“Girlfriends” (1978)
It feels that for years, almost no one had seen “Girlfriends.” Claudia Weill’s film was overlooked on release, and severely neglected after, unavailable on DVD many years. But the film did have one notable supporter: Stanley Kubrick, who in an interview, famously said “I think one of the most interesting Hollywood films, well not Hollywood — American films — that I’ve seen in a long time is Claudia Weill’s ‘Girlfriends.’ That film, I thought, was one of the very rare American films that I would compare with the serious, intelligent, sensitive writing and filmmaking that you find in the best directors in Europe.” As with so many things, Kubrick was bang on. The script (by Vicki Polon) focuses on the friendship between Susan (Melanie Mayron), an aspiring photographer, and Anne (Anita Skinner), her apartment-mate, who’s on the verge of moving out, and their gradual estrangement over time. Shot gradually over a period of about a year or so, thanks to a grant from the AFI, and with a supporting cast including Bob Balaban, Eli Wallach and Christopher Guest. It’s to some extent a film of its time, dealing with the conflict between having a career and being a wife that would feel somewhat out of time now (or then again, perhaps not…), but there’s a universality to Susan and Anne’s friendship that means that it still feels as fresh as a daisy. Indeed, thanks to the patronage of Lena Dunham (who says she was introduced to the film after she broke through), and the success of “Frances Ha,” with which it shares a lot of DNA, the film’s finally starting to get the reputation it deserves, but there’s still some way to go.
“The American Friend” (1977)
German filmmaker Wim Wenders is known for his ‘80s films, “Wings of Desire” and “Paris, Texas,” but he came up during the New German Cinema movement of the late 1960s and so some of his best work comes from his fertile 1970s period, though unfortunately, not a lot of prestige-y, Criterion-like DVD/Blu-Ray editions of these films exist. 1974’s “Alice in the Cities” (the first installment of his roadtrip trilogy) is on Hulu‘s Criterion Channel, so that’s probably getting some attention soon, but even more deserving is 1977’s moody and existentialist neo-noir, “The American Friend.” An adaptation of Patricia Highsmith‘s novel “Ripley’s Game” (the same character modern audiences would know best from 1999’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley”), Wenders’ film starred Dennis Hopper as Highsmith’s sociopathic career criminal Tom Ripley. Living abroad as a wealthy American in Hamburg, Germany, Ripley gets into the art forgery game where he meets a dying picture framer (played by Wenders regular Bruno Ganz). A shady associate (Gerard Blain) ropes Ripley into a contract hit to square some debts, but ever the slimy operator, the American realizes his “friend” — suffering from an incurable blood disease with nothing left to lose — can easily be manipulated into taking the job for him. Enigmatic and atmospheric, the dynamic within is not unlike Hitchcock’s “Strangers On A Train” but played out with a sinister, ambiguous slow-burn that’s hauntingly unnerving and featuring terrifically textured cinematography from the great Robby Müller (known for shooting a lot of the classic Jim Jarmusch films of the ’80 and ‘90s and a few Lars Von Trier movies). Wenders’ being the cinephile that he was couldn’t resist adding some notable, Godard-like cameos, giving roles to then-still-unsung living film legends Samuel Fuller and Nicholas Ray (he was so enamored of Ray he would immediately thereafter shoot “Lighting Over Water,” a “co-directed” documentary about Ray dying of cancer and coming to terms with his last days). Low on plot, high on mood and suffused with a sick air of desperation, the humanity (or lack thereof) in the movie is chilling and tragic — which is in itself fine reason to give this one a second look.
“The Outfit” (1973)
Grim, dark and downright nasty, when one realizes the director of the overlooked crime/revenge noir “The Outfit” is John Flynn, it all starts to makes sense. Flynn of course, directed the notoriously violent revenge movie “Rolling Thunder” (another picture that could have easily made this list). If the movie feels like it shares some of the narrative severity of John Boorman’s similarly unflinching crime drama “Point Blank” that’s because they’re both based off the same source material: Richard Stark’s thriller “The Hunter.” Fresh out of a long stint in prison, Robert Duvall stars as a hardened thief with steely resolve who learns that his brother has been murdered by two mob hit men. Exacerbating his anguish and anger, now that he’s out, the criminal learns that he and an old partner are on the next hit list for a previous bank crime connected to the same organization that offed his brother. Fuelled by the promise of bloody retribution, Duvall’s character than decides to go on a merciless offensive, and his vicious and violent vendetta essentially takes down every individual from the inside one by one. There’s a terrific supporting cast too: Karen Black as his girlfriend, excellent character actor Joe Don Baker as the partner he tries to warn and save, the great Robert Ryan who plays the lead mobster and various thugs played by Timothy Carey, Richard Jaeckel and Bill McKinney (let’s not forget Anita O’Day; Marie Windsor and Elisha Cook, Jr., who like Ryan and Carey, also appeared in Kubrick’s “The Killing”). Nicely unpolished and harsh-around-the-edges thanks to DP Bruce Surtees (Clint Eastwood‘s DP on many of his similarly bleak ’70s pictures), there’s so much to love in this fierce and unforgiving picture. It’s doubtful any special editions are going to come and give this one more play, but it’s available on the Warner Archive, so if you love down-and-dirty ‘70s crime films, we certainly recommend you add it your collection.
