Lionpower!
April 26, 2014 11:27 PM   Subscribe

In 1967, you needed the best filmed entertainment humanity could produce, it was important.
posted by vrakatar (23 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
It’s like a crib sheet for the Simpsons.

“The compelling personal drama of the papal ascendancy.”
posted by migurski at 12:19 AM on April 27, 2014 [2 favorites]


In his uptight world, there are two kinds of people: his victims and his women. And sometimes you can't tell them apart. Angie Dickinson and Lee Marvin star in the misogynistic punchfest of the season.
posted by pracowity at 12:48 AM on April 27, 2014 [2 favorites]


So, I got about halfway into Spring but I'd never heard of a single one of these movies. Was '67–8 an infamous year of flops for MGM?
posted by Jon_Evil at 1:24 AM on April 27, 2014


"Why aren't they killing each other?"
"Yeah, their guns are right there."
"Wait, wait, wait: here comes Lee Marvin. Thank God. He's always drunk and violent."

Sorry, but I gave up after Lee Marvin. Ok, I gave up right at "biting comedy at its best."
posted by sysinfo at 1:35 AM on April 27, 2014


Was '67–8 an infamous year of flops for MGM?

The late sixties were kind of infamous for all of the studios. The studio system that had worked so well for so many decades was played out. Hollywood could not figure out how to make movies that people wanted to go see. Then you had some big controversial works like Bonnie and Clyde and the films of Peckinpah make a big splash, which helped lead to the auteur-driven film renaissance of the 70s.

People often talk about how good so many of the films of the 70s were: this was when Coppola, Lucas, Scorsese and so many others really bloomed. But except for some particular exceptions (like Kubrick for instance) the films of the 70s stand out not only because of how good they are, but also because of how much crap came in the decade before them.
posted by nushustu at 2:05 AM on April 27, 2014 [2 favorites]


So many forgettable movies... but, there WAS 2001, that was sort of OK, eh?
posted by HuronBob at 3:00 AM on April 27, 2014


Point Blank is a true classic
posted by fallingbadgers at 3:17 AM on April 27, 2014 [2 favorites]


Adding my recommendation for Point Blank. Awesome film.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:31 AM on April 27, 2014


This is fantastic for its bravado. MGM is so bold and strong that it can shove FIVE seasons into a single year!

And Lee Marvin as the paperboy! He wants his money, with interest! (Yes, I realize it's 18 years before Better Off Dead, but it's the future, we can retcon anything we want to!)

And is it me, or were they implying that funk is violent music? Dudes get beat up, and the funk plays on!
posted by filthy light thief at 5:33 AM on April 27, 2014 [1 favorite]


People in the sixties sure did slap a lot.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 5:34 AM on April 27, 2014


It’s pretty fascinating that you can kind of see Old Hollywood dying and New Hollywood being born here.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 6:23 AM on April 27, 2014 [4 favorites]


I have yet to see "Dark of the Sun", but I've wanted to ever since I stumbled across these posters a couple of years ago. I mean, c'mon, who wouldn't want to see it after that?
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:12 AM on April 27, 2014 [4 favorites]


the films of the 70s stand out not only because of how good they are, but also because of how much crap came in the decade before them.

I'm not sure that thesis holds up. Yeah, there were lots of crap, forgettable films in the 1960s; but there were in the '70s, 80's, 90's etc. too.

Here are some of the lousy, awful, uninfluential films released in 1967:
The Graduate
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner
Bonnie and Clyde
The Dirty Dozen
In the Heat of the Night
Cool Hand Luke
In Cold Blood
Don't Look Back

Here are some of the lousy, awful, uninfluential films released in 1968:
2001
Funny Girl
Bullitt
Rosemary's Baby
Planet of the Apes
Night of the Living Dead
The Lion in Winter
The Boston Strangler
Yellow Submarine

And here's 1969:
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Midnight Cowboy
Easy Rider
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
True Grit
They Shoot Horses Don't They
The Wild Bunch
Alice's Restaurant
Once Upon A Time in the West
posted by yoink at 7:17 AM on April 27, 2014 [2 favorites]


The era of "'70s films" isn't quite contiguous with the actual decade of the '70s. Bonnie and Clyde is usually seen as the starting point even though it was from '67.
posted by octothorpe at 7:57 AM on April 27, 2014 [3 favorites]


"Easy Riders and Raging Bulls" is a great book to explore this collapse of the old system and the emergence of the new wave with Spielberg, Coppola, Scorsese and so on.

