I was stationed in Portsmouth, N.H., in the early ‘70s and once witnessed a movie line there that stretched around a full block.
People at the end of the line were maybe six steps from the box office but they were going to endure a long wait and lots of shuffling before they could buy a ticket.
The movie? The Exorcist, a film so intense that there were reports of viewers having heart attacks in the theatre.
I didn’t see the Exorcist at the time, but may watch it soon.
If you were around in the 1970s, you remember there were a few highlights and plenty of what I suppose we could call cultural tragedies in that decade.
Among the tragedies would be Watergate, the Jimmy Carter presidency, 11.2 percent mortgage rates, leisure suits, disco music and gasoline shortages.
On the plus side, the Vietnam War ended and Apple computers booted up on April 1, 1976.
And there were the movies. Movies which may be the best and most lasting legacy of an otherwise forgettable decade.
If you were there, you remember that movies were a bigger deal then than they are now. Big enough for people to line up around an entire city block.
Recent movies have tended to be about comic books or video games, with the occasional winner, usually featuring Matt Damon.
The modern movies have good special effects and computer generated graphics, but hardly any of the stories are worth remembering after they roll the credits. But the 1970s...
The ‘70s gave us Jaws, Star Wars, The Sting, The Godfather, Serpico, Close Encounters of The Third Kind, Soylent Green, The Deer Hunter, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Patton, American Graffiti, Alien, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Chinatown, Apocalypse Now, All The President’s Men, Deliverance and my favorite, The Last Picture Show.
Some good flicks right there, and that’s just a starter list.
You may recall that Kindra was not around in the 1970s - (And, Kindra, if you are reading this, please avert your gaze for a few words) and it came to my attention recently that the poor girl had not seen any of the movies on that list.
So, we began going through the list and have seen eight so far. Dirty Harry, Jaws, All The President’s Men, The Sting, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Soylent Green, The Last Picture Show and a portion of Play Misty for Me.
It’s been a fun exercise and it made my day, as Harry Callahan would have said.