Great movies turning 50 this year
The year 1971 delivered some memorable movies. The musical Fiddler on the Roof topped the North American box-office and romantic-drama The Go-Between picked up the Palme D’Or.
After a look at the many amazing films turning this 50 year, Stuff to Watch has compiled this list of great tales.
A Clockwork Orange
(iTunes/ YouTube) Banned in several countries, this adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novel still has the power to shock. Malcolm McDowell plays Alex DeLarge, the leader of a gang of droogs whose ‘‘ultraviolent’’ crime sprees lead to his arrest and imprisonment. Two years into his sentence, he agrees to experimental ‘‘aversion therapy’’. You’ll never listen to
Singin’ in the Rain or Rossini’s
William Tell Overture in quite the same way again.
Dirty Harry
(Netflix)
Much of the conceit for Don Siegel’s crime thriller was drawn from the real-life ‘‘Zodiac killer’’ case. Clint Eastwood’s Inspector Harry Callahan is charged with stopping the seemingly psychopathic sniper ‘‘Scorpio’’. While praised for its sense of space and place, Callahan’s ‘‘character’’ came under fire when feminists proclaimed ‘‘Dirty Harry is a rotten pig’’.
The French Connection (Disney+)
This crime-thriller is celebrated as much for its car chases through the streets of New York as its compelling storyline, as a pair of that city’s cops stumble onto a drugsmuggling operation with ties to a certain country in Europe.
Harold and Maude (iTunes/YouTube)
Hal Ashby’s dark coming-ofage dramedy has become a cult hit. Bud Cort is the deathobsessed Harold Chasen, who strikes up an unlikely friendship with septuagenarian Nazi concentration camp-survivor Maude (Ruth Gordon). Cited by Kiwi director Niki Caro as one of her favourite films, it features an evocative soundtrack by Cat Stevens.
Klute (iTunes/YouTube) Jane Fonda won the Oscar for best actress in this thriller. She plays Bree Daniels, a New York prostitute who finds herself reluctantly assisting Donald Sutherland’s private investigator John Klute in solving the strange disappearance of chemical company executive Tom Gruneman.
The Last Picture Show
(iTunes) Before Lonesome Dove, Brokeback Mountain and Terms of Endearment, the late, lamented Larry McMurtry was most famous for helping Peter Bogdanovich to adapt his semiautobiographical 1966 novel about two high-school friends struggling to stay hopeful in a bleak Texas town. The ensemble included Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Timothy Bottoms,
Ellen Burstyn and Cloris Leachman.
Shaft (Netflix)
Known as much for its soundtrack (including Isaac Hayes’ Oscar-winning title song) as its mix of sometimes graphic violence and effortless swagger, this is a classic of the ‘‘Blaxploitation’’ genre. Richard Roundtree is private eye John Shaft, hired by a crime lord to locate and return his kidnapped daughter.
Walkabout
(Amazon Prime Video) With The Railway Children, this movie helped make Jenny Agutter a star. She’s one of two siblings stranded in the alien and challenging Australian Outback. Nicolas Roeg’s film was also the first feature for legendary Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil, who, at the time, spoke no English.