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Silver Screen? Or Distant Mirror?
Half a century ago, as the final year of the Sixties unfolded, Hollywood studios looked at the youthful trends of the previous year and loaded themselves up with inexpensive campus political dramas, left-wing fare that would be ready for release in the spring and summer of 1970. “The Strawberry Statement”, “The Revolutionary”, “Revolutions Per Minute” and “Zabriskie Point” were one-sided bets on what audiences at the dawn of the Seventies would be eager to pay for—sympathetic, appealing violent dramas and coarse comedies about campus rioters who sleep around and curse a lot. To the chagrin of Hollywood planners, who were usually stuck with two-year lead times on feature film projects, they bet wrong. There will always be an audience for violent drama and coarse comedy; it was the “rioters” aspect, the anti-police violence as entertainment that proved to be an astoundingly tin-eared wrong step on Hollywood’s part. It would cause an enduring, decades-long counter-reaction that at the time was dismissed as a transient “backlash”.
The Vietnam War was still near its height as springtime ’70 brought on the protesting season, as it’s been in much of western Europe since the 1830s or thereabout. The first Earth Day was planned for April 22, and would be the most peaceful of the year’s mass demonstrations. The campuses were already primed to explode. Mine literally did in March, when a homemade bomb killed its radical builder and leveled a Greenwich Village townhouse. When President Nixon announced an incursion into Cambodia—okay, raids, an invasion, let’s not be too fussy—the semester was nearly over anyway and many campuses, although non-violent, were also non-functional. When four students were killed at Kent State University on May 4th, school ground to a halt all over the country.
On May 8, on New York’s Wall Street, a flash mob of union workers in construction and other trades attacked a peaceful high school antiwar march protesting the Kent State shooting, finally reaching, and beating up a core of college-aged kids, many of who, it turned out, rode in from Pennsylvania on a church bus. It wasn’t “fight back”; it was blue collar antifa. But at a time when all of the street violence came from the other side, even unfairly hitting the wrong target at least felt like hitting, for some people.
The Hard Hat Riots were swiftly worked into the promotion of the now forgotten “Joe”, (7/15/70) with Peter Boyle as a murderous rifleman who hated hippies. The new poster art shows Joe cradling a gun, wearing a hard hat with an American flag on it. He’s also holding a flag in one hand and a target in the other. The slogan was “Keep America Beautiful”. You could put that 1970 poster up in Brooklyn today and people would instantly claim to recognize it as depicting a Trump supporter.
Fox’s long-in-the-making “Patton” would reach theaters in rapidly changing times that, it was said, had different attitudes towards war. Fox considered retitling it “Patton: Salute to a Rebel”. The studio had next to no expectations for another of its war films, the cheaply made M.A.S.H., which became an unexpected hit that spring. A cynical, mildly dirty-mouthed Korean War service comedy whose most memorable moments are the humiliation of uptight, by-the-book characters, it became pressed into service as an anti-war movie.
In this nervous atmosphere, “Kelly’s Heroes” suffered more than most from marketing indecision. It was hastily recut to try to make it more of an anti-war satire, with an ironic, whimsical, non-heroic theme song and a new ad campaign, eschewing WWII images in favor of a sort of Peter Max-drawn hero sandwich with tank treads. “They Had a Message for the Army: Up the Brass!”
But something unexpected happened: “Patton” struck a nerve. The bold style of leading off with a giant American flag got spontaneous cheers even on jaded Broadway; I saw it myself. It not only made a ton of money but it kindled an earnest national debate about the sometime necessity of war and the need for gifted, imperfect men to lead us in it. It was touted as Richard Nixon’s favorite movie. The revised “Kelly’s Heroes” straining-to-be-hip poster art and ad campaign were hastily revised yet again for its September opening. Now it showed a conventional war movie illustration of a line of four tall tough G.I.s facing down a German tank, with the new slogan, “They Started Out to Rob a Bank…And Damn Near Won a War!”
The tumult of 1970 was deeply, lastingly counterproductive for the American Left. Everything they did boosted the poll numbers of the loathed, despised Nixon, who they felt had won 1968 on a fluke, backed by the country’s haters. They expected 1972 to be a pushover, yet they could see the country was slipping away. The angry reaction of middle class and lower class whites to pretty much everything since riots and crime started spiking in the Sixties was now too visible to ignore.
One of the first signs of it was meant to be a comedy takedown of the growing movement, “All in the Family”, first airing January 1971. Archie Bunker was the new image of the WWII-age veteran: paunchy, casually racist, crudely ignorant. A figure of fun, and of scorn. But partly because the writers did toss him a point or two, the show became a hit. The creators of the show were bemused that they’d inadvertently made Archie a hero for tens of millions. Of course, I don’t mean “hero” literally; nearly everybody knew that Archie went too far. Working class white-wise, he was closer to our id than our conscience. But we liked him for telling it like it is, no matter if our betters disapproved.
