Memory Bank: Jaws Mania (1975 - 1976)

Following Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster adaptation of Peter Benchley’s best-selling novel Jaws in 1975, "Jaws-Mania" hit America hard.  The film was rated PG -- which is hard to believe today -- but this fact made the (bloody) horror movie fair game in terms of merchandising and toys.  Soon, toy stores added Jaws-inspired items to their racks, and kids could relive the thrills and screams of the movie.

Prime among these toys was Ideal’s The Game of Jaws, which I’ve featured here before. 

Designed for 2 to 4 players (ages 6 and up), the game box noted: "It's you against the great white shark...One wrong move, and the JAWS go snap!"  

The goal of this game was to utilize a probe to fish out contents from the shark's stomach without those fierce jaws snapping closed.   Some of those stomach contents included a human skull, a fish skeleton, a tire, a camera, a pistol, a glove, a boot, a walkie-talkie, and a wagon wheel (!).  In the version of the game I own today, these delicacies are all molded in white or blue plastic, but the game box shows different colored items.

Addar, a model kit company, featured Jaws in its “super scenes” product line in 1975 as well.  Here, young modelers could create a detailed diorama from the movie...in a bottle.  Addar described this kit as an “exciting replica from the movie Jaws.”  It featured a miniature oceanographer, a diving cage, the great white shark and a full-color background.

I also remember a Jaws-Mania collectible that I found at the school Book-Mobile when I was in kindergarten, and promptly purchased.  It is a book from author Phil Hirsch titled 101 Shark Jokes: Biting Humor From Our Funny, Finny Friends (1976).  This book featured page after page of ridiculous, terrible shark-related puns and jokes like: What makes an ideal shark breakfast?

Captain Crunch.

I can’t stress enough how much I absolutely loved this book as a six year-old kid, and I must have read the darn book a dozen times.  For a spell, I took 101 Shark Jokes with me everywhere, especially when my Mom went shopping at the Fabric Ville store in Cedar Grove, NJ, which always seemed to take forever.  

The funny thing about the book, looking back on it, is that it featured a lot of pop culture references that, at six, I couldn’t possibly have recognized.  For instance, one joke included a reference to a shark game show, Tooth or Consequences, which would have been an allusion to Truth or Consequences(1950)…which I never saw.

I also remember with envy that my friend Stephen who lived on Ridgewood Avenue wore a custom-made Jaws Halloween costume to kindergarten that year. I don’t remember what I wore for Halloween in Kindergarten, but I absolutely remember every detail of that huge, canvas, toothy shark head costume to this day.  Also, Collegeville released a standard plastic costume of the Shark from Jaws for those kids without the wherewithal to create their own.

The mid-1970s also brought the Jaws knock-off movie by the veritable boatload.  There were sea-based movies such as Orca(1976), Tentacles (1977), Tintorera: Tiger Shark (1977), Barracuda(1978), Piranha (1978), and Killer Fish (1979).  There were also land-based knock-offs, including William Girdler’s Grizzly (1976) and Day of the Animals (1977).

Television programming wanted a piece of the profitble Jaws action as well.  Chevy Chase memorably appeared in a Saturday Night Live skit during its first season in 1975 as a “land shark,” an “urban predator” capable of “disguising its voice”(!) and striking at any time or place.  On a more serious note, a 1977 episode of The Six-Million Dollar Man featured the Bionic Steve Austin (Lee Majors) tangling with sharks.

By 1978 and the franchise sequel, Jaws 2, the shark-based merchandising effort was at full steam ahead with photo-novels, trading cards, a novelization and the like, but by then, the manic moment had passed.  Today, I recall this spell of my youth with tremendous fondness, especially as Jaws-Mania occurred pre-Star Wars, and  shared the pop-culture with Bicentennial Fever, Space: 1999, and Logan's Run.

Below, a few videos that reflect 1975 and 1976, the great age of Jaws-Mania.

