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Category: 1970s

The Spy Who Loved Me: The Diabolical Scheme of Karl Stromberg.

The Spy Who Loved Me: The Diabolical Scheme of Karl Stromberg.

Released: August 1977 Directed by: Lewis Gilbert Cast: Roger Moore, Barbara Bach, Curt Jurgens, Richard Kiel, Caroline Monro, Walter Gotell, Geoffrey Keen, Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, and Desmond Llewelyn as Q. In 1977s The Spy Who Loved Me, shipping tycoon, scientist, and one of the richest men in the world, Karl Stromberg is thinking big. Unlike a guy like Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who likes to hold the world hostage for ransom and power, Stromberg (Curt Jurgens) wants to destroy the…

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Logan’s Run: The Utopian Sequel to Soylent Green?

Logan’s Run: The Utopian Sequel to Soylent Green?

Released: June 1976 Directed by: Michael Anderson Cast: Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, Roscoe Lee Browne, Farrah Fawcett-Majors, and Peter Ustinov as Old Man. By 2274, humanity had overcome the over-population, starvation, and cataclysmic civilization destroying conflicts of the 2020s. Earth’s population now live in isolated domed mega-utopias, where all their needs are met. Gone are the days of feasting on Soylent Green, stepping over one another just to get down a flight of stairs, or being dumped into…

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Soylent Green: “How Did We Come to This?”

Soylent Green: “How Did We Come to This?”

Directed by: Richard Fleischer Released: April 1973 Cast: Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young, Chuck Connors, Brock Peters, Paula Kelly, Joseph Cotton, Edward G. Robinson as Solomon Roth. As we sit here, in 2024, society is in rough shape. The gap between the wealthy and poor is ever increasing, homelessness is at an all-time high, governments and politicians are more interested in their own personal gain over the need of the people they were elected to serve, the gap between government and…

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The Strange Case of Joe Patroni: Part Three

The Strange Case of Joe Patroni: Part Three

By the end of Airport ’77 we cannot help but wonder if Joe Patroni is the only one to disappear into the Bermuda Triangle, along with all the carefully documented unanswered questions. Lord knows the Devil’s Triangle does not give up its secrets easily. The only thing new offered is Joe’s phantom company, Patroni’s Gently Used Airplane Parts and Stress Points. What was clear, Universal hit the jackpot again with another huge return on investment. Audiences were still hungry for…

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1941: “To Hollywood…and Glory!”

1941: “To Hollywood…and Glory!”

Released: December 1979 Directed By: Steven Spielberg Cast: Dan Ackroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Christopher Lee, Tim Matheson, Toshiro Mifune, John Candy, Warren Oates, Robert Stack, Treat Williams, Nancy Allen, Eddie Deezen, Bobby Di Cicco, Dianne Kay, Slim Pickens, Wendie Jo Sperber, Lionel Stander. When I went to see Steven Spielberg’s 1941 when it was first released in 1979, I knew I was going to like it. What I didn’t know was how much. It turned…

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TORA! TORA! TORA!: “…with a terrible resolve.”

TORA! TORA! TORA!: “…with a terrible resolve.”

Released: October 1970 Directed by: Toshio Masuda, Kinji Fukasaku, Richard Fleischer. Cast: Martin Balsam, Soh Yamamura, Joseph Cotton, Tatsuya Mihashi, E.G. Marshall, Takahiro Tamura, James Whitmore, Koreya Senda, Jason Robarts. I have always found the Pearl Harbor story fascinating. As a 13-year-old it was likely the ships, airplanes, and explosions. But I wanted to know more, so I did something dangerous, I began to read books. What I learned over the years was a fascinating and complicated story revolving the…

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The Strange Case of Joe Patroni: Part Two

The Strange Case of Joe Patroni: Part Two

When we last left off, Joe Patroni was on the tarmac at Salt Lake City International Airport with his ‘wife’ and ‘son’, who have just survived the emergency landing of Columbia Airlines Flight 409. And as already stated in my previous post, we are left with many unanswered questions about Joe Patroni’s seemingly sketchy past, the least of which being why Gloria Swanson was on Flight 409 in the first place. Gloria Swanson notwithstanding, there are no easy answers, at…

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The Strange Case of Joe Patroni: Part One

The Strange Case of Joe Patroni: Part One

When Arthur Hailey’s novel Airport was published in 1968, the literary world was introduced to TWA maintenance chief Joe Patroni, a no-nonsense, cigar chomping trouble-shooter operating out of Chicago’s fictional Lincoln International Airport. In the novel, Patroni races the clock to remove an Aero-Mexico Boeing 707, that is mired in snow and mud, blocking a crucial runway, before another crippled 707 can make an emergency landing on the same runway. Set during a massive snowstorm, Airport unfolds over an 8-hour…

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The Gumball Rally: Bringing Back Memories of the Drive-in Movie.

The Gumball Rally: Bringing Back Memories of the Drive-in Movie.

Released: 1976 Dir.: Chuck Bail First viewing in over 40 years. Every decade or so, a movie comes along with the power to inspire, motivate, even change the course of one’s life. The Gumball Rally is not one of those films, it is, however, what most movies should be: good, escapist entertainment. The Gumball Rally also brought back some fun memories. Growing up in the 1970s we were lucky enough to have a drive-in theatre in our neighborhood, I could…

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The Killing of a Chinese Bookie: A Different Take on Neo-Noir.

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie: A Different Take on Neo-Noir.

Released: 1976 Dir.: John Cassavetes First time viewing reaction and refers to the preferred 1978 edit rather than the 1976 theatrical version. Last night I had my first run in with a John Cassavetes film, not as an actor, but as writer/director. I’ve heard you’re either going to love or hate Cassavetes films, and I have to say, I really liked The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. A unique take on the film noir/neo-noir genres. The film tells the story…

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