1972: Some Nominees

Cinematography, documentary, and film editing - these are the films honored in those categories only, who didn't break the threshold into the music, screenplay, acting, directing, or Picture categories - though, frankly, one or more of them definitely should have:

The Rest of the Gang

And here, besides the Oscar nominees, are all the other movies I watched:

Other Golds from 1972

Yesterday, we looked at the Golden Globes. Today, we look at the films honored by other awards ceremonies, keeping movies and their makers in the minds of Academy members up to the moment they turned their nomination ballots in.

The 30th Golden Globes

Ah, the Golden Globes! Awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association since 1944, they're a guaranteed mix of future Oscar nominees, bizarre curiosities, and genuinely good movies. As it is now, so it was in 1972 when, alongside eventual Academy Award nominees, these were the honored films:

Crimes of '72

When The Godfather won Best Picture, it became the fourth crime drama to do so. Crime seemed to be on the mind of the 1970s film community: The Godfather was the second of four consecutive Best Picture winners in the subgenre, and the first of three to completely center the criminals as the protagonists. Maybe it was the pessimism of the ongoing Vietnam War, maybe it was the way the Tate-LaBianca murders brought a violent end to a hopeful decade, maybe it was the loosening of restrictions and complete dismantling of the Production Code in 1968. Whatever the reason, crime was a big focus for the industry, from independent exploitation efforts to big studio programmers. Such as:

Old Friends of '72

In addition to what I'd never seen before, there are, of course, a good amount of 1972 movies I had. Cabaret, The Godfather, Man of La Mancha, and these...

Why '72?

I told myself I wasn't going to do another 70s retrospective.

After all, with 1970 just in the books back in December, that would make six editions of this retrospective series devoted to that one decade - more than any other! It was time to give more love to the 30s, the 40s, the 90s...

But then I went back home for an extended period of time. I saw family. And they all had recommendations. Well, not so much the kind of "You should see this!" recommendations, more like they reference a movie, I said I'd never seen it, they said, "You've never seen it?! You?! Oh, Walter, you got to see this movie!" So I started noting them down and, whether it says something about that year or their age, realized that every single movie they recommended was from 1972! The signs were clear: I must close the gap between 1968-1971 and 1973-1976.

These were the films they recommended: