1971

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE WEIRD: THE BEST OF THE REST

1971 was such a rich year that even picking 100 films doesn't quite do it justice. And so here is an A-Z rundown of some of the films that almost made the top 100, along with some hidden gems, some interesting oddities and cult items, some worthwhile entries, and some downright wacko films. And, for a bit of fun, a few of the very worst too.

THE BAREFOOT EXECUTIVE

Kurt Russell made his first Disney picture when he was just 15 years old and was the studio's teen star of the 1960s and early 1970s. He'd make twelve pictures for Disney over time and call his adolescent years there 'my education in the film business'.

Here Russell plays an ambitious mailroom clerk at a TV network who discovers his girlfriend's lovable pet chimp has a knack of picking out hit television shows. There were a number of chimps Russell had to work with; one in particular was smart and tough. If he got a little rough and disobedient, the trainer said it was alright for Russell to give the monkey a little whack, just to show him who was boss. On this one occasion, the chimp was going off the rails and Russell gave him a big wallop, just as five guests were being shown around the studio. 'Oh my God,' they said. 'This is what they do at Disney!'

BELIEVE IN ME

When producer Irwin Winkler read author Gail Sheehy's heartfelt New York magazine article about her sister's descent into drug addiction, he bought it. Michael Sarrazin and Jacqueline Bisset, then romantically involved in real life, play a young couple, Pamela and Remy. Indulging in speed and barbiturates, the pleasures are soon forgotten as they begin to lose control. Pamela quits her job and Remy is thrown out of medical school. When Remy gets hooked on heroin Pamela is forced to leave him in a bid to go clean.

You can sense that director Stuart Hagmann's instinct was to bring a documentary realism to the social crisis of drugs, in much the same vein, excuse the pun, as other 1971 anti-drug films, like Panic in Needle Park. They didn't reckon on James Aubrey, head of MGM. Aubrey didn't like the film; maybe he thought he was getting a stoned version of Love Story, and demanded extensive cuts along with three weeks of reshoots done by another director, John G. Avildsen.

The tinkering showed. The New York Times noted the film was 'not so much edited as maimed'. As a positive, when Winkler was later looking for a director to helm Rocky, he remembered Avildsen and hired him.

BLACK BEAUTY

Anna Sewell's timeless novel Black Beauty, first published in 1877, is brought to the screen here by director James Hill of Born Free fame, and told from the perspective of the horse as it changes owners during its tumultuous lifetime. Born on a farm, Beauty is looked after by a little boy, played by Mark Lester, until it's taken away by a drunken squire. When the squire is killed in a riding accident the horse comes into the possession of a travelling circus, before seeing service with the British army in India. Returning to England, it's put to work hauling a coal wagon. Here its plight is noticed, and rescued by Anna Sewell herself, an early champion of animal rights.

This is a pleasant if lightweight film, shot in Ireland and Spain. Although Lester only appears in the opening scenes and worked on it for just ten days, he received top billing. 'I had a good agent in those days,' he says.1

BLESS THE BEASTS & CHILDREN

During his career Stanley Kramer earned the nickname 'Hollywood's conscience' through his willingness to tackle controversial topics, with films like The Defiant Ones (1958) and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), which aimed to inform as much as entertain. Bless the Beasts & Children is no different, with its statement about gun culture in America.

Based on Glendon Swarthout's book, the story revolves around a group of misfit teenage boys, dumped at summer camp by their wealthy parents, who decide to free a herd of buffalo from slaughter by hunters. Attacked by some critics for being too preachy and heavy-handed, the film ended up less than Kramer had hoped for. 'And when you fail in a good cause, the frustration is difficult to bear.'2 The title theme, sung by The Carpenters, received an Academy Award nomination.

BLINDMAN

This spaghetti western, featuring Ringo Starr as a Mexican bandit, was co-produced by Allen Klein, the tough-talking American lawyer whose controversial tenure as manager of The Beatles led directly to McCartney's exit from the band and its eventual dissolution. Klein also makes a cameo appearance; the irony of him playing a double-crossing bandit was not lost on Beatles' fans.

