No Time For Superheroes: The Films of 1975

In 1975, Al Pacino bookended the year in movies. As January dawned, The Godfather, Part II was the number one film in the US, with Pacino reprising his role as Michael, the youngest son of everybody’s favorite mafia family, the Corleones. At year’s end, Dog Day Afternoon, with Pacino as bank robber Sonny Wortzik, who enters the media spotlight when the robbery goes awry, made it to number one three months after its release.

Conversely, the first chart-topping film in 2024 (the last full year of film releases we can consider) was Wonka, a musical prequel to Roald Dahl’s classic children’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (itself the subject of more than one film iteration). The last number one film of the year was Sonic the Hedgehog 3, based on a video game about a spiny mammal from outer space.

Comparing the top grossing films of each year is equally striking.  1975’s US Top 10 doesn’t contain a single animated film or superhero movie. Meanwhile, the likes of Inside Out 2, Deadpool & Wolverine, and Kung Fu Panda 4 clutter 2024’s listing. The only Top 10 grosser that wasn’t animated or a sequel was Wicked (though it will become the cornerstone of a massive new franchise, as a sequel comes out this November).

What a time it was back then, when directors were more likely to gear mainstream films toward grown-ups. It was an era when no self-respecting adult would have an action figure anywhere near their office cubicle.

Which isn’t to say that 1975 was a year of non-stop, high-end classics. There were legendary flops, like At Long Last Love, director Peter Bogdanovich’s attempt to make a musical based around Cole Porter songs (neither Cybill Shepherd or Burt Reynolds could sing or dance very well; who knew?). Once Is Not Enough, based on Jacqueline Susann’s best-selling novel about a young woman with a daddy complex might’ve brought in over 15 million at the box office, but can anybody today name a cast member or recall a single plot detail? Oscar-nominated actress Lynn Redgrave went slumming and turned up in The Happy Hooker. And Blazing Stewardesses sadly didn’t live up to the potential of its title.

Still, you didn’t have to rely on explosions to lure an audience in. There were plenty of films with substance, not two-and-a-half hour commercials for “collectible” dolls and t-shirts. Audiences weren’t as routinely set up to be spoonfed; you expected films to challenge you. Movies also understood the meaning of nuance. It’s why you can feel some sympathy for Pacino’s Michael Corleone and Sonny Wortzik, even though they’re both criminals. And really, faced with a choice between One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Passenger, and Shampoo or a bill of more recent offerings like Despicable Me 4, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, and The Garfield Movie (all number one hits in 2024), which slate looks better to you?

1975 featured films that tapped into a growing paranoia —understandable in the aftermath of Watergate—such as Three Days of the Condor, with Robert Redford as a CIA researcher on the run after everyone else in the branch office where he works is killed. And the future didn’t look like it would be much better. In The Stepford Wives, Katharine Ross moves to suburban Connecticut with her husband only to learn the new community has dedicated itself to turning all the women into robots. Makes domestic life a lot easier—for some.

And you can see the seeds of the Hunger Games franchise in films like Death Race 2000 and Rollerball, both set in dystopian futures where violent games of sport entertain (and control) the masses. Producer Roger Corman actually rushed out Death Race 2000 to beat Rollerball to the release date punch; the latter film had the promotional support of a major studio behind it (United Artists). The scrappier Death Race 2000 (produced by Corman’s New World Pictures) concerns a coast-to-coast car race where drivers earn extra points by mowing down pedestrians (hitting the under-12s or over-70s gets you the higher scores). A post-Kung Fu David Carradine and a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone provide the requisite macho component; Simone Griffeth and Louisa Moritz obligingly doff their tops to provide the requisite titillation factor.

Rollerball (based on a taut short story by William Harrison, who wrote the film’s script) is far more serious in its approach. In this world, corporations have replaced countries, with Rollerball, an amped-up version of roller derby (that includes motorcycles) serving up the bread and circuses. The conflict comes when Houston star player Jonathan E (James Caan) is pressured to resign. Being a soloist flies in the face of promoting that all-important team spirit; this homogenous society brooks no individuality.

Director Norman Jewison explains in the DVD’s commentary that he intended the film to be critical about society’s promotion of violence as entertainment. So he experienced much dismay when the film instead prompted suggestions that people former real Rollerball leagues. But he only has himself to blame for that. He shot and edited the Rollerball matches you see in the film for maximum excitement; you simply can’t take your eyes from the screen. (Incidentally, The Stepford Wives, Death Race 2000, and Rollerball each inspired less-than-stellar remakes; stick with the originals!)

Period pieces twisted the presentation of the past. Monty Python and the Holy Grail delightfully skewers the legend of King Arthur, with catchphrases that will still make a Python devotee chuckle (“Bring out your dead!” “Nih!”). The Rocky Horror Picture Show was a British musical love letter to American sci-fi and horror flicks, that failed on its original release, but would find eternal life as an audience participation sensation.

