Entertainment
6 Greatest Forgotten ’70s Cult Classic Movies
Not every movie enjoys the success it deserves. Plenty of films failed when they were first released, either with critics, at the box office, or both, but have gone on to find success as cult films. These are movies that are adored, usually by a small but devoted group of fans. In the age of the internet and now social media, it’s become far easier for these fandoms to maintain their support of these films in a more public fashion, but there are cult classics that still feel far too forgotten, many from the ’70s.
The decade of oil crises, political corruption, and economic instability produced a great many classics which are still loved in this current era of…oil crises, political corruption and economic instability. More now than ever, many audiences can relate to the pessimistic viewpoint that permeated much of ’70s cinema, but there’s even more that the decade had to offer in movies. Cult classics abound from the ’70s, and these are six of the best that should never be forgotten.
6
‘Brewster McCloud’ (1970)
Idiosyncratic filmmaker Robert Altman’s output in the decade was wild and varied, from masterpieces like Nashville, The Long Goodbye, and McCabe & Mrs. Miller to underrated gems like California Split and 3 Women to debacles like Quintet and Buffalo Bill and the Indians. Altman never stayed stagnant in one genre, and was always making interesting left turns in his career, none more so than the black comedy Brewster McCloud. As his follow-up to M*A*S*H, the film is a strange contemporary fable featuring the enigmatic Bud Cort as a man who dreams of wings.
In Houston, Texas, Brewster McCloud (Cort) lives in a fallout shelter beneath the Astrodome, where he bides his time building a pair of wings that will allow him to fly like the birds he idolizes. His only human contacts are two women, the mysterious Louise (Sally Kellerman), who has distinctive scars on her back, and tour guide Suzanne (Shelley Duvall). There’s so much more freewheeling madness to the film, and we haven’t even mentioned the murders that occur and the hard-boiled detective who believes Brewster might be the cause. There aren’t many films like Brewster McCloud, and fewer still made by filmmakers like Altman, who can maintain a balance in the quirky film that prevents it from folding in on its own affectations.
5
‘Freebie and the Bean’ (1974)
There was plenty of action in the ’70s, with the international success of martial arts films and the rise of exploitation filmmakers. It’s the era that gave us cult classics like Vanishing Point, Coffy, and The Gauntlet, and the essential buddy cop movie Freebie and the Bean. Akira Kurosawa’s Stray Dog and the thriller In the Heat of the Night helped establish the mismatched detective archetypes, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid inspired the comedic banter that would define the buddy action subgenre, but Richard Rush’s Freebie and the Bean is the first true American buddy cop action comedy.
Rush’s film establishes the exact tone between its San Francisco cops Freebie (James Caan) and Bean (Alan Arkin) that would define ’80s movies like 48 Hrs. and Lethal Weapon. The two detectives trade barbs as well as bullets as they strive to protect a crime boss from getting killed before they can arrest him. Their antics practically destroy the entire city, and it’s not hard to see why many critics chided the film for its blasé approach to police violence. It would inspire queasiness if it weren’t amped to such high levels of ridiculousness and if Caan and Arkin didn’t have such scalding chemistry. Freebie and the Bean is to the buddy cop movie what Halloween is to slashers, and it deserves more recognition.
4
‘Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia’ (1974)
Westerns were still a viable genre in the ’70s. They weren’t being produced nearly as prolifically as they were during the genre’s golden age, but riding the wave of success that Spaghetti Westerns started, many filmmakers were able to put their own revisionist stamp on the genre, and no filmmaker made more cult films for it than Sam Peckinpah. The iconic director started the decade with the comedic Western gem The Ballad of Cable Hogue, brought the genre’s sensibilities to the contemporary thrillers Straw Dogs and The Getaway as well as the gentler drama Junior Bonner. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid would be his final official statement on the genre, but he’d make an even bolder one with the Neo-Western cult classic Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.
