Dog Day Afternoon * * * * *

Director: Sidney Lumet.
Screenplay: Frank Pierson.
Starring: Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning, James Broderick, Chris Sarandon, Sully Boyar, Penelope Allen, Carol Kane, Lance Henriksen, Dick Anthony Williams, Philip Charles Mackenzie.

Al Pacino and John Cazale came into this film just off the back of completing “The Godfather parts I & II” together. Pacino also managed to do “Serpico” and Cazale “The Conversation” in-between. It was a good run they were both on in the early 70′s and this no less of a classic than the aforementioned ones.

On a hot day in New York, on 22nd August 1972, three men set out to rob a bank. It’s supposed to take ten minutes, but things start going wrong from the beginning when one of them bails at the last minute. Four hours later, the bank is surrounded by police, a media circus, and crowds of well wishers.

As the film opens, we are given a montage of New York life and it’s vastness and eclectic mix of people. Not before long though, we are then led into a bank by three men, who proceed to threaten the bank tellers with rifles. Within minutes, this true story has begun with such a tense and completely believable hold-up. The tension is, by-and-large, the masterwork of director Sidney Lumet and a strikingly powerful performance by Al Pacino. Lumet never let’s up for a moment, he has the camera moving at such a pace that the adrenaline of the bank robbery is also felt by the viewer. He has always been a highly respected director and on this evidence alone, you can see why. And then, almost suddenly, the pace is ground to a halt with a phone call… The police are watching everything that going on from across the street. This is when Lumet slows it down and gets closer to his actors and the claustrophobia of the situation. The performances are uniformly brilliant – making you forget that it’s actors you’re watching – but this is ultimately Pacino’s show. He highly on-edge, with despairing eyes and nervous ticks, desperately trying to hold everything together. He injects a real sympathy and believability to his character and it stands as one of his finest pieces of work. Added to which, with the body of work that Sidney Lumet has delivered over a career spanning 50 years (he died in 2011), this is one of his greatest achievements also.

An outstanding, naturalistic heist movie that boasts career highs and an unbearable tension that never let’s up. In a decade of fine cinema, this remains one of the best of the 70′s.

Mark Walker

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest * * * * *

Director: Milos Forman.
Screenplay: Lawrence Hauben, Bo Goldman.
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Brad Dourif, Sydney Lassick, Will Sampson, Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito, William Redfield, Scatman Crothers, Vincent Schiavelli, Michael Berryman, Nathan George, Dean R. Brooks, Anjelica Huston.

So far, only three films in the history of the Oscars have won all top five awards: Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress & Screenplay. Frank Capra’s “It Happened One Night” in 1934 was the first, Jonathan Demme’s “The Silence Of The Lambs” in 1991 was the third and this 1975 adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel was the second of the three, and the most deserving.

‘Randall Patrick McMurphy’ (Jack Nicholson) is a convict who fakes insanity to escape the confines of prison and instead, spend his remaining years of incarceration in a hospital. McMurphy gets more than he bargain for though, when he comes across the tyrannical Head Nurse (Louise Fletcher). Rebelling against her control over the vulnerable patients, McMurphy turns the hospital ward upside-down with his wildly infectious and challenging personality, which incurs the wrath of the embittered Nurse.

Written during the radical and rebellious 1960′s it perfectly captures the free-spirited nature of the times, embodied in McMurphy and his reactionary behaviour against a repressive and authoritarian society. Over the years Nicholson has always produced high quality performances and this is his definitive, but if left up to writer Kesey, he wouldn’t even have been given the role. Gene Hackman was Kesey’s prefered choice and although Hackman would undoubtably have been something special, this is the role Nicholson was born to play. The only difference between actor and character is that Nicholson’s appearance is nothing like the flame-haired Irishman described in the book, but he’s McMurphy in every other hazardous and feral way. It’s Nicholson’s moment of glory and he basks in it. In fact, the whole cast are sublime. From Will Sampson’s deaf-mute Native American ‘Chief’ to Brad Dourif’s Oscar Nominated stuttering immature ‘Billy Bibbit’ and the wonderful Louise Fletcher’s villianous, castrating ‘Nurse Ratched’. She’s quite possibly one of the finest screen villains and does a fantastic job of making you despise her with a passion.

In every aspect, this is a masterpiece and one of the finest cinematic achievments you’ll ever see. I can’t think of another film that is so completely perfect, with everything about it just screaming of quality. Masterful, emotive, uplifting and completely unmissable.

Included in My Top Ten films.

Mark Walker.