Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 28, 1994 TAG: 9405300009
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Mike Mayo
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
And with ``Dark Victory,'' ``Gone With the Wind,'' ``Goodbye Mr. Chips,'' ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,'' ``Ninotchka,'' ``Stagecoach,'' ``The Wizard of Oz'' and ``Wuthering Heights'' to its credit, who can argue? Still, there have been other excellent vintages. Twenty years ago, for example, 1974 was none too shabby.
Of course, some of the films made that year were atrocious, and most of them were no more than mediocre, but there were seven - maybe eight or nine - that people will remember as long as they watch movies. Consider:
Mel Brooks moved from a successful television career to the big screen with two of his finest comedies. First he scandalized everyone with ``Blazing Saddles,'' a full-frontal assault on the cherished myths of the Western. The movie may never live down its most notorious moment, the campfire scene, but it paved the way for today's slapdash ``Naked Gun'' and ``Hot Shots'' parodies. Later that year, Brooks shifted gears with a completely different kind of comedy, ``Young Frankenstein.'' At the time, it was no less radical - Brooks filmed in black and white when no one else was - and has endured as one of the most popular comedies on videotape.
Director Richard Lester and writer George MacDonald Fraser took a similar light-hearted approach to a familiar genre in their version of ``The Three Musketeers.'' The combination of a stellar cast - Michael York, Raquel Welch, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, Charlton Heston, Faye Dunaway - with well-staged action and slapstick was inspired.
Writer Robert Towne and director Roman Polanski took another standard cinematic standard, the ``tough'' detective story, and turned it into a masterpiece with ``Chinatown.'' In the current issue of Premier magazine, Peter Biskind details the legendary disagreements and full-fledged fights that went on during the film's production. It's a fascinating story but, for anyone who loves the film, reading it is a little like watching sausage being made. There's a lot you really don't want to know.
But a third or fourth viewing of the film will show just how well it stands up. There's not a single false move among the performances; the maddeningly complex story actually makes sense; and the horrifying ending, which no studio would allow today, is absolutely perfect.
1974 was also the year that director Federico Fellini's warmest and most accessible film arrived in this country. ``Amarcord'' means ``I remember,'' and that's the note that the maestro strikes in this richly nostalgic memoir. Like so much of his work, it's autobiographical; an episodic story about growing up in a little Italian coastal town in 1934. Nino Rota's score, always so important to Fellini's movies, is one of his best. Some images - the pastoral opening of milkweed floating on the breeze, the peacock in the snow, Uncle Teo in the tree, the ocean liner that looms up in the fog - are perhaps the most beautiful and striking Fellini ever put on film.
(Unfortunately, of the films on this list, neither ``Amarcord'' nor ``The Three Musketeers'' is available on videodisc. That is a real shame.)
Francis Ford Coppola was at the top of his form in 1974. He won Oscars for director, screenplay and picture with ``The Godfather Part II,'' the only sequel that actually improves and adds to an excellent original. Actually, it's wrong to think of the two films as separate entities. Together they tell a complete story of reflected lives in a father and son (and are available as such on video as ``The Godfather: The Complete Epic, 1902-1958''). But ``Part II'' stands on its own as a brilliant piece of work.
That same year, Coppola was actually in competition with himself for Academy Awards. He also released his ``little'' picture, ``The Conversation.'' It's a suspense film about a surveillance expert (Gene Hackman) who becomes caught up in the complexities, both moral and technical, of his profession. He brought together a superb cast, many of whom had worked with him on the ``Godfather'' films. In this one, though, they were working with more carefully drawn characters on a more human scale. It's territory that Coppola hasn't often visited, but he seems completely comfortable.
``The Conversation'' will never be as popular with a large audience as Coppola's more colorful works. It's still worth another look, and for Coppola fans who might have missed it, required viewing.
Those seven are my own choices. Other lists might include Nicholas Roeg's ``Don't Look Now,'' ``The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,'' ``Monty Python and the Holy Grail,'' ``Lenny,'' ``The Longest Yard'' or ``Sugarland Express.'' In any case, 1974 was a very good year.
Next week: Fairy tales and spooky stuff!
New release this week:
Short Cuts: *** 1/2
Starring Andie MacDowell, Bruce Davison, Julianne Moore, Mathew Modine, Anne Archer, Fred Ward, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Chris Penn, Lily Taylor, Robert Downey Jr., Madeleine Stowe, Tim Robbins, Lily Tomlin, Tom Waits, Frances McDormand, Peter Gallagher, Annie Ross, Lori Singer, Jack Lemmon, Lyle Lovett, Buck Henry, Huey Lewis. Written and directed by Robert Altman. Columbia Tristar/New Line. 189 min. Rated R for strong language, brief nudity, sexual content, some violence.
This is vintage Robert Altman, his most complex and ambitious film since ``Nashville.'' It's a dense, multilayered examination of 20 or so characters without a stereotype in the bunch. Like ``Nashville,'' the film tells several stories about Los Angelenos that occasionally overlap. They're funny, horrifying, sad and ironic, but never boring. Brilliant.
Blazing Saddles ***
Warner. 90 min. Rated R for subject matter, rough humor.
Young Frankenstein *** 1/2
FoxVideo. 108 min. Rated PG for subject matter.
The Three Musketeers *** 1/2
Columbia Tristar. 105 min. Rated PG for comic violence.
Chinatown ****
Paramount. 131 min. Rated R for subject matter, violence, sexual content, brief nudity.
Amarcord ****
Applause Productions. 124 min. Rated R for subject matter, strong language.
The Godfather Part II ****
Paramount. 200 min. Rated R for violence, strong language, subject matter.
The Conversation ****
Paramount. 113 min. Rated PG for subject matter.
by CNB