The film follows consummate loser Bennie (Warren Oates), a former soldier turned alcohol-swilling piano player in Mexico who takes on the task of tracking down the titular character who has had a massive bounty put on his head by a crime lord. Shot entirely in Mexico on a low budget, the film is Peckinpah at his most unfiltered, since he was free from the interference of studios. The result is a wild, violent ride that critics hated at the time and bombed at the box office. Since then, it’s rightfully earned recognition, not only as Peckinpah’s most nihilistic film, but also as a clear influence on filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a dirty, nasty little Western thriller that belongs on a double bill with No Country for Old Men.
3
‘The Cars That Ate Paris’ (1974)
The Ozploitation movement came about during the Australian New Wave, where international attention came to films and filmmakers from the land down under thanks to a resurgence of their film economy. This era of Australian filmmaking would stretch through the ’80s and bring audiences cult classics like the Mad Max franchise, the harrowing thriller Wake in Fright, the Jaws-inspired horror film Razorback, and the feature debut of Peter Weir with the outlandish The Cars That Ate Paris. It’s a strange mix of vehicular horror and macabre humor that would propel Weir to future success in Australia and eventually Hollywood, and it remains one of the most iconic Ozploitation movies.
The rural town of Paris has an interesting economy, based on profits earned by causing car wrecks of traveling motorists and stealing their valuables. The wrecked vehicles have also inspired a strange subculture of hoons who turn them into mechanical monstrosities meant for violence and destruction. It’s into this chaos that Arthur (Terry Camilleri) drives with his brother, who is killed in their accident, leaving Arthur to fend for himself in the unstable town. The Cars That Ate Paris is the most unique of all the automotive movies that came out of the car culture of the ’70s, and it’s still a perfect microcosm of the era in Australian cinema that made it possible.
2
‘The Driver’ (1978)
A very different kind of car movie, Walter Hill’s minimalist masterpiece The Driver is a crime classic whose influence is apparent in the careers of filmmakers like Michael Mann and Edgar Wright. Its reappraisal has been slow, and it still hasn’t risen to the cult ranks of Hill’s follow-up The Warriors, but it’s an even better film and among the best cult ’70s crime thrillers, of which there are many. Before digging into Hill’s classic, some honorable mentions should go to The Outfit, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Blue Collar, and The Harder They Come.
The Driver (Ryan O’Neal) is a criminal who’s made a career as a getaway driver, much to the chagrin of the hard-nosed Detective (Bruce Dern), who will stop at nothing to bring him down. It all leads to a high-stakes game set up by the Detective in the form of a heist that leaves plenty of bodies in its wake. The film has some incredibly kinetic car chases, shot at night in Los Angeles with Hill’s distinctive stripped-down efficiency. Hill is one of the most influential action directors of his era, and while he’s often overlooked, his films like The Driver continue to have an immense influence.
1
‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ (1978)
Despite becoming one of the biggest Hollywood directors of the ’80s and ’90s, Robert Zemeckis’ career started inauspiciously. He and his early collaborator Bob Gale were mentored by Steven Spielberg straight out of film school, but their first three collaborations with the filmmaker flopped. They wrote the notorious comedic bomb 1941 for Spielberg, and the filmmaker produced their first two films, I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Used Cars, both of which failed and now have cult followings but are still overshadowed by Zemeckis’ later blockbuster successes. As his directorial debut, I Wanna Hold Your Hand is an incredibly assured comedy that showcases much of what would define Zemeckis’ greatest successes in the ’80s. It’s a madcap movie that charmingly recreates the era of Beatlemania.
Named after the Fab Four’s hit song, the film is structured around the Beatles’ first live appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. Trying to get to that show are a group of teens, including super fan Rosie (Wendy Jo Spurber), soon-to-be newlywed Pam (Nancy Allen), aspiring photojournalist Grace (Theresa Saldana), and rebellious Janis (Susan Kendall Newman). Their odyssey to the Ed Sullivan Theater is filled with slapstick, hijinks and hysterics, all of which Zemeckis balances with the same heartfelt tone that made Back to the Future such a similarly nostalgic success. I Wanna Hold Your Hand has all the hallmarks of Zemeckis’ later career and deserves to be mentioned among his best films.
I Wanna Hold Your Hand
- Release Date
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April 1, 1978
- Runtime
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99 minutes
- Director
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Robert Zemeckis
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