In 1975:
Stevie Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac;
Wheel of Fortune and Saturday Night Live debuted;
Space Mountain opened at the Magic Kingdom;
Margaret Thatcher became the leader of the Conservative Party;
Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft;
The Vietnam War ended with the Fall of Saigon;
Cape Verde, Comoros, São Tomé and Príncipe, Angola, and East Timor became independent countries;
Jimmy Hoffa was reported missing;
The Louisiana Superdome opened;
Patty Hearst was arrested for her involvement with the Symbionese Liberation Army;
Danica McKeller, Bradley Cooper, Sara Gilbert, Big Boi, Natalie Imbruglia, Drew Barrymore, Chelsea Handler, Eva Longoria, will.i.am, Fergie, Zach Braff, Tiki Barber, Johnny Galecki, David Beckham, Enrique Iglesias, Ray Lewis, Andre 3000, Daniel Tosh, Russel Brand, Angelina Jolie, 50 Cent, Jack White, Judy Greer, Alex Rodriguez, Charlize Theron, Michael Bublé, Jimmie Johnson, Jason Sudekis, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Tara Reid, David Ortiz, Dierks Bientley, and Tiger Woods were born,
While P.G. Wodehouse, George Stevens, Susan Hayward, Aristotle Onassis, Fredric March, Ozzie Nelson, Rod Serling, Casey Stengel, and Francisco Franco died.
The following is a list of my ten favorite films released in 1975:
This filmed production of a one-man show starring James Whitmore as the 33rd President of the United States is a great insight into the mind and character of one of the seminal figures of the twentieth century.
In addition to the first three letters of their surnames, Truman shares quite a bit with the 45th President. Both possess a folksy charisma. Both are blunt and mildly profane. Both are combative and extremely confident. However, Truman seems more self-aware, engaged, and cognizant of ideological and historical moorings.
In an idealized world, this is what I want my president to be like. Truman wasn’t concerned with saying the correct thing to win the approval of cultural gatekeepers, but he was interested in doing the right thing, guided by a strong, historically rooted sense of justice. Trump got the first part, but so far has failed to tether his non-politico identity to anything but brand building and publicity stunts.
Arthur Goldman (Maxmilian Schell), a wealth Jewish industrialist and survivor of a Nazi death camp, spends his days in a luxurious Manhattan apartment bantering with his assistant Charlie. He’s an eccentric raconteur who enjoys shocking people with his unconventional views.
Things take a dramatic turn when Israeli officials arrest Goldman with evidence he falsified his identity and is not Arthur Goldman, but is, in fact, Dorf, a Nazi commander wanted for war crimes.
His Israeli trial becomes a long series of philosophical conversations between himself, the attorneys, the judge, and the witnesses. During the trial, he presents evidence indicating he arranged for Israeli spies to think he had faked his identity and really is Arthur Goldman after all. The whole incident was a piece of performance art designed to confront conventional attitudes about evil.
This film is great because Schell sinks himself into the role and his performance as the delusional Goldman is breathtaking.
8) Tommy
Nora (Ann-Margaret) gives birth to Tommy while her husband, Capt. Walker is fighting in World War I. Time passes and Nora, assuming her husband is dead, remarries. When Captain Walker returns and discovers them in bed, her new husband attacks and kills the Captain. Tommy witnesses the incident and goes into shock, causing everyone to believe he’s deaf, dumb, and blind.
A desperate Nora tries several unconventional cures for her son’s condition, including a religious cult led by a mysterious Preacher (Eric Clapton), and the Acid Queen (Tina Turner) who gives Tommy a dose of LSD.
After Tommy discovers he has a gift for pinball, he defeats the Pinball Wizard (Elton John) and achieves worldwide fame.
Despite the family’s success, Nora is unfulfilled and sees a psychiatrist (Jack Nicholson) who realizes Tommy’s condition is likely psychosomatic. Using this information, Nora finally releases her son from his near catatonic state. Once revived, Tommy proclaims a new religion inspired by pinball, which, predictably, ends poorly.
The cameo appearances from rock legends Turner, Clapton, and John are a blast, the music from The Who is transcendent, and band members Roger Daltrey (as Tommy) and Keith Moon (as Uncle Ernie) give surprisingly credible performances.
Ken Russell did a masterful job channeling the frenetic energy of this rock opera into a ruthless satirize of fame, religion, material success, drug culture, and even the power of rock and roll. In many places it’s high camp, but the pathos of Nora and Tommy’s relationship and Tommy’s struggle to come to terms with his father’s death resonate.
In the early 19th century, Russian pacifist Boris Grushenko (Woody Allen) woos his cousin Sonja (Diane Keaton). Unfortunately, he’s pressed into military service and eventually executed for his involvement in a failed attempt to assassinate Napoleon.
