
On the heels of Annie Hall, the Oscar-winning romantic comedy that rocketed Woody Allen to the front ranks of American filmmakers, Manhattan continued Allen’s romantic obsessions in a slightly darker, more pessimistic vein. Allen stars as Isaac Davis, a TV comedy writer sick of the pap he is forced to churn out and harboring dreams of being the great American novelist.
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Tag Archives: 1970s
Le Orme / Footprints on the Moon (1975) Luigi Bazzoni, Mario Fanelli, Florinda Bolkan, Peter McEnery, Klaus Kinski, Mystery, Thriller

A woman is tormented by strange dreams of astronauts on the moon. She visits a deserted seaside town whose inhabitants know her even though she does not know them.
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Kousatsu / The Strangling (1979) Kaneto Shindô, Kô Nishimura, Nobuko Otowa, Tsutomu Kariba, Drama

Kousatsu portrays and condemns the oppressive atmosphere of a highly competitive society governed by “hypocritical adults” that prevent young people being young, leading them to commit acts of rebellion and acts of uncontrolled violence or even self-destruct.
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Matatabi / The Wanderers (1973) Kon Ichikawa, Isao Bitô, Tadao Futami, Ken’ichi Hagiwara, Drama

Follows the fluctuating fortunes of three friends in feudal Japan who are ronin: masterless warriors, who wander from castle to castle, selling their services to whichever lord will fill their rice bowls. These are not the YOJIMBO Super Samurai but rather the rank and file, the spear-carriers. The irony is that even though they use the servants’ entrance, they still feel themselves bound by the samurai code of Bushido; and this tension leads to tragedy.
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5 Shaolin Masters / 5 Masters of Death (1974) Cheh Chang, David Chiang, Lung Ti, Sheng Fu, Action, Drama

The story is simple (Shaolin vs. Manchu traitors), but the effect was anything but, as the screen’s most charismatic action actors team with a legendary director and revered choreographers (Liu Chia-liang and brother Liu Chia-yung) for scenes of unparalleled power.
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The Hunting Party (1971) Don Medford, Oliver Reed, Candice Bergen, Gene Hackman, Action, Drama, Western

The rich and ruthless rancher Brandt Ruger keeps his beautiful young wife Melissa like a part of his property, subdued to his will. But one day she’s kidnapped by the famous outlaw Frank Calder – just to teach him reading, so he tells her. Calder doesn’t know or care who’s wife she is. He takes care of her well, and eventually Melissa falls in love with him. But Ruger feels humiliated. Full of hate, he sets out to kill him – and Melissa too, if necessary. Together with his friends and the newest technology in guns, which carry 800 yards, he initiates a battue on Calder and his gang.
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Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks (1974) Dick Randall, Rossano Brazzi, Michael Dunn, Edmund Purdom, Horror

See the battle of the monsters, Goliath versus Ook! “South Pacific” star Rossano Brazzi plays the crackpot Frankenstein whose latest creature is a goofy, dome-headed neanderthal cleverly named Goliath. Typical of monsters, Goliath has the hots for Frankenstein’s new squeeze, Krista, who likes to bathe in milk. When Genz, a horny necrophile dwarf, is expelled from the castle, he promptly makes friends with Ook, a second neanderthal just passing through town. Out for revenge, Genz lets Goliath loose to go head to pointy-head with Ook in a good old-fashioned monster rumble.
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Oedipus orca (1977) Eriprando Visconti, Rena Niehaus, Gabriele Ferzetti, Carmen Scarpitta, Crime, Drama, Thriller, Erotic
Alice is brought back to her family after she is rescued from the men that kidnap her, but her nightmare is far from over since she continues to have constant flashbacks of her ordeal. She resents her parents because she believes they wouldn’t pay for her ransom, since that is what she heard her captors say through a wall when she was kidnapped. Coming back to normal life is not easy for her because she has to deal with her parents, her boyfriend, and mix feelings she had for one of the captors that she had sex with in order to survive.
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Kyrkoherden / The Lustful Vicar (1970) Torgny Wickman, Jarl Borssén, Margit Carlqvist, Magali Noël, Comedy, Erotic

During a witch trial in the seventeenth century a woman is accused of being a witch and burned at the stake. The witch curse the village priest who pushed through the accusations and promises that her offspring will avenge her. During the Caroline the priest’s son take over as vicar of the congregation, and the daughter of the witch bewitches him so that he suffers constant erection. This is off course very embarrassing for the vicar. The local women has to step in and try to set things right.
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You Can’t Win ‘Em All (1970) Peter Collinson, Tony Curtis, Charles Bronson, Michèle Mercier, Comedy, Adventure

Two former U.S. Army soldiers, Adam Dyer and Josh Corey, join a band of Turkish mercenaries in 1922 Turkey. They are hired by Osman Bey, a local governor, to escort his three daughters to Smyran and to protect a gold shipment that is to accompany them. Nobody is aware that Elci, a local colonel, plans to steal the gold for himself, while a rebel general pursues all parties involved.
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