 

316. The Stepford Wives

316. (22 Dec) The Stepford Wives (1975, Bryan Forbes) 66



A pretty powerful film about marital discontent, the themes here are so depressing they completely outweigh a far-fetched sci-fi plot. Katharine Ross is excellent here, expressing perfectly a longing to experience passion again while she's resigned to keeping to her wifely duties. The film itself isn't really doing anything better than Invasion of the Body Snatchers did, but it's a far less optimistic movie than that was. Ultimately, the men's attempt to stifle feminism wins out, making this truly dark stuff.

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Land of the Lost: "Blackout" (November 29, 1975)

The final episode of Land of the Lost’s second season is called “Blackout,” and alas, it’s a bit of a retread. 

“Blackout” is essentially the same story as seen in “The Longest Day” and “One of Our Pylons is Missing.”  

In all three of these stories, something goes wrong with the smooth functioning of the Land of the Lost, and the Marshalls must step in and set things right, usually with some push-back from the (ignorant) Sleestak.  It’s a story about environmentalism, essentially, and shepherding the land wisely so that all may profit and prosper from it.

In “Blackout,” the Sleestak have made use of the secret second clock pylon to freeze time during the night.  They have done this foolish thing so that the the Altrusian moths, which fertilize Sleestak eggs, can proliferate in number, and thousands of Sleestak eggs will hatch.   Eternal night, they believe, will restore the Sleestak race to its former glory.

However, the Sleestak haven’t realized that without the warmth of the sun, the temperature will drop, and the moths will die out quickly.  In trying to improve their existence, the Sleestak have only endangered it.  Again, it's not difficult to read this as a metaphor for misuse of the environment.

Enik (Walker Edmiston) visits the Marshalls after questioning the Library of Skulls, and seeks Marshall’s help in convincing the Sleestaks of their error.  Because Rick Marshall has saved the Sleestak in the past, he can return to the Lost City on this occasion under the protection of a clause called “Altrusian Grace.”

As expected, the Marshalls set things right in the end, and all is well.

In all, “Blackout” is a safe, predictable and rather unsatisfying end to a strong season of this Sid and Marty Krofft series.  Stand-out episodes include “The Zarn,” “The Musician,” “Split Personality,” and the outstanding “The Pylon Express.”  

There have been some stinkers too (“Nice Day,” for instance), but overall the series offers many strong installments in its sophomore sortie.  What I like most about the second season is that it stretches the boundaries of the land, with episodes about Altrusia’s strange, pulsing heart (“One of Our Pylons is Missing,”) and a periodic portal between worlds (“The Pylon Express”).  Even in the weaker episodes there is a sense of consistency and order to this universe.

The third season of Land of the Lost -- which I start blogging next week -- absolutely changes the game.  Rick Marshall (Spencer Milligan) disappears from the series, replaced by Uncle Jack (Ron Harper), and many shifts in terms of continuity occur. 

But we’ll get to all that soon enough…

Next week: “After Shock.”

Collectible of the Week: Star Trek: Mission to Gamma VI Playset (Mego; 1976)

I recently featured here the Mego U.S.S. Enterprise bridge set from the seventies.  In 1975, Mego also produced a great Star Trek toy to stand alongside it, the rare Mission to Gamma VI playset.

This Mego playset offered a landing party-style adventure for the young Star Trek fan, showcasing a an alien landscape and headquarters.  

As you may recognize, the plastic mold of the giant alien statue or icon roughly resembles Vaal from the second season Star Trek episode “The Apple.”  Still, there are some interesting variations here, namely the miniature “Gamma Creature” aliens, also described in a TV commercial of the day as “Lilliputians.”

This eighteen-inch high playset came with the mountain statue and throne, a platform and a trap door leading down to a subterranean cave  It also included a giant lizard-like glove (or a “glove creature”) meant for grabbing and detaining your Starfleet crew.  The statue’s reptilian mouth was also movable, and the eyes could glow-in-the-dark.  The mountain is an impressive hunk of plastic, even today.

I must confess, however, that it always bugged me that the Gamma Creatures were out of scale with the Mego Star Trek action figures. It would have been a lot cooler if they had been of the same size, and not so cartoonish in design.  They look kind of silly, frankly.