Allen skillfully uses over the top melodrama to create a parody of 19th century Russian novels and existentialism.
This film, a transition from the slapstick films of Allen’s early period to the serious tragi-comedies of his most fertile period, is one of the most intelligent comedies ever written.
6) Barry Lyndon
Redmond Barry (Ryan O’Neal) had an unfortunate childhood. His father was killed in a duel when he was young, and his attractive cousin tricked him to avoid marriage. A listless solider, he steals an officer’s uniform and deserts after his captain is wounded at the Battle of Minden, but Prussian Captain Potzford convinces him to join the Prussian army.
Post-war, he thinks his luck has turned when he marries a wealthy widow, the Countess of Lyndon (Marisa Berenson), but in the second half of the film, his destitute mother moves in with him, his young son dies in a horse riding accident, and Lady Lyndon’s son from her first marriage, Lord Bullingdon, convinces him to leave in exchange for a paltry five hundred guinea annuity.
The likable rogue Barry Lyndon reminds me of Tom Jones, except in Fielding’s novel, divine providence unwinds the intricate plot in the protagonist’s favor, while this film, inspired by a Thackeray novel is filled with a pervading sense of doom; it’s Tom Jones without God’s grace.
Using cameras designed for the lunar landings, cinematographer John Alcott avoided electric light and shot several scenes by candlelight. The effect transports us to a different era in a way typical costume dramas don’t. This beautiful film doesn’t romanticize the past, but illuminates it on its own terms.
5) Great
This short animated film, Britain’s version of Schoolhouse Rock!, humorously explores the fascinating life of 19th century engineer Islambard Kingdom Brunel who epitomized the Industrial Revolution and helped bring Britain into the modern world.
The first British animated film to win an Academy Award more than deserved the honor.
4) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
This beloved parody of the King Arthur myth is routinely cited as one of the greatest comedies of all time.
Even people who’ve never seen the film are familiar with the numerous catchphrases it inspired, including: “Bring out your dead,” “The Knights Who Say Ni,” and “It’s only a flesh wound.”
Heavily influenced by philosophy and the work of absurdists like Sam Beckett, the Pythons discarded conventional comedic techniques and leaned heavily on surrealism, elevating comedy beyond the craft of structuring a good joke into an art form.
3) Jaws
During the height of the summer tourist season, a great white shark terrorizes Amity Island. As the death toll climbs, local police chief, Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), and local professional shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) sail into the ocean to confront and kill the beast.
The first half of the film is pure Hitchcockian suspense (partially necessitated by the infamous failure of the film’s mechanical sharks), but the last half is a claustrophobic character study, closer in tone to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The drunken scene with the three men singing and recounting stories of previous shark encounters, including Quint’s survival of the wreckage of the USS Indianapolis, is one of the most riveting in cinema history.
2) Night Moves
Retired football player turned private investigator Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) takes a case searching for a missing teenager, Delly Grastner (a very young Melanie Griffith), which leads to a tangled web of deception and subterfuge involving the smuggling of priceless art and a trust fund.
Eventually, nearly everyone involved in the various sordid affairs and shady dealings is murdered or maimed, including Delly.
James Woods is great, and Hackman is fantastic in this fatalistic neo noir whose unrelenting nihilism reflects the pervasive mood of post-Watergate America in the mid 1970s.
1) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
After prisoner Randle McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) arranges a transfer to a mental institution in an attempt to avoid hard labor, he challenges the ward’s sadistic nurse Mildred Ratched (Louise Fletcher) at every turn, and befriends “Chief” Bromden, a Native American who pretends to be deaf and dumb. After Ratched forces him to undergo electroconvulsive therapy, McMurphy plans his escape.
He throws a farewell party, but falls asleep before he can leave. The next morning, a vengeful Ratched bullies one of the patients into suicide. Enraged, McMurphy attacks her before he’s hauled away by security.
When McMurphy returns to the ward several days later, Chief notices scars on his forehead indicating he was lobotomized and smothers him before breaking out of the ward himself.
Jack Nicholson’s coming out party is firmly entrenched in the American pantheon. Every time I watch, I’m pleasantly surprised to see Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd as patients at the mental institution and blown away Louise Fletcher didn’t make a career playing a cold-hearted bitch.
While Ken Kesey’s novel makes it clear, the film obscures the reason for McMurphy’s prison sentence: statutory rape of a 15-year-old. As a result, the film is a much more palatable indictment of contemporary mental health treatment.
Amazingly, Milos Forman is a two-time Academy Award winner for Best Director, yet most Americans have never heard his name.