THE STORY SO FAR: PART 238

WHERE MOVIES ARE CONCERNED, THERE IS SOMETHING SPECIAL ABOUT THE SEVENTIES

I enjoy a good movie from any time and place, but I seem to particularly enjoy a raft of U.S. movies made in the Seventies. Doubtless, there were many bad movies made then too—but I seem to remember only the good ones; and there were many of them.

Was there any particular reason for this? I don’t know the answer to that. I suspect it might have had much to do with the decline of the studio system, the presence of some amazing talent who now had creative control—and a particular style of direction that emphasized story ahead of gimmickry. And digital special effects were not yet in vogue.

It may also have had to do with a whole bunch of movie-makers who learned their trade in the late thirties and Forties—who were at their prime in the Seventies. But that is just theorizing.

I pay close attention to such movies because there is a great deal to learn from them—and the best of them have superb screenplays. ULZANA’S RAID is a case in point. It has an impressively tight screenplay by Alan Sharp, was directed by Robert Aldrich, and stars Burt Lancaster.

It’s the very model of a fine Western—and good movie-making.

I figured I owed myself a treat.