Movie marathon day featuring films from 1973
I swear I am bad at picking movies for myself. Every time I get a day to myself and decide that it will be a full marathon day of movies, I am disappointed.
Today, I got through five films from 1973. And why 1973 do you ask?
On Letterboxd, I started with my list of Severin Films and found one on one of the streaming services I have. From there, I continued on with the same year of film, hence 1973.
In 1973, I was a mere 2 years old so most of the movies were foreign to me—all new to me. Out of the five films, I only really enjoyed one. Here is a break down of the films, watched in order with reviews.
The Baby
“The Baby” is a psychological horror film about a man who is treated and acts like a baby. This bizarre film was a little absurd when I started watching and I had little hope for it. While the acting was great, the concept intrigued me enough to go on.
This twisted game is that of obsession. Each of the female characters are demented and it kept getting weirder and weirder. I had hoped their be a little more kink than there was, I wasn’t disappointed with the lack of it.
You have a mother with two normal daughters and one son. Each of the children have different fathers. They have chosen to keep the youngest boy as a “baby” with him wearing diapers, not speaking (only whining like a baby), and not walking. He only crawls, coos, and cries—yet, he understand basic commands. And maybe more as they allude to one of the daughters getting it on with her half-brother.
Just when you think the social worker is looking out for the benefit of this young man, think again.
The Long Goodbye
This film reminded me of the new Perry Mason, a gumshoe detective who gets himself in the wrong side of trouble when a friend asks for some help. He doesn’t know what happened but everyone else seems to have it figured out.
There’s a lot happening with this movie and, at times, its super hard to follow. And that with a lot of characters who just don’t belong, I found the film chaotic and all over the place. I’m a fan of 70’s and 80’s Elliot Gould, for sure… though this movie had be bored for too long.
Look for a early cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is uncredited in this film.
By the end, I was back into it with a solid ending… Overall, a tad disappointed but wasn’t at the same time.
The Sting
What could go wrong with a Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Robert Shaw film?
First the music was horrible. I get that they were trying to make a comedy, so the Vaudeville opening might have been perfect but it was more annoying that anything. Secondly, this wasn’t a comedy. There was nothing funny about the film. For the 70’s, comedy was slapstick… this was not. Not funny.
I remember seeing this film on the shelves back when I was working at the video store but never watched it. Maybe if I had watched it back in the eighties or nineties, I might have enjoyed it more. Or not…
The storyline was enjoyable but without comedy, or drama, or action; I don’t know what to make of it.
Go Ask Alice
Going into this movie, I had no clue of what to expect. It was listed to be available for streaming on Amazon; and with the synopsis about drugs and sex, sign me up.
I’m sorry I did that.
While the story is about a “nice girl” who gets mixed up with the wrong crowd, she finds herself in a half-hearted spiral into drugs, who then turns to sex get money for those drugs.
Being a Made-For-TV movie, this film was light on the controversy. The drug scenes were not intense, we barely saw her struggling with addiction. And what sex? There wasn’t much of that.
For streaming, the media company couldn’t bother to digitalize it. I thought I was watching a full screen VHS on a massive television set. The audio was out of sync and sometimes the people’s mouths would move but there wasn’t even any audio for it. Overall, there was much disappointment in this film.
The Mansion of Madness
And this is why I think I am bad at picking movies for myself.
The Mansion of Madness is a Mexican horror film (which makes sense) that was filmed in English but it had the elements of bad Mexican cinema.
The film starts of great… we have ominous woods where a journalist and his friends are making a journey to a unique psychiatric hospital where a doctor was making breakthroughs with the mentally ill. There’s a rape scene and a kidnapping. I’m in and ready for this.
Then the plot thickens. So thick that I have a meek understanding of what is actually happening and why?
Too many characters, so little explanation. I found this a waste of time.