Blindman owed much to the Zatoichi character, a blind swordsman who featured in a long-running series of Japanese films. Tony Anthony plays a blind gunslinger hired to escort fifty mail-order brides to mine workers in Texas. When he is double-crossed by his partner, who kidnaps the women to sell them to the Mexican Army, Blindman is determined to get them back.

Filmed on location in Spain, production was briefly interrupted when Starr left to perform at the Concert for Bangladesh, a benefit gig organised by George Harrison. Released in Italy in 1971, Blindman wasn't seen in the US or Britain until 1972 in a butchered version.

BORN TO WIN

George Segal gives a career-best performance as a former trendy hairdresser reduced to hustling and petty crime on the streets of New York to maintain his heroin addiction. Alternating tragedy with farce, UA were appalled when they saw it. It was too depressing, they said, and ordered a recut to play up the comedy. Even then they barely gave it much of a release.

Born To Win was the first American feature for Ivan Passer, a leading filmmaker of the Czech New Wave, who fled the country with Milos Forman. Passer interviewed ex-addicts during his research and actual junkies appear in the film. Passer also clashed with Robert De Niro, playing a small role as a plainclothes cop hassling Segal. More than once Passer and Segal thought of replacing De Niro when his method acting practices went too far. The impressive supporting cast features Karen Black, Paula Prentiss and Hector Elizondo.

THE BOY FRIEND

Ken Russell was at some glitzy showbiz function chatting with Twiggy, the famous model and face of the 1960s. They were sipping champagne and getting quietly merry, but being pestered by a journalist. To get rid of him Russell announced that he was going to make a movie of the famous Sandy Wilson 1920s set musical The Boy Friend, starring Twiggy. 'There's your exclusive,' said Russell, 'now sod off.'

The next morning the news was splashed all over the front pages and Russell received a phone call from an irate lawyer representing MGM who wanted to know why he'd made that statement, and if he was aware that MGM owned the screen rights. Instead of being threatened with litigation, Russell was asked if he actually fancied having a go at adapting the musical, which premiered on the London stage in 1953. Nobody had yet found a way of doing it properly on film. The 1920s aesthetic that worked so well on stage just didn't seem to translate to the screen; it came over all mannered and stilted. Russell's idea was to change the original setting from the French Riviera to a struggling theatrical troupe putting on a production of The Boy Friend. Twiggy plays Polly Browne, a mousy assistant stage manager who has to replace the leading lady (Glenda Jackson in an unbilled cameo) after she twists her ankle before the curtain goes up.

Reportedly Sandy Wilson disliked the film version. His show was a 1920s jazz-inspired spoof, whereas Russell's joke is that this is a mediocre production transformed into something better than it is through the eyes of the players fantasising about making the big time. Russell even throws in a few extravagant dance numbers, executed in the style of famed film musical director Busby Berkeley.

BROTHER JOHN

This was something of a personal project for Sidney Poitier. Not only did he come up with the idea, but he also produced this story of a mysterious figure visiting his Alabama hometown for his sister's funeral. Playing opposite Poitier was Beverly Todd as a schoolteacher who falls in love with him. Beverly had previously worked with the star on Broadway:

We stayed in touch and developed a wonderful friendship. At lunch one day Sidney talked about a series of films he was making and asked me to be in them. I wanted to jump up and scream YES!!! But we were in the very refined Russian Tea Room, so I responded with a dignified yes.3

Todd subsequently featured in The Lost Man (1969), They Call Me Mr Tibbs (1970) and finally a co-starring role in Brother John. 'I was in heaven! And Sidney taught me the difference of working on a film set and on the stage.'4 On the first day of filming, Todd had a face full of make-up. 'Sidney had me take it all off. He, of course, was right. I was playing a shy schoolteacher and he wanted her innocence to show.'5

When Poitier's character first arrives, racial tensions rise in the town and local law enforcement label him as an agitator. Others suspect him of a more spiritual purpose. Is he a messenger from...