“Prime Cut” (1972)
While “Prime Cut,” the third film directed by Michael Ritchie — the filmmaker behind such ’70s classics as “Downhill Racer” and “The Candidate,” but also “The Bad News Bears” and “Fletch” — is loved in crime film aficionado circles, it’s definitely lesser known than other films of the era. Ritchie at this point had been known for his satirical light touch on “The Candidate,” but “Prime Cut” sees him entering “Dirty Harry” and Don Siegel territory as the picture is raw, brutal and downright ugly and risque (its violence is ferocious for its day and it even has a graphic scene of naked female slaves being sold off as cattle). As surly as ever, Lee Marvin plays Devlin, a hatchet man sent from Chicago to Kansas to collect a debt from a crooked meatpacking scion played by Gene Hackman. Things get more complicated when it’s revealed that Hackman’s Mary-Ann character (yes, Mary-Ann) is involved in complex drug deals and pimping women on his farm. To exacerbate it all, it’s revealed that Devlin has had a past romantic relationship with Hackman’s perennially-naked-around-the-house wife played by Angel Tompkins. In their film debuts, Sissy Spacek and Janit Baldwin play two of the naked, drugged-up girls in the film being pimped and auctioned off to these southern heathens. If that sounds fucked up, that’s because it is. But part of the fun, if you want to call it that, is the bile and disgust that Marvin’s character has for all the sordid happenings and the godless, backwood barbarians.
“The Seven-Ups” (1973)
The only directorial effort by Philip D’Antoni, the producer of police thrillers “Bullitt” and “The French Connection,” this exec-turned-filmmaker had a thing for groundbreaking and memorable car chases in his pictures, and “The Seven-Ups” also features a ridiculously long, and pretty awesome car chase. The thrillers D’Antoni produced were gritty and documentary-like, and “The Seven-Ups,” starring the great Roy Scheider, was very much in this same milieu. Co-starring character actors Tony Lo Bianco (NBC‘s “Police Story” in the 1970s), Larry Haines (“The Odd Couple“) and Richard Lynch (known for playing villains on TV on “Starsky & Hutch,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “T. J. Hooker,” etc.), Scheider stars as a renegade NYPD investigator running a type of dirty and unorthodox task force made up of plainclothes officers charged with taking down criminals guilty of offenses and ensuring them a minimum sentence of seven years in prison upon conviction (hence the name). Lo Bianco plays Scheider’s street informant who tips them to a rash of kidnappings, only the victims are mob bosses and high level players. Things get muddled when one of the Seven-Ups gets killed in action and Scheider’s character is out for revenge. D’Antoni used “Bullitt” and ‘French Connection’ stunt coordinator and driver Bill Hickman to pull off his elaborate chase — the film’s major set piece (watch below) — and the scene was edited by the Oscar-winning Jerry Greenberg of “The French Connection” fame. Somewhat slight in the ‘70s crime oeuvre, it’s still an engaging and loose pic in this era worth tracking down.
Where is Chinatown?
While you have all submitted great movies from the 70s that you have seen,
and they are all GREAT movies i'm glad you guys appreciate in this age of…franchising…
I dont think the movies you're listing are, in part, so to speak, what the thread's author is shooting for or about what Killing Them Softly or the 5 classics KTS pays homage to or represents.
I feel like we're listing them to show our intelligence of 70s cinema.
No disrespect! Please! I am a fan of 70's cinema as you guys are. The movies you posters are listing are great milestones in a forgotten, and sometimes under-rated 70's cinema scene, but they dont have "throwback" political sense or "omerta" of what KTS was resurrecting (from Eddie Coyle, Straight Time, Prime Cut or the other 2 of the 5 movies mentioned by the thread's author) in it's story.
Where (i'll pick Prime Cut to begin with) the mob, represented by Lee Marvin, went to the mid-west to clear up a clerical error with Gene Hackman, this was where the "discipline" of what has to done within an organization came in. And an undisciplined "member" of the organization needed to be re-disciplined. Just as Pitt's character does to Liotta's character in KTS.
The state of the U.S., the underdevelopment shown, barren and broken down real estate and the pipe dream schemes explained, to make a sense for the break down in the "system", the trust issues in the mob, the hate and distrust for the government, its filthy corruption, hollow ….how it effected "business as usual" within the "businesses".
In each of the 5 classic movies , every main character(s) had a way to beat the system or keep their system running their way. The filth, the dirt, the attitude of these 2nd story characters and scumbag wanna-be drug dealers (whose plans faded and crumbled) was always present and overbearing. That looming gov't shadow of despair was always following these characters.
Im sorry, but, although Bad News Bears was a great movie, it has nothing to do with what the author is pointing to. Across 110 St, Serpico (more of a core-value representation…to me…of police corruption and blue brotherhood) and Dirty Harry follow that value as law enforcement. They'd be a great representations to call back on for a movie released today.
Such as, if the new movie dealt with the lone-wolf, no rules cop who got things done (like Dirty Harry).
The Outfit?…maybe…
Hickey and Boggs?…definitely had a tie-in with 2 guys caught quite by accident in a machine they became small cogs in, but, they were private dicks. Absolutely a great picture!!
Mean Streets was a character that was dealing with himself as well as tryin to keep his friend alive in a business he just wanted to leave. Not really a piece to point at this time, but, a great movie all the same. Charley Varrick was more focused on a thief and his mistake, no mob affiliation at all, who wanted to get out alive. Great movie, great period, but didnt focus on what KTS and the 5 predecessors focused on.
But, then, i could be COMPLETELY wrong about what the author of this thread was sayin.
'Ats just me.
Peace n Love!
Really terrific list
Here's another five that would look great on there.
Dirty Harry – 1971
Across a 110th Street – 1972
Mean Streets – 1973
Serpico – 1973
Taxi Driver – 1976
The 70's were something else, especially in New York.
I would add Don Siegel's fantastic Charley Varrick, with Walther Matthau. Amazing film!
Great list, seen all of them.
Really Great List but I've seen everything on here except for Prime Cut and Straight Time. Guess be watching them soon though.
What do you mean by "but also 'The Bad News Bears' "? I don't know when you last looked at it, if ever, but except for "Eddie Coyle", "BNB" is better than any of the movies you've listed here.
Flawless choices, superbly written piece about an era and genre closer to my heart than most. Might suggest the Bill Cosby/Robert Culp private-eye drama "Hickey and Boggs," penned by Walter Hill and about as far removed from the world of I Spy and Cosby's comedy as one could imagine and Hill's "The Driver" which has been covered in recent times as an antecedent of "Drive" but is worth mentioning again.
Badass American cinema!