I remember how I purchased a second-hand Mission to Gamma VI playset in 1987 from a small dealer in Nutley, New Jersey.  He sold it to me for fifty dollars, replete with box and also some loose Mego figures of Green Goblin, Iron Man, the Star Trek Neptunian, and the Gorn.  Alas, I no longer own the box.  It got thrown away when I was in college, in 1990, a fact which drives me crazy.  (That was also the span during which I lost my box for the Kenner Imperial Shuttle from Return of the Jedi.)

My second-hand Mission to Gamma VI set was missing the subterranean cave architecture and glove.  So it was really just the Vaal-like mountain, the inhospitable landscape, the platform, and the mini-aliens.  

Still, my son Joel has gotten a lot of play out of it lately, as it remains proudly on display in my office.  When his Decepticons or Renegades need a base, Joel uses the Mission to Gamma VI statue.  He does so, he says, because it looks evil.

This is a relatively rare Mego Star Trek set, and I hear that it is difficult and expensive to come by.  I would love to find one with all the pieces and the box, but I’m not holding my breath.  

Below, you'll find the TV commercial for the Mission to Gamma VI statue.  You'll notice that there it seem to molded in blue or gray, rather than green. 

 

229. Satan's Triangle

229. (30 Sep) Satan's Triangle (1975, Sutton Roley) 39



There's a tremendous amount of payoff in the twist ending, but the build-up feels a tad excruciating. At best, this could pass for a minor, overlong Twilight Zone episode.

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Land of the Lost: "The Test" (October 4, 1975)

This week on Land of the Lost’s second season, Chaka (Philip Paley) undergoes a rite of passage or “test of manhood.”

In “The Test,” the Pakuni youngster must steal one of Big Alice’s eggs at the Lost City, and bring it back to Ta and Sa in the jungle.  The problem occurs, however, when the egg hatches, and little Junior -- an Allosaurus -- thinks Holly (Kathy Coleman) is his Mom.

There’s a lot of running around in this episode, and not much in terms of plot development.  Will (Wesley Eure) and Holly try to help Chaka any way they can, whether reflecting blind sun-light in Big Alice’s eyes or helping him roll her over-sized egg into an abandoned Sleestak temple.

The big story, perhaps, is the sheer number of special effects and miniatures that appear here.  There are some terrific shots of Big Alice on the prowl and on the attack, for instance.  When Will, Holly and Chaka get the egg safely into the old temple (a beautiful miniature), Big Alice’s head just right at them (and us) through the structure’s pillars.  It’s one of the best effects shots so far this season.  Also, we’ll see this temple again in a later episode involving Chaka.

“The Test” also gives Land of the Lost a memorble new “creature,” the squeaking and generally adorable baby Allosaur named Junior.

These are all pluses to this particular episode but -- as we saw in an earlier episode -- there’s an ingrained sense of sexism on the programs in regards to Holly.  Twice in “The Test,” she is dismissed as being just a “little girl” and therefore unable to understand rites of passage/manhood.

It’s an extremely narrow view of sex roles, alas, and a bit insulting too.  At the end of the show, Chaka gives Will the “mark,” of “Big Man Magic” for his help in securing the egg.  Yet Holly is just as much a help to him as Will is during the crisis, and she gets no props or medals whatsoever.. 

Next week on Land of the Lost: “Gravity Storm.”

192. Bug

192. (07 Sep) Bug (1975, Jeannot Szwarc) 30



Bug exemplifies how most insect creature features are all novel concept with no follow-through. Here it's fire-starting beetles that emerge following an earthquake. Despite their ability, they're thoroughly unmenacing, looking downright silly whenever they latch onto people. A few amusing moments lighten the mood, like when a woman's hair is set ablaze by a critter. It's also fairly awesome late in the film when the bugs join together to spell out words. Otherwise, this is beyond dull.

