 2 top 5, 1 top 10.

AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – #3

Quote

Despite its mixed reviews and the controversies over its content and viewer reaction, The Exorcist was a runaway hit. In New York City, where its initial run was limited to a few theaters, patrons endured cold as severe as 6 °F (−14 °C), sometimes with rain and sleet,[48] waiting for hours in long lines during what is normally a slow time of year for the movies to buy tickets, many not for the first time. The crowds gathered outside theaters sometimes rioted, and police were called in to quell disturbances in not only New York but Kansas City.[61]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exorcist_(film)

[cannastop]

#19

Young Frankenstein (1974)

78 points, 13 lists, 2 top 5, 4 top 10

 AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Laughs – #13

Quote

In a 2010 interview with Los Angeles Times, Mel Brooks discussed how the film came about:[19]

Quote

I was in the middle of shooting the last few weeks of Blazing Saddles somewhere in the Antelope Valley, and Gene Wilder and I were having a cup of coffee and he said, I have this idea that there could be another Frankenstein. I said, "Not another! We've had the son of, the cousin of, the brother-in-law. We don't need another Frankenstein." His idea was very simple: What if the grandson of Dr. Frankenstein wanted nothing to do with the family whatsoever. He was ashamed of those wackos. I said, "That's funny."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Frankenstein

[cannastop]

#18

All the President's Men (1976)

84 points, 17 lists, 2 top 5, 4 top 10

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies: 10th Anniversary Edition– #77

Quote

Hoffman and Redford visited the Post offices for months, sitting in on news conferences and conducting research for their roles.[6] As the Post denied the production permission to shoot in its newsroom, set designers took measurements of the newspaper's offices, and photographed everything. Boxes of trash were gathered and transported to sets recreating the newsroom on two soundstages in Hollywood's Burbank Studios at a cost of $200,000. The filmmakers went to great lengths for accuracy and authenticity, including making replicas of outdated phone books.[6] Nearly 200 desks at $500 apiece were purchased from the same firm that sold desks to the Post in 1971. The desks were painted the same color as those of the newsroom. The production was supplied with a brick from the main lobby of the Post so that it could be duplicated in fiberglass for the set. Principal photography began on May 12, 1975, in Washington, D.C.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_President's_Men_(film)

[cannastop]

#17

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

96 points, 19 lists, 1 top 5, 5 top 10

2012 Sight & Sound: 4 critics, 11 directors

Quote

Hal Ashby, who had been an early consideration for director, suggested Jack Nicholson for the role of McMurphy. Nicholson had never played this type of role before. Production was delayed for about six months because of Nicholson's schedule. Douglas later stated in an interview that "that turned out to be a great blessing: it gave us the chance to get the ensemble right".[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo's_Nest_(film)

[cannastop]

#16

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

99 points, 18 lists, 1 #1, 1 top 5, 4 top 10

No. 74 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments

Entertainment Weekly ranked it 25th in the "Top 50 Cult Movies" of all time

Quote

The idea for adapting the book into a film came about when director Mel Stuart's ten-year-old daughter read the book and asked her father to make a film out of it, with "Uncle Dave" (producer David L. Wolper who was not related to the Stuarts) producing it. Stuart showed the book to Wolper, who happened to be in the midst of talks with the Quaker Oats Company regarding a vehicle to introduce a new candy bar from its Chicago-based Breaker Confections subsidiary (since renamed the Willy Wonka Candy Company and sold to Nestlé). Wolper persuaded the company, which had no previous experience in the film industry, to buy the rights to the book and finance the picture for the purpose of promoting a new Quaker Oats Wonka Bar.[8]

 

David L. Wolper and Roald Dahl agreed that the film would be a children's musical, and that Dahl himself would write the screenplay.[8] However, Wolper changed the title to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_Wonka_%26_the_Chocolate_Factory

Edited November 11, 2019 by cannastop

[cannastop]

#15

Network (1976)

