The 1970s Conspiracy / Espionage / Paranoia Movie Poll

I don't think it's overrated, but it does drag.

I prefer to think that it takes it's time, but that's kind of a hallmark of 70s cinema. All these movies drag compared to National Treasure ya know.

Love The Conversation, and nice to see The Parallax View come in second place. Winter Kills wuz totally fucking robbed, though.

My favorite film of this type not on the list: Arthur Penn's Night Moves. Another great nihilist hero/anti-hero turn from Gene Hackman. Nowhere near as "perfect" a film as The Conversation, but a lot of 70s-style downbeat fun.

I prefer to think that it takes it's time, but that's kind of a hallmark of 70s cinema. All these movies drag compared to National Treasure ya know.

it was only a matter of time before someone made a boneheaded analogy.

Hackman is superb. and it's well-edited and tense in places, but it's 10 minutes longer than it needs to be.

Also: Altman's The Long Goodbye. Hell, why isn't Chinatown on the list?

Night Moves is good, but I'm not sure it fits as well with stuff (more noir, less conspiracy.) Could be an entirely separate poll for that stuff (Drowning Pool, Long Goodbye, Chinatown, et all.)

The Long Goodbye's about as paranoid as Elliot Gould's cat. I love it to bits.

I guess Night Moves, Long Goodbye and Chinatown all fit better into the "paranoid 70s noir detective" bin, but as long as we're considering stuff like Americathon...

Which 10 minutes would you cut, Alfred?

Andromeda Strain shoulda been an option

Conversation is great though. that whole "party" scene in Hackman's office is so weird.

i'd kill it if I had the chance

Which 10 minutes would you cut, Alfred?

That party scene dawdles, but I'm willing to listen to arguments that it's supposed to accurately represent what kind of ambiance a half dozen dorks would conjure.

Andromeda Strain shoulda been an option

I thought about it, but left it out because it's more of an alien invasion movie than a political paranoid thriller. Besides, I already have two Michael Crichton movies in the poll (one by mistake) and Andromeda Strain was already in the 1970s SF poll.

I was Gene Hackman in The Conversation for Halloween one year, and played in a band called Andromeda Strain. But I voted for The China Syndrome.

day of the jackal is so awesome. what else is similar?

and is the remake in any way worth watching?

getting a strange feeling that I really need to see Americathon again. the opening scene depicting everyone waking up in shantytowns of immobilized cars and several million people biking to work in LA has been stuck in my head recently

ebert on the remake:

There was never a moment in ``The Jackal'' where I had the slightest confidence in the expertise of the characters. The Jackal strikes me as the kind of overachiever who, assigned to kill a mosquito, would purchase contraband insecticides from Iraq and bring them into the United States by hot air balloon, distilling his drinking water from clouds and shooting birds for food.

Without giving away too much of the plot, I would like to register one dissent on the grounds of taste. There is a scene making a target out of a character clearly intended to be Hillary Rodham Clinton (hints: She is blond, 50ish, the wife of the president, and is dedicating the New Hope Children's Hospital). The next time Willis or Gere complains about the invasion of their privacy by the media, I hope someone remembers to ask them why their movie needed to show the first lady under fire.

Watched The Conversation for the first time last night, and I'd forgotten that it won this poll.

Loved it, Hackman plays a lonely man charater so fucking well.

How did Marathon Man not win this?

because there's a ton of awesome paranoia movies from the 1970s and a lot of them are even better than it?

I guess I have homework.

Winter Kills wuz totally fucking robbed, though.

― contenderizer, Tuesday, May 20, 2008 6:02 PM (9 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Weird how in the early 70s, when all these themes were nascent, they seemed to define the age, but now that it's largely come to pass, it's mostly meh, privacy.

Spook Who Sat By the Door was recently re-released on DVD - just saw it for the first time a few weeks ago - it's a classic.

15 conspiracy movies that don’t fall apart at the end (a very good list from the AV Club)

Sorry I missed this--some of my favourite films of the decade. 1. (more or less a tie) The Conversation and All the President's Men; 2. The China Syndrome; 3. Marathon Man; 4. The Boys from Brazil (total junk, I know); 5. The Parallax View. I don't know who deserves the most credit for these films: Nixon, Kennedy, or Johnson. (Or maybe Allen Dulles or somebody like that...of course, two are Nazi-related, so I won't pin those ones on them.)

Just finished mass watching all 12 episodes of Salamander
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/feb/07/salamander-bbc4-belgian-thriller-bridge

Good show. Basically a straight-up Eurocrime police detective story, but worth your time if you're looking for secret societies, bank robbery, unfinished WWII business, and Belgian politics.

sounds interesting, will check it out. Although I guess I'll have to wait for a rerun now.

FWIW, the episodes were easily found in the corners of the Internet you would expect to find such things.

Saw "Blue Sunshine" at the ICA tonight; both plot and acting is erratic, but it is very interesting as a 60's kids growing into disillusioned 70's types film. The election campaign and gun store scene also give it a weird kinship with "Taxi Driver". Anyway, this is a good essay on the movie:

http://www.ica.org.uk/blog/jon-towlson-jeff-liebermans-blue-sunshine

The Nickel Ride seems related, from an unexpected director (Robert Mulligan)

http://www.bam.org/film/2014/the-nickel-ride