The Final Conclusion - Best Actress 1975

1975

So the much anticipated ranking is:

5. Ann-Margret in Tommy

Shame on the Academy. I'm sure this performance has its share of fans but I'm a staunch naysayer to this one. Not only is it ridiculous at some points, but it's also unbearably boring. The best thing that I can say about this performance that it's certainly unforgettable though in this case being forgettable would be way better.

4. Glenda Jackson in Hedda

I'm just as stunned about this as you are. While I expected her to become my pick, I was really disappointed by Glenda Jackson in Hedda. The movie itself had a lot to do with that but still. Althuogh this performance also has its share of fans, I'm not one of them, either. Personally, I would expect more from Glenda.

3. Carol Kane in Hester Street

You might be surprised that she's only third as I seemed reallly fond of her in my review. To tell the truth, I would have praised any great performance to graces after Ann-Margret. Still, Kane is really good as Gitl, her presence is just lovely and I really cared about her and was interested in what comes to her next.

2. Louise Fletcher in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

I used to be stunned by the fact that she won but right now I'm not that shocked considering her competition. Although she's supporting, she still pulls off a great performance as the evil Nurse Ratched and she indeed created an iconic character. It's just that I wasn't that blown away by her work in this movie.

1. Isabelle Adjani in The Story of Adèle H.

The saving grace. The shining light. My only hope. If it wasn't for Adjani's performance, I would stop reviewing after this horrid year. Thankfully, Adjani is just astonishing as Adèle Hugo, giving one of the most interesting and unique performances that I've ever seen. She's so full of passion, drama and romance that it's a real emotional joy to see her. Her beauty and talent shines through the movie and makes it even better than it already is.

So I can proudly announce

the winner is...

Isabelle Adjani

in

The Story of Adele H.

Easy win.

Final thoughts: Horrible year, arguably the worst one ever. Only Isabelle Adjani was really, truly worthy of the Oscar, the others... Wow. Fletcher, Kane and Jackson were all good, I just wasn't amazed by them. The ranking could have been any way. I don't even want to talk about Ann-Margret. I guess my thoughts on this year weren't exactly loved, to put it delicately, sorry about that.

The ranking of the reviewed years:

1. 1944
2. 1969
3. 1974
4. 1989
5. 1959
6. 2006
7. 1978
8. 2010
9. 1996
10. 1964
11. 1939
12. 1977
13. 1997
14. 2009
15. 1980
16. 1941
17. 1972
18. 1963
19. 1966
20. 1973
21. 1983
22. 1986
23. 1937
24. 1990
25. 1954
26. 1958
27. 1948
28. 2002
29. 1957
30. 1940
31. 1998
32. 1975

About the next: this year was requested by the winner of the last predicting contest and it's full of romance and grief.

What do you think? Any thoughts on your mind?

Carol Kane in Hester Street

Carol Kane received her only Oscar nomination for playing Gitl, a young Jewish woman who comes to America after her hsuband in hester Street. It's pretty much a miracle that Kane was nominated for the Oscar. She was extremely young, she played in an incredibly small movie, most of her performance was in Yiddish and she wasn't nominated for anything else. I think she was either fourth or fifth in the voting, despite the fact that she's way better than the horrible Ann-Margret. I think in Carol Kane's case it was true that "It's an honor just to be nominated."

Hester Street is quite a good movie and I enjoyed it quite a bit. One can consider it as a kind of sequel to Fiddler on the Roof. They have nothing to do with each other but Hester Stret shows a great portrait of how Tevye and his family must have felt after they left for America. Although Hester Street is a seemingly low-budget movie, it's really a well-made, well-written movie and the direction is also quite great. The characters were realistic and the performances were quite good, especially the one by Doris Roberts who's really excellent.

I really don't know much about Carol Kane. I've only seen four of her movies (counting Hester Street) and while I think she was good in all of them, I don't think that she's the best actress ever. I guess I shouldn't make judgements so soon but I don't feel that she truly rocks. Still, I can still enjoy her in her roles and that was most certainly the case with Hester Street, in which she played Gitl, a woman who doesn't know what to do to both please her husband and keep to the traditions. Although Gitl is a very simple person, I think she's a very interesting character, mostly because of the changes that she goes through.