Crime in the streets and on the campus was violent and physical. It stirred anger for many years to come. Clint Eastwood made a cultish success for himself in Italian made “spaghetti westerns”, but the huge hit that would shape his image in the public mind was 1971’s “Dirty Harry”, a crowd-pleasing hero who was bracingly politically incorrect, to use a term that was still fifteen years in the future. We were tired of “Dragnet”-style polite, businesslike cops. We were ready for badasses who’d throw away the rule book to clean up the streets. The Dirty Harry character didn’t endorse vigilantes—in fact, he hunts them down—but audiences did. In time, the SWAT era would go too far. But in its day, anything that redressed the balance between police and criminals was welcome.
About those World War II guys. By 1973, Jack Lemmon’s garment industry executive in “Save the Tiger” (directed by John Avildsen, who also directed “Joe” and later, “Rocky”) was another update of the image of the WWII vet, truer in parts, more positive, still stereotyped to some degree. It was recognized that courage in wartime wasn’t easy. But there was still a lingering trace of false guilt for lack of social consciousness—”look what I’ve come to, the nice home, the wife, the business I fight to keep going. What a sellout I am”. This caricature wasn’t the fault of Baby Boomers, by the way; next to none of them had entered the industry yet.
Published in General
Yep. We have a narrow choice of villains, and there’s always got to be a villain.
A decade before “Saving Private Ryan”, conservative screenwriter Lionel Chetwynd was hoping to capitalize on the success of his “The Hanoi Hilton” to sell a project on the failed invasion of Dieppe, which Lionel would have done brilliantly. The executive interrupted him. “I don’t get it. Who’s the enemy?” Lionel, completely nonplussed, said “Well, Hitler”. She shook her head irritably. “No, no! I mean, who’s the real enemy?” She meant: Who is the racist American general, or the bloodthirsty colonel, or the sadistic sergeant. The notion that there could be a greater evil never crossed her mind.
And while we’re at it I would think “The French Connection” qualifies. Gene Hackman’s Popeye Doyle was not exactly an “Age of Aquarius” kind of guy.
Really interesting post, Gary McVey.
How did the movie The Friends of Eddie Coyle go over ? I had only just turned 16 when I saw it. Don’t remember it at all, except that I was confused by the story and depressed by the ending. I read the book, for the first time, a year or two ago, and was stunned by how much the author caught the way the early 1970’s seemed worn out, menacing and ugly all at once. You never forget his descriptions of some of the Hare Krishna people, as desperate and mentally ill, for instance.
Another movie I wonder what I’d think of now and don’t know what it’s effect was then: The Panic in Needle Park.
When I watch movies from the late 60’s / early 70’s now, I find them embarrassing. I can picture the people behind the scenes (producers, directors, etc) thinking they were so hip and ‘now’ by producing movies filled with hippies, drugs, sex, and young ‘rebel’ politicians. Even the supposedly WWII story in Kelly’s Heroes has its version of a drugged out hippie (Donald Sutherland) complaining about bad vibes. I just roll my eyes and change the channel.
For some reason, the movie from the 70s that I remember is Five Easy Pieces. No, I don’t know why.
“French Connection” is poignant to me now. There’s a moment in the trailer when if you freeze frame quickly enough, you see the steel frame of the World Trade Center still being built.
New Yorkers of a certain age (ahem) grew up when the humor wasn’t racist, but it was definitely ethnic, and you get a lot of it here. The Irish, Italians, and Jews got along, but we were each assigned traits, like the characters in fables or cartoons. We weren’t very PC about it.
BTW, for anyone who commented today, thanks for your patience. The site was down, then it came back up but I couldn’t “Like” or comment for a couple of hours. All fixed, I suppose.
How can you remember? You were drunk all the time.
Rocco stole my wallet. Abe charged me 50% of its contents to tell where Rocco hid it. Then Rocco tried to kill Abe, so I cuffed Rocco and tossed him in the slammer.
So then who do you think showed up with a legal writ to let him out? Abe.
Damn right I’ll have another drink.
Which reminds me of this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=97&v=dZnpCsu97Gg
I feel the same. There are several movies I liked back then but when I see them now I cringe. A lot of movies from that era have not aged well.
George V Higgins is one of the finest American novelists of the 20th century. I’ve read all his books and wrote this appreciation of him on Ricochet. It’s a shame he’s mostly forgotten. The movie adaptation is outstanding.
Styles go in waves, and the designers of the early-to-mid Seventies were having a love affair with old time glamour–“The Godfather”, “The Sting”, “Chinatown”. Film noir was in, and that meant noir icons like Mitchum were back at work. After the no makeup, t-shirt and jeans look, suddenly women were wearing skirts, blouses with juliette sleeves, wedgie shoes, and nail polish again.
For men, it was like we’d all died and joyfully gone to 1948 heaven.
That’s very fine post that I missed the first time around, thanks for introducing me to it, GM!
Hmm…initial-wise we are both “GM”s…kinda like “The Two Jakes”.
