1972 in film.

Top ten box-office films of 1972:

1. The Godfather
2. The Poseidon Adventure
3. What's Up, Doc?
4. Deliverance
5. Jeremiah Johnson
6. Cabaret
7. Deep Throat
8. The Getaway
9. Lady Sings the Blues
10. Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex

What are your top three films for 1972? We will keep a running tally and eventually have some sort of bracket. For me it would be:

1. The Godfather
2. Solaris
3. Aguirre, The Wrath of God

What are some of the forgotten gems from the year? What is overrated? What did you discover at a young age and what did you discover later?

YEARS IN FILM • forum.chorus.fm

 

Deep Throat as the seventh biggest box office film of the year????

 

1. Solaris
2. The Godfather
3. Last Tango in Paris

1 and 2 were easy, 3 I think was always going to be Last Tango for me. The troubling aspects of the making of the film are well known, and the fact that Bertolucci and Brando violated Maria Schneider’s boundaries in a film where a woman feels violated by her filmmaker boyfriend is horrible. Along with The Shining, one of the worst examples of filmmakers going too far with an actor to get the desired performance. The film itself is still powerful to me, though, I last rewatched it a few years ago and I find it incredibly moving. For Brando, possibly the most influential actor to ever appear onscreen, it’s a pretty interesting psychoanalysis via cinema.

The Candidate, What’s Up Doc, and The Getaway are fun ones from the year that I enjoy quite a bit.

 

I’ve seen The Godfather, Pink Flamingos, and Deliverance from this year.

 

1. The Godfather
2. Cries and Whispers
3. Solaris

The Godfather is a pretty obscure little indie film. Quite good, would recommend it.

Cries and Whispers is Bergman's intense, emotional and painful film. I always think of him as a black and white director, but this film has enough red to make Almodóvar blush. Not exactly a fun time, but full of incredible performances from Bergman regulars.

Solaris is Tarkovsky using the form of science fiction to explore grief and loss, full of atmosphere and melancholy. I first watched this with my dad when I was 14/15 or so, and our DVD got stuck playing both the dubbed and subtitled versions, which often contradicted each other, which added to the surreal experience.

For something lighter and more fun this year, there's two Female Prisoner 701 films released within the year (Scorpion & Jailhouse 41), that are fantastic angry and stylish films, featuring the iconic Meiko Kaji.

Also very good is Aguirre, Deliverance, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick. The latter gets an extra half mark for being one of the very few good films involving football - which almost never translates well on screen.

 

1. The Godfather
2. Sleuth
3. What's Up, Doc?

Movies I really Like:
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Fat City
The Cowboys
Sounder
Butterflies Are Free
Frenzy
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise

Good ones:
Deliverance
Cabaret
The Getaway
Lady Sings the Blues
Travels with My Aunt
The Heartbreak Kid
Pete 'n' Tillie

Solid/Fine:
The Poseidon Adventure
SuperFly
Cries and Whispers
1776
The Harder They Come
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask

Not a fan:
Man of La Mancha
Last Tango in Paris
The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant

Godawful:
The Stepmother

 

Seeing the box office lists by year has been the biggest shock for me since we started.

 

The very brief window of "porno chic" where people would, like, take their dates to Deep Throat or The Devil in Miss Jones.

Roger Ebert actually reviewed the porn musical of Alice in Wonderland.

 

1. The Godfather
2. Solaris
3. Deliverance


Movies I've seen and liked:

Aguirre, the Wrath of God
The Discreet Charm of the Borgeoisie
Fist of Fury
Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii
The Poseidon Adventure
Way of the Dragon

 

Kind of inevitable which film is going to win this year but outside of respecting The Godfather a lot I have no love for it, instead what I do love are the following three films -

1. The Poseidon Adventure
2. The Getaway
3. Frenzy

Others that I think are noteworthy from this year, outside of the obvious winner, are; Superfly, Silent Running, The Grand Duel, and The New Centurions.

 

Maybe Travis' date idea in Taxi Driver wasn't as bad an idea in 1976, as it appears when watching it now then...

 

I think generally the "porno chic" thing lasted from about '72-'73. There was a big Supreme Court decision about obscenity that basically killed it in its tracks. So Travis was a few years too late, at the very least.

 

There isn't anything to say about The Godfather that hasn't already been said, but what I find when I rewatch it as I get older is the conflict between first and second-generation immigrants. It is a classic struggle that still exists with immigrant groups today, with the traditions and ideas of their home being split and cast aside in favor of American hegemonic culture. It is a part of Michael's downfall, which is explored much more in Part II; he never really believed in those principles that made his father so successful. Michael might become richer and have more reach than his father, but he pays an enormous price for it.

 

1. The Godfather
2. Solaris
3. The Poseidon Adventure

 

1. The Godfather
2. Aguirre, the Wrath of God
3. Solaris

we’ve covered better overall years but this year’s top 3 is my favorite top 3 yet.

 

1. The Godfather
2. Aguirre, the Wrath of God
3. Solaris

 

From Wiki...


Deep Throat grossed $1 million (equivalent to $6.1 million today) in its first seven weeks of release in 1972, including a then-porn film single-screen record of $30,033 ($183,567today) in its opening week at New York City's New World Theatre. The film made a then-record $3 million ($18.3 million today) in its first six months of release and was still ranked among the top 10 highest-grossing films, as ranked by Variety, 48 weeks after its release.

Estimates of the film's total revenues have varied widely: numbers as high as $600 million (equivalent to $3.7 billion today) have been cited, which would make Deep Throat one of the highest-grossing films of all time. With an average ticket price of $5 ($30.56 today), box-office takings of $600 million would imply 120 million admissions, an unrealistic figure. Although subsequent sales of the film on home video certainly brought additional revenue, the FBI's estimate that the film produced an income of approximately $100 million ($611 million today) may be closer to the truth. Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Timesalso argues for a lower figure in a February 2005 article, pointing out that Deep Throat was banned outright in large parts of the US (as well as many other countries), and only tended to find screenings in a small network of adult theaters in larger urban centers. The directors of Inside Deep Throat responded to the article, suggesting that actual revenues from the film were possibly even higher than the $600 million figure. Hiltzik was unsatisfied with the directors' response, writing that their method was to "construct a seemingly solid box office figure out of layers and layers of speculation piled upon a foundation of sand".

Roger Ebert noted as well in his review of Inside Deep Throat, a 2005 documentary about the film's cultural legacy, that many theaters that screened the film were mob-connected enterprises, which probably also "inflated box office receipts as a way of launderingincome from drugs and prostitution" and other illegal activities.

 

1. We Won’t Grow Old Together
2. Tout va bien
3. Dear Summer Sister

a few others: The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Fassbinder), Sisters (De Palma), Hymn/The Iron Crown (Shindo), Past and Present (de Oliveira), Nathalie Granger (Duras), What’s Up Doc? (Bogdanovich), The Heartbreak Kid (May)

 

Fassbinder is feast or famine for me. Maria Braun and Ali are so good and I have so little use for Petra or Fox. Kinda fascinating, tbh.

 

1. Aguirre, The Wrath Of God
2. Letter To Jane
3. Tout Va Bien

but i’ve never seen pink flamingos

 

Currently:

1. The Godfather
2. Solaris
3. Slaughterhouse Five

 

1. The Godfather
2. The Devil
3. Pink Flamingos

Cries and Whispers also very close.

 

The Godfather has gotten more votes in less than 24 hours than any of the winners so far.

 

as it should

 

1. The Heartbreak Kid
2. Cabaret
3. What's Up, Doc?