Kane plays Gitl in a very subtle way and she shows that Gitl is a very shy and repressed woman who's willing to obey. She's a bit of like O-Lan from The Good Earth though there's a big difference between them. There's a point for Gitl when she says that she's had enough. And it's most certainly a very significant moment in Kane's performance.

But I wouldn't go that far yet. When we first see Gitl, she's the previously mentioned shy, obedient woman. She's so real as Gitl in those moments. It's almost impossible not to be touched by Gitl's storyline in this movie. His husband, Jake is a really hysterical guy and Gitl's quietness is such a great opposition. You can really feel the tension between them. Gitl represents the old country, Jake's new lover represents the USA, the freedom.

Gitl, however, tries to get used to America and she tries to become an American woman despite her initial opposition to it. It's really sad moment when we see her with her new hair and her husband wants to get it off and she says that it's not a wig, it's her real hair. That's probably the only loud moment in the performance and that's the siginificant moment when Gitl's revolt begins. Kane shows Gitl's development really well and all the actions were understandable and logic.

It's probably Kane's charisma that makes Gitl such an interesting character. Her work here is not amazing or ground-breaking at all but it's really lovely. And thtat has a lot to do with Kane's on-screen presence. Whenever Gitl is there, I felt fine because I knew that it was going to be a nice scene. I know that sound a little bit awkward but it totally true, I think.

All in all, this was a really great performance by Carol Kane that may not reach the stars but it's a really enjoyable piece of work. Kane plays Gitl with very much charisma and she makes Gitl a very interesting and loveable charater. Although she's not amazing, she's still a great relief in a year where one has to watch horrid performances like Ann-Margret in Tommy.

At last, a normal rating.

What do you think? The Final Conclusion comes soon.

Glenda Jackson in Hedda

Glenda Jackson received her fourth Best Actress nomination for playing Hedda Gabler, Ibsen's heroine in the 1975 film version, Hedda. When you get a really weird year like 1975, you don't know what to think about how the voting could have been. I guess the two traditional performances (Fletcher and Adjani) were the most popular among Academy members and the two of them got the 75% of the votes. The order of the other ladies could have been anyway. They might have thought that Ann-Margret was due (God forbid!) or they were charmed by Carol Kane or they loved their favorite, Glenda Jackson in Hedda. I guess the Academy wasn't keen to give her a third award (since she didn't care if she had one, let alone three) so she didn't get that many votes.

Hedda is a really weird movie (OK, in 1975, weird is another way for me to say BAD). I tell you how the filminf of Hedda must have looked like. The played as if it was a play and there were a couple of cameras there to record it. This movie is nothing but a filmed stage play. There isn't anything special about it, even the sets are like on the stage. I guess this movie works for television but not for the big screen. And we can see that in the performances of the actors. First they are great but the immense amount of energy that's inside them becomes really tedious after a while. These are stage performances.

I'd like to say that Glenda Jackson's work here is different but it isn't, unfortunately. I really love Glenda Jackson and I consider her one of the greatest actresses. I think she was the Cate Blanchett of the 70s. An Oscar-favorite actress who has an incredible, radiant presence and a very uniquel beauty. Whenever I see Glenda Jackson, I immediately think "great actress, great actress, great actress". In each of her moves you see the brilliance that she has. And that's also apparent in Hedda. Still, I had very serious problems with her performance.

As I said, Hedda is like a stage play and the performances are all really theatrical (1975 wasvery unusual in that way, too, they also nominated James Whitmore in Give 'em Hell Harry!) and so is Glenda's work. At the beginning Hedda's character is really deliciously full of malice and she's a very enjoyable presence. In some times, all those mannerisms that she uses become tedious because they all seem to much. What I'm trying to say, that this would be an amazing performance on the stage but in a movie, it isn't. Plain and simple.