After the big budget bombs of the 1966-69 period, Hollywood seemed to think the end of the old Hays Code with the new G-M-R-X ratings system would be enough to bring the viewers in, via smaller movies that luxuriated in sex and language that previously hadn’t been allowed. And while it allowed for more realistic dialogue and more graphic images, it wasn’t an end-all, be-all to get folks out of their homes and back into the theaters. It took a more nuanced merging of scripts taking advantage of the laxer production code rules with the budgets that put images on the screen that couldn’t be replicated on a 27-inch RCA XL-100 that helped spawn the series of 1970s blockbusters that really started with “The Godfather”.
I never noticed that. But I like the look of Tora, Tora, Tora!
In spite of Chetwynd’s talents, I’m dubious a Dieppe movie would have been a success. The politics behind the raid and the general operational ineptitude would be difficult to explicate.
Case in point: A Bridge Too Far. In spite of its subtle anti war tone, it is a fairly accurate story of an Allied misfire. Theme: Generals incompetent, dog face soldiers courageous. You will never see a film about our defeat at Kasserine Pass either.
Covered fairly well in The Big Red One.
The ethos of Kelly’s Heroes in two minutes..
Sam Fuller was there as a member of the I&R platoon of the 16th Infantry.
The backstory behind the efforts to make the film
https://www.amazon.com/Making-Patton-Classic-Journey-Silver/dp/0700618627
History is written by the survivors. Bradley’s participation was minimal. Chet Hansen, Bradley’s aide was more influential.
Bradley was still around when I was stationed at Fort Bliss. I never saw him, but around post I did see his big Cadillac limousine with a five star license plate. You’d often see it parked in a specially reserved space at the door of the officer’s club. I never saw the General there, it was always his young wife, Mrs. General Bradley.
We had an op plan, to be executed on the General’s passing. Every month some unit on post was tasked with practicing “Orbit Stars”. Upon his death “Orbit Stars” became “Operation Normandy”. I can tell you, it was quite a relief when we woke up one morning to learn Bradley had died on a visit to Washington. That was someone else’s problem.
Thanks, Gumby Mark. Your post is excellent. I’ll definitely be reading, at least, “The Rat on Fire” and watching “The Friends Of Eddie Coyle”again after 46 years.
Lionel’s Dieppe story would have been closer in tone to “Gallipoli” than “A Bridge Too Far” or “The Alamo”. Sure, defeat is a tougher “sell”.
But you’re not doing either, and storyboards have nothing to do with it.
You’re hiring the director to direct. Of course you are, but you’re also risking, potentially, a hundred million dollars. Most companies do not hand 100 million over to a project manager or new product team with governance and oversight, and movies are no different.
Secondly, what does trust have to do with a screenwriter? The screenplay is already in the can if the movie is green-lit, pending re-writes, etc. Trust has nothing to do with it, as you’ve already seen (largely) what they have produced. A movie you don’t see until the bulk of it is shot and at least roughly edited.
EJ thinks if you spend $100 million to create something, it has to be “art”, not art. Tell that to the architects.
Have you seen modern architecture?
A good point, but if you’re going to build something huge, whether it’s good or bad, it’s going to take thousands of workers and many millions of dollars. Not every director is an artist, sure…not every four star in the Pentagon is Alexander the Great…not every pastor is Dietrich Bonhoeffer…not every airline pilot is Sully.
There’s no real argument here. Directors are always subject to the dictates of the property owners, the studios, unless they put up half the money themselves, like Gibson and “The Passion”. If they’re young, and inexperienced with the logistics of a big production, they’re kept on a short leash, trusted to know what good acting and photography is, but monitored daily for keeping up with the schedule. On the other hand, it does get dicey if the director is, say, Chris Nolan or James Cameron, because the studio goes in knowing they won’t put up with too much visible string-pulling.
Trump vs. “the squad.” We’re the damn mule.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ_7br_3y54
Yes, the problem with those Hollywood portrayals of the counterculture was that they were inauthentic. “Plastic hippies,” the real freaks would call such characters. Billy Jack, on the other hand, came from within, rang true, and made almost $100 million. (It didn’t hurt the box office that the story resolved favorably, compared with the fate of the Easy Rider protagonists.)
Authenticity can take something as small as the casting of a single supporting character. Gary cites Save the Tiger, a favorite film of mine at the time. Jack Lemmon’s Oscar-winning salesman on-the-brink Harry Stoner is a fascinating moral contrast with partner Jack Guilford, both representing the middle-aged generation. A minor character is Lemmon’s young L.A. freak girlfriend Myra played by Laurie Heineman. She absolutely nailed the part, which was really the only representation of the counterculture in the film. Just a little bit of authentic “relatability” went a long way then, as it always does.
“Billy Jack” is quite likely the only hit film that’s a Catholic-hippie-karate mashup. At the time, it was praised by women for an unusually mature discussion after a rape. Tom Laughlin was on the board of our old film festival, Filmex, so we saw him and his wife (and co-star) pretty often. He could be difficult, not a screamer, but an eccentric mystic. “Billy Jack” was one of the first films released as a “four wall deal”, as were the “Walking Tall” series and George C. Scott’s “The Savage is Loose”. Jim knows what that means, but for the benefit of the crowd, it means a unique arrangement where the movie company rents the whole theater, pays a fixed fee, and keeps the money–no split with the theater owner.