1976 Was Hollywood’s Swan Song
The mid-1970s were a good time for film buffs. But the industry was on the precipice of a long decline that has stripped productions of not only their political content but their seriousness.
Fifty years ago American films were serious, political, and everywhere. Then the blockbuster ate the industry. (Columbia Pictures)
Looking back fifty years at the movies of 1976, the immediate thing that strikes you is how good they are. And there was such an abundance of good films that there were plenty of choices to suit every taste. If you craved memorable mainstream releases, for example, how about these? Rocky, Network, All the President’s Men, Marathon Man, Robin and Marian, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution.
If you loved genre movies, there were terrific horror films (Carrie, The Omen), excellent Westerns (The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Shootist), and landmark action flicks ( Assault on Precinct 13, The Enforcer).
If you were into challenging, auteur-driven New Hollywood films, you could revel in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, John Cassavetes’s The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Robert Altman’s Buffalo Bill and the Indians, and Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth.
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