I really liked that Glenda made Hedda more and more nervous and desperate. Hedda is a very controlling, cold woman who becomes a victim after all. I feel that Glenda developed Hedda quite well and she really made Hedda a believable person. I just didn't feel that Hedda was such an extraordinary character. I guess this must be blasphemy but I think it's Ibsen's fault. I really didn't feel interested in Hedda as she didn't have much depth written to her. Still, I think that Glenda put enough emotion into her work and it all worked this way.

However, what I mostly love about Glenda Jackson's performances, a strange, indescribable feeling that I always feel, wasn't present in Hedda and that was probably the biggest disappointment of all. In the beginning, it was there in bits and pieces but as the movie went on, it just disappeared. That strange, mysterious thing made her work in the lightweight A Touch of Class brilliant and it wasn't here to make her performance as Hedda Gabler great. Overall, that was the biggest problem here.

Still, towards the end, her performance becomes much more dynamic and the ending is really great. It's theatrical and yet there's something really haunting about it. To tell the truth, while it wasn't amazing, it was really great and memorable.

All in all, this performance was still a huge disappointment for me. I guess the play wasn't for my taste or the movie affected me. I can't really believe that it was Glenda's fault as I always love her. While I don't think that she was really great here, I don't feel either that she was bad at all. This was a really decent job but I would expect more from Glenda Jackson than a decent job.

What the hell is going on with this year?

What do you think? It's time for the last predictions. If you want to see Hedda, click here.

To see Tommy (good luck), click HERE.

Ann-Margret in Tommy

Ann-Margret received her second Oscar nomination for playing Nora Walker, the mother of the title character in Tommy. She had already won a Golden Globe and she was a big star but I don't think that the Academy really warmed up to her performance in Tommy. The younger generation, maybe, but I just can't imagine Irene Dunne or Joan Crawford voting for Ann-Margret in Tommy. I think she was either fourth or fifth, depending on how much they loved Carol Kane in Hester Street. I guess Ann-Margret was more popular and that gave her the edge over Kane.

Tommy is such a starng, unusual movie. I mean its trailer promises that your senses will never be the same. That's not true, however, it's a really dazzling experience. It seems as if the filmmakers were high on drugs while they were making it. Everything is irreal, illogical, chaotic, weird and it's very unbearable in the beginning. Although in time I got used to it, I never really liked it as it's really about nothing and it doesn't even have a meaning even though it's desperate to be very "in" and meaningful. It isn't, it doesn't say anything, there's absolutely no point in it. There's so much "vibration" that The China Syndrome plaes in comparision with it. Gee...

I have never seen a weirder Best Actress performance than the one that Ann-Margret gives as Nora Walker. I am not that much of a fan of Ann-Margret in general. While I have no problems with her, I don't think that she's that great as an actress. Of course, she sings very well and she has lots of charisma but I never felt that she bursts with acting talent. That being said, I was still hoping that this performance of hers will make me change my mind about her. It didn't, unfortunately.

Again, the best best word to describe her work here is weird. In a movie like Tommy, you don't expect any development in the characters but Nora is actually chaning during the movie. However, Ann-Margret has almost nothing to do with that. Everything is so illogical about her. I guess that was the point but I think the characters should make some sense in any movie. I mean, there are at least 10 Noras in the movie and Ann-Margret plays them all. We begin with a silent, kind and beautiful Nora. Ann-Margret doesn't speak at all there and I guess those scenes were handled quite well.

Her singing is excellent but for performer with her routine it's really not a big deal at all. She doesn't put any real emotion into the songs. There were places when I was touched by Nora but those moments were so minimal. In bits and pieces, she was great but somehow I had a very odd and almost disturbing experience and not in a good way. In some of the scenes, Ann-Margret is horrible, plain and simple. I mean that dancing in front of the mirror is just ridiculous and way more exaggerated than it should have been. I guess the director, Ken Russell should have held her back. I was laughing so hard that I almost drowned and couldn't breathe. It was really a failed moment.

And this is not even my biggest problem with her. For most of the time, she's in the background, just standing or sitting next to her son. Although sometimes she hugs her son and such, I never really felt any connection, or special love between the two of them. Sometimes they seemed like lovers not a mother and her son. I guess they wanted to make this a very odd relationship. It is odd and yet it was so obvious for me. Not even Ann-Margret's charisma could save those moments. Everything just failed.

