Trends and Entertainment

Nine 70s Flicks to Make You Feel Better About the Recession

I tend to romanticize the 70s as an era. I am charmed by the idea of people “finding themselves” while making dramatic, life-changing decisions in pursuit of authenticity. And in our troubled times, there’s something especially cathartic about watching others caught in the vortex of events they can neither understand nor control, but nonetheless work heroically to resolve. As my wise Buddhist friend once said: “falling off the path is the path” — it’s when we’re faced with challenges that we have the opportunity to grow and to discover the boundlessness of our own mettle.

One great thing about the modern age, though — Netflix and YouTube make watching these old flicks easy and affordable.

Shaft (1971)
This prime example of “Blaxploitation” film tells the tale of John Shaft, a badass African-American private detective (the smokin’ hot Richard Roundtree) on assignment to retrieve the kidnapped daughter of a mobster. He sashays through Harlem, infiltrates the mafia, shrugs off a bullet to the shoulder, gets laid and closes the case, all amidst scenic shots of seventies New York City. The impact of racism and poverty and the dignifying effort of the struggles against these conditions reverberate throughout. Can you dig it?

Paper Moon (1973)
The Depression served as the mise en scène for more than a few notable 70s films, including this Peter Bogdanovich classic. Ryan O’Neal plays con man Moses Pray, who gets saddled with a precocious orphan named Addie. Reluctantly, Moses allows Addie to become his partner in crime and their combative bonding results in one of the best buddy movies of all time. Because most films made in the 1930’s ignored the harsh reality of the Depression, Paper Moon, suffused with bittersweet realism, feels especially fresh today.

The film reminds us to trust our hearts to perceive the unknowable.

Dog-Day Afternoon (1975)
On one of the hottest days of the summer, Sonny (Al Pacino) and the hapless Sal (John Cazale) bungle a bank robbery in Flatbush, Brooklyn so that Sonny can finance his lover’s sex-change operation. They quickly learn that the bank’s cash has been picked up for the day minutes before they arrive. Negotiations with the cops ensue and Stockholm Syndrome-y alliances are formed between Sonny, Sal, the bank tellers, et al. Pacino as the flamboyant ne’er-do-well demonstrates that there is a very thin line between criminals and famewhores.

Network (1976)
Howard Beale is an over-the-hill anchor who announces on live television that he intends to kill himself. The network allows him on air one last time to say goodbye, during which Beale delivers a deliciously unhinged rant, exhorting viewers to race to their windows and scream “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” The network gives him his own show, to each night tell “the truth” to America as a “mad prophet.” Paddy Chayefsky penned this wickedly funny satire with prescient understanding of our culture’s endless obsession with celebrity, sensationalism and “reality” TV.

All The President’s Men (1976)
Horror movies reigned supreme in the seventies.  So it’s quite a feat that one of the scariest films of the decade was a story about the White House. This Watergate thriller adapted from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s book, stars Robert Redford (Woodward) and Dustin Hoffman (Bernstein) as young reporters who take on the presidency. Almost every scene is centered on people talking (or listening to someone on the phone) and yet through canny editing, brisk pacing and remarkably nuanced acting the illusion of momentum and tension imbues almost every minute.

Heaven Can Wait (1978)
This remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan stars Warren Beatty (who also co-wrote, co-directed and produced) as Joe Pendleton, a quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams, who dies when an overanxious angel plucks him from his body after what he believes will be a fatal accident. In heaven, the mistake becomes evident after Joe complains to the enigmatic “Mr. Jordan,” who agrees to send Joe back into the body of a murdered millionaire named Leo Farnsworth.  Joe buys the Rams, convinces his old coach (Jack Warden) that he is, in fact, Joe inside of Farnsworth’s body, and that coaching him to be the quarterback will shepherd the team to Super Bowl glory. The film reminds us to trust our hearts to perceive the unknowable.

An Unmarried Woman (1978)
A rich New Yorker and her banker husband are walking down the street having an innocuous conversation about their summer house when her husband blurts out that he is leaving her for a younger woman. Erica marches off, pukes into a City trashcan and lets the rage, hurt and bewilderment begin. This one scene distills for us just how quickly life as we know it can be irrevocably changed. The story follows Erica’s struggle to rebuild her life and find herself; move downtown to pre-gentrified Soho (70s-speak for letting your freak-flag fly), and finally fall in love, again.

Norma Rae (1979)
After she was Gidget and The Flying Nun, Sally Field played Norma Rae, a disaffected cotton mill worker in the South who orchestrates an effort to unionize her factory. Field’s passionate portrayal of a poor, uneducated woman who realizes her potential is as electrifying as it is inspiring. If we could all find our inner-Norma Rae, perhaps we’d be able to figure out the healthcare dilemma, repeal Prop 8 or at the very least, live our lives fully and without compromise.

Manhattan (1979)
I had a friend who for many years was a rabid Woody Allen fan. Then, one day, without warning, she quit him. “I no longer appreciate or relate to his worldview,” she told me. That “worldview” is perhaps most vividly on display in this romantic comedy about a 42-yearold television writer dating a seventeen-year old girl, whom he eventually dumps for his married best friend’s lover. It’s a splendidly self-aware portrait of a group of egocentric New Yorkers, stunted by both their parochialism and reckless immaturity, continually looking outside of self to lay blame for their ennui. Sound familiar?

Nancy Balbirer’s first book, Take Your Shirt Off and Cry: A Memoir of Near-Fame Experiences,  was published by Bloomsbury in April.

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