100 points, 16 lists, 5 top 5, 3 top 10

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – #64

@captainwondyful

Quote

In 1976, Paddy Chayefsky wrote Network as a dark comedy. Today, it's a horror movie. Every multinational corporation looked at it as a road map instead of a warning.  Every thing that was once outrageous and shocking came true.  It's compelling, sophisticated, and just needs to be seen.  I mean, My God:

 

 

[cannastop]

#14
Chinatown (1974)

101 points, 18 lists, 3 top 5, 3 top 10

2012 Sight & Sound: 21 Critics, 7 directors

Quote

According to Robert Towne, Carey McWilliams's Southern California Country: An Island on the Land (1946) and a West magazine article called "Raymond Chandler's L.A." inspired his original screenplay.[20] In a letter to McWilliams, Towne wrote that Southern California Country "really changed my life. It taught me to look at the place where I was born, and convinced me to write about it."[21]

 

Towne wrote the screenplay with Jack Nicholson in mind.[9] He took the title (and the exchange, "What did you do in Chinatown?" / "As little as possible") from a Hungarian vice cop who had worked in Chinatown and explained to the writer that the complicated array of dialects and gangs in Los Angeles's Chinatown made it impossible for the police to know whether their interventions were helping victims or furthering their exploitation.[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown_(1974_film)

[cannastop]

#13

Blazing Saddles (1974)

108 points, 20 lists, 4 top 5, 2 top 10

2000: AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs - #6

Quote

Casting was problematic. Richard Pryor was Brooks' original choice to play Sheriff Bart, but the studio, claiming his history of drug arrests made him uninsurable, refused to approve financing with Pryor as the star.[10] Cleavon Little was cast in the role, and Pryor remained as a writer. Brooks offered the other leading role, the Waco Kid, to John Wayne; he declined, deeming the film "too blue" for his family-oriented image, but assured Brooks that "he would be the first one in line to see it."[12] Gig Young was cast, but he collapsed during his first scene from what was later determined to be alcohol withdrawal syndrome, and Gene Wilder was flown in to replace him.[13][14] Johnny Carson and Wilder both turned down the Hedley Lamarr role before Harvey Korman was cast.[15] Madeline Kahn objected when Brooks asked to see her legs during her audition. "She said, 'So it’s THAT kind of an audition?'" Brooks recalled. "I explained that I was a happily married man and that I needed someone who could straddle a chair with her legs like Marlene Dietrich in Destry Rides Again. So she lifted her skirt and said, 'No touching.'"[16]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blazing_Saddles

Edited October 11, 2019 by cannastop

[cannastop]

#12

Halloween (1978)

112 points, 1 #1, 3 top 5, 5 top 10

#14 on Bravo's The 100 Scariest Movie Moments (2004)

Quote

Lacking a symphonic soundtrack, the film's score consists of a piano melody played in a 10/8 or "complex 5/4" time signature composed and performed by director Carpenter with Carpenter admitting that the music was inspired by both Dario Argento's Suspiria (which also influenced the film's slightly surreal color scheme) and William Friedkin's The Exorcist.[16][61] It took Carpenter three days to compose the entire score for the film. In addition to the film's critical and commercial success, Carpenter's self-composed "Halloween Theme" became recognizable apart from the film.[62] Critic James Berardinelli calls the score "relatively simple and unsophisticated", but admits that "Halloween's music is one of its strongest assets".[63] Carpenter stated in an interview, "I can play just about any keyboard, but I can't read or write a note."[64] In the end credits, Carpenter bills himself as the "Bowling Green Philharmonic Orchestra" for performing the film's score, but he did receive assistance from composer Dan Wyman, a music professor at San José State University.[9][65]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_(1978_film)

[cannastop]

#11

Superman (1978)