If you ask me, this performance is a total failure and I'm astonished that it was actually in contention for an Oscar nominateion, let alone a win. Ann-Margret has a great presence but she's unable to make anything out of this mess of a movie. There are attempts but all of them failed. A true disappointment. A bad performance, plain and simple. Not mediocre, not weak, BAD.

I'm astonished that I have to give such a low rating.

What do you think?

Louise Fletcher in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest

Louise Fletcher received her only Oscar nomination and Oscar win for playing Nurse Mildred Ratched, an evil nurse in a mental instituition in Milos Forman's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. It's easy to see why Fletcher won the Oscar: she was in the Best Picture winner and she she was the only one who had a traditional Oscar role. Most of the other movies were really small and/or unusual and Fletcher's only real rival, Isabelle Adjani had a mostly French-speaking role. I guess she still threatened Fletcher but I guess she had an easy win after all. 1975 wasn't the greatest year when it came to Lead Actress performances so a supporting performance could actually even win.

One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest is a movie that varies with my all the time. Sometimes I can go crazy about it and sometimes I can't stand it. Right now, I really loved it and I was blown away. I admire Milos Forman as a director very much even though I feel that his Czeckoslovakian movies were probably his best ones. Still, he's a great director anywhere, I'm just saying. The only thing that I always appreciate about this movie is Jack's leading performance as McMurphy. He's just brilliant though I would have probably voted for Al Pacino (but not as easily as I would have earlier). Brad Dourif is quite good and deserved his nod though I wouldn't give him the win.

Louise Fletcher was a so-called "one hit wonder". It's always very dangerous to win an Oscar when you're not that famous as they begin to typecast you (Fletcher) or they just forget you when it's proven that you're not what they wanted (Luise Rainer). Nurse Ratched was a role that was turned downed by some great actresses like Jane Fonda (I'm just wondering how she would have been here), Faye Dunaway, Anne Bancroft (she would have killed in this part, I think) and Angela Lansbury (wow, I wish that had happened, she would have been so interesting). So the relatively unknown Lousie Fletcher played the part. I guess, with hindsight, it was a great decision as many love this performance.

But I'm not one of them, unfortunately. Honestly, I really tried to like her and I actually did, I just never felt that this performance was as amazing as some say. Although she has her moments, her whole work is nothing really remarkable. First of all, I couldn't really decide if Nurse Ratched was really that evil. I suspected that she just wanted to keep a distance while she was doing her job. Some say that she's the devil itself but I wouldn't say so. She's a cold, and probably even manipulative woman who just wants to keep order. She's always deathly calm and she doesn't seem to be terrified by the patients.

What I do like about this performance is that Fletcher plays nurse Ratched with such calmness and subtlty. There are no over-the-top screams by her, mostly she's just sitting and looking in a very icy way. I could say that she did nothing in this part and I would probably be close to reality, however, I felt Fletcher got very much out of this part that's isn't exactly deep. She's not amazing because she cannot be amazing as Nurse Ratched. She's a very simple, uninteresting woman and there isn't much drama about her. She's just there and we can see some of her actions. Yet Fletcher did her best to make Nurse Ratched interesting. I guess she succeeded in a way, as her performance was never that boring, I just could't see the real brilliance.

However, I did like the nuances that Louise added to the character. I don't know why I felt that but this character seemed a bit delicious, especially when she was being quite mean and cold. For example, in the end, she tortures a boy into suicide and that's a brilliantly acted moment by Fletcher. That scene impressed me very much and I thought it was handled extremely well by her.

Still, I don't know what to say about Louise Fletcher in this movie. She's indeed very good but nothing amazing. Although some go crazy about her subtle evilness, she left me a little bit cold. There are excellent moments and the overall effect on me was really positive, I just feel that she wasn't that great.

Very hard rating. She's between a 3,5 and a 4. It might be surprising that I went with the latter. I just compared her to other performances and she was better than some who got 4s.