My favorite anecdote was about Dennis Hopper doing a small role on a John Wayne picture and how Wayne had designated him as the cast's hippie representative. When Wayne heard about his daughter attending a rally where Eldridge Cleaver was speaking profanity, he stormed onto the set yelling for Hopper to come out and face him. The crew hid Hopper until Wayne calmed down.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:09 AM on April 27, 2014 [1 favorite]


The era of "'70s films" isn't quite contiguous with the actual decade of the '70s. Bonnie and Clyde is usually seen as the starting point even though it was from '67.

Which is o.k., unless you're specifically making an argument that the films of the late-60s sucked and that's why the films of the 70s look good by comparison. You can't then defend the argument by saying "oh, well all the non-sucky films of the late 60s are actually 70s films."
posted by yoink at 8:23 AM on April 27, 2014 [2 favorites]


They show this reel every so often on TCM. It's a nice break from the 12000th showing of Doctor Zhivago, Sunday in New York, or, these days, Field of Dreams.
posted by blucevalo at 9:11 AM on April 27, 2014


The Comedians is a little rickety in parts but holds up well, I would say, as a soufflé of the politics of post-colonialism. It's one of those films that tells a story about a country with black people in it using three white people as the main characters, so of course there's that lens.

Was '67–8 an infamous year of flops for MGM?

The entire sixties was a rocky period for this once-dominant studio. Beginning with Ben-Hur, they used a model based on producing one expensive epic a year (tentpole), but they began the decade with several tentpole flops in a row, and began to be circled by corporate raiders mainly intent on profiting from the studio's large library of films, including Edgar Bronfman and later Kirk Kerkorian -- who also wanted the backlot for real estate development purposes. So this was not exactly glory days for MGM, no. The 1970s would see the backlot sold, the name attached to Kerkorian's Vegas casino property, and a forced merger with United Artists. At this point one of the only viable properties controlled by the studio was the 007 franchise, and after multiple retrenchments and repurchases of controlling interest by Kerkorian, the whole shebang would fall into the hands of European swindler Giancarlo Paretti, whose fraud and double-dealing provided a back door into the Credit Lyonnais scandal in which that French bank nearly went bankrupt. Today (after another couple of decades of drama) the studio went through bankruptcy itself and bears little resemblance to its historic roots.

In any case it would be fair to say that MGM had already started its downhill path. Nevertheless a number of the titles in this omnibus trailer have stars who were popular enough at the time but just don't have much of a following today. Certainly films like Where Eagles Dare (now on Blu-Ray, FYI), Ice Station Zebra, and Far From the Madding Crowd are still known and beloved. All in all I think it's a normal enough ratio of remembered films.
posted by dhartung at 9:57 AM on April 27, 2014 [4 favorites]


I saw the very first MGM movie this week, He Who Gets Slapped, and it starts with the lion logo but Leo doesn't roar, he just sort of looks around and bobs his head a bit.
posted by octothorpe at 6:32 PM on April 27, 2014 [1 favorite]


Respectfully, my opinion on cinema in the 70's is at variance with your premise. I'm quite happy that filmmakers make use of a more full color pallet and better audio technology than seemed to be in vogue at the time.
posted by evilDoug at 7:22 PM on April 27, 2014


Yoink, you're right. Let me amend what I said earlier: the 60s were bad for old-Hollywood, not the late 60s. Because again, you're right: 1967 is sort of when the "70s"-era auteur-driven filmmaking got started in earnest.
posted by nushustu at 2:38 AM on April 28, 2014


Did someone mention Lee Marvin?
posted by valkane at 7:20 AM on April 28, 2014


I have yet to see "Dark of the Sun", but I've wanted to ever since I stumbled across these posters a couple of years ago. I mean, c'mon, who wouldn't want to see it after that?

I've seen it. It's not boring. It's pretty gruesome. It's a crude view of Colonialism. A big YMMV.
posted by ovvl at 7:42 PM on May 8, 2014


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