112 points, 22 lists, 2 top 5, 5 top 10

94% on Rotten Tomatoes with 67 reviews

Quote

Their script was submitted in July 1976,[13] and carried a camp tone, including a cameo appearance by Telly Savalas as his Kojak character. The scripts for Superman and Superman II were now at over 400 pages combined.[8][22] Pre-production started at Cinecittà Studios in Rome, with sets starting construction and flying tests being unsuccessfully experimented. "In Italy," producer Ilya Salkind remembered, "we lost about $2 million [on flying tests]."[17] Marlon Brando found out he could not film in Italy because of a warrant out for his arrest: a sexual-obscenity charge from Last Tango in Paris. Production moved to England in late 1976, but Hamilton could not join because he was a tax exile.[22]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_(1978_film)

[cannastop]

#10

Taxi Driver (1976)

113 points, 20 lists, 3 top 5, 6 top 10

2012 Sight & Sound: 38 critics, 34 directors

Quote

Taxi Driver was shot during a New York City summer heat wave and sanitation strike in 1975. The film came into conflict with the MPAA for its violence. Scorsese de-saturated the color in the final shoot-out, and the film got an R rating. To achieve the atmospheric scenes in Bickle's taxi, the sound men would get in the trunk and Scorsese and his cinematographer, Michael Chapman, would ensconce themselves on the back seat floor and use available light to shoot. Chapman admitted the filming style was greatly influenced by New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard and his cinematographer Raoul Coutard due to the fact the crew did not have the time nor the money to do "traditional things".[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_Driver

[cannastop]

#9

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

114 points, 21 lists, 3 top 5, 3 top 10

97% on Rotten Tomatoes with 74 reviews

Quote

The film's initial budget of approximately £200,000 was raised by convincing 10 separate investors to contribute £20,000 apiece. Three of those investors were the rock bands Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Genesis, who were persuaded to help fund the film by Tony Stratton-Smith, head of Charisma Records (the record label that released Python's early comedy albums).[11] According to Terry Gilliam, the Pythons turned to rock stars like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Elton John for finance as the studios refused to fund the film and rock stars saw it as "a good tax write-off" due to UK income tax being "as high as 90%" at the time.[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python_and_the_Holy_Grail

[cannastop]

#8

Rocky (1976)

116 points, 21 lists, 1 #1, 3 top 5, 3 top 10

Won 3 Oscars, including Best Picture

Quote

Sylvester Stallone wrote the screenplay for Rocky in three and a half days, shortly after watching the championship match between Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wepner that took place at Richfield Coliseum in Richfield, Ohio on March 24, 1975. Wepner was TKO'd in the 15th round of the match by Ali, with few expecting him to last as long as he did. Despite the fact that the match motivated Stallone to begin work on Rocky,[6] he has subsequently denied that Wepner provided any inspiration for the script.[7][8] Other possible inspirations for the film may have included characteristics of real-life boxers Rocky Marciano and Joe Frazier,[9][10] as well as Rocky Graziano's autobiography Somebody Up There Likes Me and the movie of the same name. Wepner filed a lawsuit which was eventually settled with Stallone for an undisclosed amount.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky

[cannastop]

#7

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

119 points 24 lists, 1 top 5, 5 top 10

95% on Rotten Tomatoes with 59 reviews

Quote

Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond said that, during the time of shooting for the film, Spielberg got more ideas by watching movies every night which in turn extended the production schedule because he was continually adding new scenes to be filmed.[10] Zsigmond previously turned down the chance to work on Jaws. In her 1991 book You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again, producer Julia Phillips wrote highly profane remarks about Spielberg, Zsigmond, and Truffaut, because she was fired during post-production due to a cocaine addiction. Phillips blamed it on Spielberg being a perfectionist.[17]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_Encounters_of_the_Third_Kind

[cannastop]

#6

The Godfather Part II (1974)

120 points, 7 top 5, 2 top 10

2012 Sight & Sound: 38 critics, 14 directors

Quote

The Godfather Part II was shot between October 1, 1973 and June 19, 1974, and was the last major American motion picture to have release prints made with Technicolor's dye imbibition process until the late 1990s. The scenes that took place in Cuba were shot in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.[10] Charles Bluhdorn, whose Gulf+Western conglomerate owned Paramount, felt strongly about developing the Dominican Republic as a movie-making site.

 

Unlike with the first film, Coppola was given near-complete control over production. In his commentary, he said this resulted in a shoot that ran very smoothly despite multiple locations and two narratives running parallel within one film.[11]

 

Production nearly ended before it began when Pacino's lawyers told Coppola that he had grave misgivings with the script and was not coming. Coppola spent an entire night rewriting it before giving it to Pacino for his review. Pacino approved and the production went forward.[11]

 

Coppola discusses his decision to make this the first major motion picture to use "Part II" in its title in the director's commentary on the DVD edition of the film released in 2002. Paramount was initially opposed because they believed the audience would not be interested in an addition to a story they had already seen. But the director prevailed, and the film's success began the common practice of numbered sequels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Godfather_Part_II

[cannastop]

#5

The Godfather (1972)

137 points, 21 lists, 4 #1, 4 top 5, 1 top 10

2012 Sight & Sound: 43 critics, 31 directors

Quote

Evans wanted the picture to be directed by an Italian American to make the film "ethnic to the core".[20][21] Paramount's latest mafia based movie, The Brotherhood, had done very poorly at the box office;[9][22] Evans believed that the reason for its failure was its almost complete lack of cast members or creative personnel of Italian descent (the director Martin Ritt and star Kirk Douglas were both Jewish).[12] Sergio Leone was Paramount's first choice to direct the film.[23][24] Leone turned down the option, in order to work on his own gangster film Once Upon a Time in America.[23][24] Peter Bogdanovich was then approached but he also declined the offer because he was not interested in the mafia.[25][26][27] In addition, Peter Yates, Richard Brooks, Arthur Penn, Costa-Gavras, and Otto Preminger were all offered the position and declined.[28][29] Evans' chief assistant Peter Bart suggested Francis Ford Coppola, as a director of Italian ancestry who would work for a low sum and budget after the poor reception of his latest film The Rain People.[30][20] Coppola initially turned down the job because he found Puzo's novel sleazy and sensationalist, describing it as "pretty cheap stuff".[12][31] At the time Coppola's studio, American Zoetrope, owed over $400,000 to Warner Bros. for budget overruns with the film THX 1138 and when coupled with his poor financial standing, along with advice from friends and family, Coppola reversed his initial decision and took the job.[29][32][33] Coppola was officially announced as director of the film on September 28, 1970.[34] Paramount had offered twelve other directors the job with The Godfather before Coppola agreed.[35] Coppola agreed to receive $125,000 and six percent of the gross rentals.[36][37]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Godfather

[Cap]

Wait.  What?

[Porthos]

The Godfather Part II and I at 6 and 5?  Behind both Jaws and Star Wars?!?

 

I would NOT have predicted that.  Not even with this board's tastes. 

[cannastop]

#4

Apocalypse Now (1979)

140 points, 22 lists, 1 #1, 4 top 5, 5 top 10

2012 Sight & Sound: 53 Critics, 33 Directors

Quote

Coppola and Roos had been impressed by Martin Sheen's screen test for Michael in The Godfather and he became their top choice to play Willard, but the actor had already accepted another project and Harvey Keitel was cast in the role based on his work in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets.[45] Principal photography began three weeks later. Within a few days, Coppola was unhappy with Harvey Keitel's take on Willard, saying that the actor "found it difficult to play him as a passive onlooker".[37] After viewing early footage, the director took a plane back to Los Angeles and replaced Keitel with Martin Sheen. By early 1976, Coppola had persuaded Marlon Brando to play Kurtz for an enormous fee of $3.5 million for a month's work on location in September 1976. Dennis Hopper was cast as a war correspondent and observer of Kurtz; when Coppola heard Hopper talking nonstop on location, he remembered putting "the cameras and the Montagnard shirt on him, and [shooting] the scene where he greets them on the boat".[37] James Caan was the first choice to play Colonel Lucas. Caan wanted too much money for what was considered a minor part in the movie, and Harrison Ford was eventually cast instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_Now