Another film that initially fared poorly but is worth a second look is The Day of the Locust, John Schlesinger’s bold, ultimately terrifying, take on Nathaniel West’s novel. Set in 1930s Hollywood, the film begins in a deceptively slow-paced fashion, building to a shocking climax that tarnishes all that glitters in Tinseltown. There are also some exceptional performances by Burgess Meredith as a former vaudevillian reduced to peddling snake oil, and Donald Sutherland as the kind of repressed soul of whom it’s best to be wary.

And then there’s the film that was arguably the most important US movie of the year: Robert Altman’s Nashville. This panoramic view of five days in the life of “Music City” was more than a look at Nashville itself; Joan Tewkesbury’s script is a distillation of “America” that still feels contemporary today. Close your eyes as seemingly benign patriarch Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson) records a patriotic ballad (“I pray my sons won’t go to war/But if they must, they must/I share our country’s motto/And in God I place my trust”) and you might think you’re at a GOP rally from last year’s election cycle.

The film, now considered Altman’s most ambitious work, skillfully weaves together the stories of 24 characters, in a biting critique of the American Dream — that belief that fame and riches are the key to happiness, when the struggle for success is far more likely to end in tears. In the most heartbreaking scene, aspiring tone-deaf singer Sueleen Gay (Gwen Welles) is forced into stripping at a fundraiser, lured by the empty promise of a better gig next time. And even those who have “made it” don’t seem any better off.

The emotionally fragile Barbara Jean (Ronee Blakley) staggers from her sickbed to perform, warming everybody’s hearts except her own; her mid-performance breakdown is another painful moment. The folk trio Bill, Mary and Tom (Allan F. Nicholls, Cristina Raines, and Keith Carradine), in town to record a new album, appear unified in public, but are falling apart in private, due to a love triangle between them. Smarmy politico John Triplette (a gladhanding Michael Murphy), staging a rally for presidential candidate Hal Phillip Walker of the “Replacement Party” (his platform includes eliminating the electoral college and making churches pay taxes) deftly plays both sides against each other. He tries to sweet talk Bill, Mary and Tom to play the rally, saying he needs an antidote to all that “country crapola”; elsewhere, he coos in Haven Hamilton’s ear that Walker thinks Hamilton would make a mighty fine governor one day.

The film incisively exposes the hypocrisy that puts a smiling face on the underlying greed, corruption, and sexism. And racism; while watching a gospel choir perform, Opal, a pushy BBC documentarian (played to grating perfection by Geraldine Chaplin), obliviously states “Take off those robes and one is in darkest Africa; I can just see their naked, frenzied bodies dancing!”

Yet Nashville also offers its disparate characters some redemption during the film’s climax at Walker’s big rally. In a sudden moment of violence that foreshadows John Lennon’s murder five years later, the young drifter Kenny (David Hayward, who even resembles Lennon’s killer Mark Chapman), shoots Barbara Jean mid-set. Hamilton begs the crowd to not fall into chaos (“This isn’t Dallas!”) and the main microphone falls into the hands of another would-be singer, the bedraggled Winifred (Barbara Harris). After a shaky start, Winifred finally gets her moment of glory as she leads the choir, and then the audience, in the rousing anthem “It Don’t Worry Me.” It’s a moment of transcendence; all is forgiven, the song seems to say. Rejoice! You have been cleansed of your sins.

And yet…there was another film others would call the most important American movie of the year. Not because of its script or performances, but because it foresaw the direction where movies were really going to go. Just 10 days after Nashville’s release came the opening day of the film that would become the first summer blockbuster: Jaws. It was basically an updated version of the classic monster movie scenario, with a large scary creature raining down death and destruction until canny humans vanquish it. What differentiates it from, say, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, was that it was the product of a major studio and thus had the money for better actors and higher production values.

The nine-million-dollar budget exploded into a $260 million-plus windfall on the film’s first release. It was the highest grossing movie of its time until surpassed by the next summer blockbuster two years later: Star Wars. From that point on we could expect such spectaculars to unleash their wonders every summer, as the audience demographic shifted younger.

There was also an accompanying tsunami of sequels, prequels, and spinoffs. As of this date, there are now twelve Star Wars-related films, making the three sequels Jaws spawned seem lackluster in comparison. Had they released Jaws this century, we’d probably be on to Jaws Vs. The Creature From the Black Lagoon: Endgame by now.

Which is where we came in. Ironically, the rise of the blockbuster began the very year Jack Nicholson’s brash mental patient R.P. McMurphy fights his losing battle against “the system” in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. One could say adult-oriented mainstream films suffered the same fate in the years ahead. Robert Altman might have had the artistic vision. But it was Steven Spielberg and George Lucas (directors of Jaws and Star Wars, respectively) who charted the new course. The cinematic future would ultimately belong to the blockbusters. And the more explosions, the better.