As the calendar turns to mark the official start of the dog days of summer, it is once again time for that annual Mid Century Cinema ritual: unveiling our Top 10 films—from fifty years ago. 1972 was another outstanding year for the movies, and in crafting this inescapably idiosyncratic and infinitely contestable list, regarding omissions, we are well aware that half a dozen celebrated New Hollywood films that we’re extremely fond of didn’t make this cut—and they sit eagerly on a deep bench alongside a handful of legendary gems from overseas as well. Nevertheless (and always with due respect for the Wally and Andre rules), in alphabetical order, the best films of 1972:
The Candidate Michael Ritchie’s film (written by former Gene McCarthy speechwriter Jeremy Larner) remains evergreen: a young, idealistic political novice is reluctantly drawn into the arena, and slowly overtaken by the compromises necessary to sustain a viable candidacy that just might have a chance. Robert Redford headlines a strong cast that includes Peter Boyle, Allen Garfield, and Melvyn Douglas. Shot in an assured, naturalistic style by Victor J. Kemper, the movie elbows its way onto our top ten with a little boost from the fact that in 1972 Ritchie also helmed the very fine Prime Cut (with Gene Hackman, Sissy Spacek, and Mr. Lee Marvin), and because its killer seventies ending takes The Candidate to another level.
Cisco Pike This relative obscurity, and something of a one-off for its writer-director Bill Norton, flirts with greatness. It might have been one of the decade’s revered films if not for the fact that it unravels at the end, as if after an outstanding set-up and still strong but somewhat unfocused second half, the picture realized it had nowhere to go (despite the uncredited efforts of legendary script doctor Robert Towne, whose contributions surely strengthened the film). But Cisco Pike is quite special along the way, with outstanding performances from Kris Kristofferson (effortlessly carrying the lead in his feature film debut), as well as seventies legends Karen Black and Gene Hackman, supported by a party of favorites that includes Harry Dean Stanton and Roscoe Lee Browne.
Days of 36 Theo Angelopoulos, who David Thomson persuasively situates among the greatest filmmakers of all time, is admittedly something of an acquired taste. Days of 36, his second feature, offers an appealing introduction to this often demanding master. It clocks in at a trim-for-him 105 minutes, and it also has a clearly identifiable plot, which we will let Mr. A summarize himself: “It is based, more or less, on real facts. A convict used a gun to take hostage a right wing Member of Parliament who visited his cell. Later it turned out the two knew each other for a long time, though the nature of their relations was less than clear.”
Fat City We’ll be brief here, having just written about this one. In sum, following a string of less-than-inspired features, sixty-six year old studio system legend John Huston surfaced with this where-did-that-come-from New Hollywood stunner, which heralded an innovative late career surge Huston would ride for the next fifteen years. Fat City, an against-every-convention boxing picture with Stacy Keach and Jeff Bridges, will make you feel guilty about how much you enjoyed Rocky.
Un Flic Jean Pierre Melville’s final feature is not one of his best—but mid-tier Melville is better than most filmmakers’ best. If not one of Melville’s half-dozen stunning masterpieces, it is nevertheless a great movie that we are lucky to have, and is time capsule worthy for its bravura opening alone: an eleven-minute bank robbery sequence unsurpassed in cinema. But there is much more than that, as what follows that edge-of-your seat sequence is a suspenseful drama with well-drawn characters, cops so ruthless they bring to mind the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil,” and a absorbing love triangle that entangles Alain Delon, Catherine Deveuve, and Richard Crenna.
The Godfather Another classic recently revisited here at Mid Century Cinema; once again we need not repeat ourselves. Still, do note the opening line, “I believe in America,” and heed the admonition that this is an essentially conservative and in many ways a deeply dishonest entertainment. And then don’t let any of that distract you from the sheer brilliance of this effort from director Francis Ford Coppola, Cinematographer Gordon Willis, and pitch-perfect performances by Marlin Brando, Al Pacino and more than a dozen other players.
Hickey & Boggs The only feature film directed by Robert Culp, Hickey & Boggs is a moody private eye film well in accord with the great, fatalistic neo-noirs of the seventies. Written by Walter Hill and shot by Bill Butler, Culp’s thoughtful rumination on the genre reunited the director with Bill Cosby, his partner from the landmark TV show I Spy, from whom he elicited an uncharacteristically dark and moody performance. With both subtlety and daring (for 1972) Culp shades his character with a melancholy sexual ambiguity which adds to the sense of resignation that shrouds this under-appreciated film, throughout which its protagonists understand, all too plainly, that “it’s not about anything.”
Last Tango in Paris We’re not going to go the full Kael here, but her entire, legendary review – “I’ve tried to describe the impact of a film that has made the strongest impression on me in almost twenty years of reviewing. This is a movie people will be arguing about, I think, for as long as there are movies” – is essential reading. In recent years Tango has become caught up in controversy about aspects of its production; Stephanie Zacharek engages these issues (and debunks some lazy tropes) with extraordinary shrewdness and sensitivity. Enduringly, as cinema, Bernardo Bertolucci’s film records that moment when Brando “took it to eleven”—for the last time. “I decided that I wasn’t ever again going to destroy myself emotionally to make a movie,” the actor wrote in his memoir. “I felt I had violated my innermost self and didn’t want to suffer like that anymore.” Brando would withdraw from the screen for four years, and when he resurfaced, to our regret, he “stopped trying to experience the emotions of my characters as I had always done before,” and instead approached his craft “in a technical way.”
The King of Marvin Gardens If we were going to rank order our preferences, Bob Rafelson’s masterpiece would be our choice for the best film of 1972. But we would never do that, so let’s just note that this stunner, shot by Laszlo Kovacs, boasts the greatest screen performances of both Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern, along with a marvelous Ellen Burstyn (who goes toe to toe with each). More ambitious and more mature (if less user-friendly) than its precursor, the landmark Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens reflected more than any other film, what the New Hollywood aspired to achieve.
Tout Va Bien Newly politicized and artistically ambitious, Jane Fonda pointedly followed her astonishing reinvention in Klute with this collaboration with Jean-Luc Godard and Jean Pierre Gorin. Both Fonda and co-star Yves Montand deferred their salaries to make the production possible—an inventively shot if politically simplistic fable (capitalism, man) about a once renowned New Wave Filmmaker now reduced to making commercials. The fictional auteur and his journalist spouse are inadvertently caught up in a to-the barricades strike at a sausage factory, which allows Tout Va Bien to take swipes both at The Man, and, implicitly, Godard’s more commercially oriented former fellows. More sophisticated and enduring, however, is the film’s extended confrontation between husband and wife, as she reassesses their relationship though the lens of the then-emerging feminist movement. To our eyes this remains the best Godard film of the last fifty years.
