Life of Brian

What brought on this fascination with the 70s? Because my formative years between 15 to 25 were spent in that decade? Because I will be turning 70 this year and that is around the time when a DNA segment mutates causing you to be nostalgic for those formative years? So, I guess, life?

Last Sunday I mentioned watching something called The Story of Film: An Odyssey. Today I watched the nineth episode in that series and it just fed the ‘stuck in the seventies’ rut, its title, “American Cinema of the 70s.”

A few years ago, probably COVID time, I decided that I would get rid of all my physical media, I ripped all 500 of my CDs to MP3s and most all my DVDs to MKVs. I only did the DVDs that I’d probably watch again and ended up with 158. Of that total, there were 12 movies from the 70s and 3 of those got coverage in that episode of The Story of Film. Here is my list of 12 with their release dates and I italicized those three:

M*A*S*H – March 18, 1970
Woodstock – March 26, 1970
The Andromeda Strain – March 12, 1971
Le Mans – June 23, 1971
American Graffiti – August 11, 1973
Jesus Christ Superstar – August 15, 1973
Chinatown – June 20, 1974
Jaws – June 20, 1975
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – November 19, 1975
Star Wars – May 25, 1977
Close Encounters of the Third Kind – November 25, 1977
Alien – May 25, 1979

A cool million was the ransom demanded by Mr. Blue for the safe return of the seventeen hostages in the front car of a New York subway train.

After the last couple of 70’s movies, I fell into a fog of nostalgia and started thinking of other movies of that period that I have enjoyed enough to revisit, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three bubbled right to the surface. I’m sure I saw it in theaters, rented it on VHS from Blockbuster and possibly caught on TV too. Checking IMDB I found that it was available on MGM+ and for $6.99 a month. So, I signed up and after watching this movie possibly find some others that might be worth a look.

It starred Walter Matthau, but the movie was packed full of 70s stars. First up was Mr. Blue, Robert Shaw (Quint of Jaws), he’s the leader of the gang of 4 who hijack the train. His accomplices included Martin Balsam (Juror #1 of 12 Angry Men) as Mr. Green who is the only survivor of the baddies in the end. I just looked at his IMDB page and he was credited with 179 roles in movies and TV from 1949 to 1997, with 51 credits in the 70s alone. Other recognizable names included Hector Elizondo, Jerry Stiller and Doris Roberts.

Turns out, there are 2 other versions of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. The first was a TV movie in 1998 which I knew about and a theatrical release in 2008 that I didn’t. Coincidentally, both movies were available on MGM+.

I remembered being excited for the TV version, but was so disappointed in it that I shut it off after about 30 minutes. It didn’t hold a candle to the original even though it was chock-a-block full of stars of the day, Edward James Olmos, Vincent D’Onofrio, Donnie Wahlberg and Richard Schiff. Also, Mr. Olmos’s was Lorraine Bracco, Tony Soprano’s shrink, Dr. Jennifer Melfi. I tried to watch it again this afternoon, but failed. Partially because it still paled in comparison, but also its aspect ratio was off, it seemed a version that was tweaked for High Def TV after being filmed in standard definition. I did watch as far as the initial hijack of the car and then fast forwarded to the end to see if they kept the perfect ending (they did.)

Because of today’s windy, rainy, 40-degree temp weather, I was inside with time to kill, so I looked at the third version. Wow, what a hot mess. I repeated the previous procedure and watch the initial hijack and zipped to the end for the finish which was, well, WTF. It too, had some big stars and some other big-name folks too, including James Gandolfini, the afore mentioned Tony Soprano.

After scrolling thru the movies available on MGM+ I realized there was only a couple things besides The Taking of Pelham One Two Three worth spending money on, luckily when I signed I up I’m entitled to the first week free, so after watching the next couple things, both music documentaries, in my queue I’ll just cancel. First up is San Francisco Sounds: A Place In Time about the music that came from Haight Ashbury in the 60s and 70s. The other covers basically the same time frame, but its Los Angeles based, called Laurel Canyon: A Place In Time.

On today’s bill here at the Bogardi Movie Palace is “The Reincarnation of Peter Proud.” This movie was released in early 1975 so I’m not sure where I saw it first. There are a few possibilities, first it could have been in the on-base movie theater in Patuxent River Naval Air Station, either with or without Donna. Or maybe I saw it along with a handful of fellow sailors on the hanger deck on the U.S. Midway. Another possibility is that Donna and I saw it on VHS sitting on our own couch in Millington, TN or Meridian, MS.

Where ever it was, it creeped me the f*ck out. The premise of the movie is, well, in the title. This guy is having very vivid and intense dreams, it feels like he is actually there and in them, but the guy doesn’t look anything like him. In these dreams there are these brief flashes of places, there is a very distinct bridge, a large church and a statue.

The thing is, I actually knew these places. I could picture them in my head, but for the life of me I couldn’t place them in the real world. Was I reincarnated too? I can’t remember exactly when I found out those images were tied to my childhood memories, could be anywhere from the 1980’s to the 2010’s. I also can’t remember how it came up in topic on the Santa Fe to Hammond to Santa Fe road trip with Sally, but I regaled her with my first being creeped out by the movie to my solving the riddle of those images.

In several summers growing up, we kids (Me, sister Diane and brother Paul) would go and stay with our grandmother in Springfield, MA for a week. Every time we went there it was pretty much the same routine. There was one thing planned for each day and after that we to be quiet and play in our bedroom. Three of the day’s events meant we would walk down a couple blocks to downtown, the first day was always to the toy store so we’d have something to play with. One was to the Natural History Museum and then the other, a favorite restaurant, The Waterfall, where we got to have a milkshake.

We drove across that bridge to get to Springfield, that church was right down the street from her apartment and the statue (The Puritan) was at the museum.

When I went to catch up on last week’s late-night talk shows I was pleased to see that Friday’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was just a 4-Part interview with Gary Oldman. Stephan traveled to London, Gary’s hometown, to do the interview. I did not realize that Oldman was British, I thought he was just putting it on when doing Slow Horses. On that note, Oldman mentions that he had played so many Americans in movies that he lost his natural English accent and had to resurrect for it for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

I watched the interview a segment at a time on YouTube and it wasn’t until afterward I remembered that if you go to CBS.com you can watch the whole show in one long episode with limited commercials. At one point in the interview Stephan asks Gary what his favorite movie is and his reply was, Francis Ford Coppola’s, The Conversation with Gene Hackman. I thought, wow, I love that movie too. I’ve watched it at least 3 times, but I haven’t seen it in about 25 years. I wondered if it was streaming somewhere.

One of the good things about looking up a movie on IMDB is that they serve up ways to watch what you are looking up. Sure enough, it was available on Prime Video, not for free, even for Prime Members, but you could rent it for $4. Today, I watched this movie from the 70s and all it cost was 250 cents because I had a buck and a half of promotional credit in my account.