What do you think?

Isabelle Adjani in The Story of Adèle H.

Isabelle Adjani received her first Oscar nomination at the age of 20 for playing Adèle Hugo, the troubled daughter of the famed French author, Victor Hugo, in Francois Truffaut's movie, The Story of Adèle H. Adjani caused a real sensation with this performance of hers and I think that she would have won the Oscar if Louise Fletcher had been nominated in the supporting category (where she really did belong). Adjani was the critics' favorite, she was young, she was beautiful and had a great chance of winning that year. I guess the fact that she was relatively unknown and she was in a French movie prevented her from winning the Oscar. I still believe that she was much closer to winning than some would assume.

The Story of Adèle H. is a really great movie and I'm quite surprised that it wasn't nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. Dersu Uzala (the one that won) was better, I think but a nod would have been deserved for this one, in my opinion. Truffaut was a brilliant-brilliant director and he shows his talents in this movie, too. There's so much tension in this movie and I really felt as if I was reading a romantic French novel. It's full of passion and excitement and it most certainly impressed me. French movies are so great and this piece is just another proof of my theory.

The story is about Adèle Hugo, the daughter of Victor Hugo who falls for a handsome soldier who rejects her all the time and treats her like an animal. This is a really tragic, sad story and once you read it, you immediately think about Isabelle Adjani. In my humble opinion, Adjani was born to do this part. Adèle is a mentally unstable, fragile woman and Adjani's just brilliant at playing this kind of characters. I'm just thinking about her work as Camille Claudel. That's a really weird character (in a weird movie) and yet Adjani injected so much passion into her and the result was something immense. Adjani represents what I love about French cinema in general. She's so unique and she doesn't fall into any categories. She has an own category.

Very much like her performance as Adèle as Adjani is just fantastic as Adèle Hugo. This work is very hard to write about and mostly because of its really unique nature. It's neither subtle nor over-the-top and it's so full of hidden layers. I guess my only complaint could be that it started out a little bit slow but that could have been due to the fact that Adjani wanted to show all the layers of Adèle very carefully and in detail.

Adjani's performance is just like music. The emotions are flowing and you cannot really interpret those feelings because there are so many of them. She's so thrilling and she's never out of tune. There's perfect harmony in her performance even when we see Adèle falling apart. Watching that process is not very easy or pleasant but it is indeed a thrill. The development of Adèle is so fantastic. Adjani went from point A to at least point Z (she covered the whole alphabet and went beyond that). It was a really mindblowing journey for me to see her.

Adjani goes beyond that and she's so haunting in some of the scenes. Adèle's dead sister, Leopoldine haunts her in nightmares. We can see a girl drowning and those are really scary images and Adjani makes them even more terrifying. I guess these must have worsened Adèle's mental state and Adjani shows all this beautifully.

There are scenes where Adèle is begging her love not to leave her and marry her. Interesting enough, what I felt for her was not exactly pity, I was actually quite fascinated by her passion and love. She may have only been in love with the love for the guy but it doesn't really matter as Adèle's emotions seem to be so pure and true. It was really beautiful and it never became a cheap romance. It was as romantic as the renowned French novels themselves. I certainly had the same feeling while watching her that I felt while I was reading the French classics. It was just brilliant.

All in all, Isabelle Adjani is just amazing as Adèle Hugo, giving one of the most interesting and unique performances that I've ever seen. She's so full of passion, drama and romance that it's a real emotional joy to see her. Her beauty and talent shines through the movie and makes it even better than it already is. It's really wonderful, haunting and unforgettable work by a great actress.

What do you think? Watch the movie HERE.

The Next Year

1975

So the nominees were:

• Isabelle Adjani in The Story of Adèle H.
• Ann-Margret in Tommy
• Louise Fletcher in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
• Glenda Jackson in Hedda
• Carol Kane in Hester Street

Since I still don't have In America, I'll do this year that's said to be really weak but I haven't seen four of them yeat so it will be very interesting for me, at least.

What do you think? What's your ranking? What do you predict for my ranking?