Friday Movie Flashback

This week we journey back to 1974. I was a mere 7 years old and was probably wearing my jacket with the snotty sleeves. The high temp the day before Friday October 4, 1974 had been 61 degrees. The low was 33. That's much different from the 99 degree temperatures we've been having during this first week of October. Were the movies playing in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on this date cooler than the weather we have now? I believe so.

Cinema One featured a movie that would go down in history as one of the most un-PC comedies ever. If you are easily offended you might want to avoid it. I think the film is a classic comedy. Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little were perfectly cast in this Mel Brooks Western spoof. It's full of outright hilarious moments with many of them crude and juvenile. Then there are other more subdued comedic moments like when we meet Jim, just Jim, formerly the Waco Kid.

I didn't see Blazing Saddles until many years later. The same is the case for one of the movies playing across town on this day.

The Martin Twin theatre featured Robert Redford and Mia Farrow in The Great Gatsby and Joe Don Baker as Buford Pusser in Walking Tall. 

I have never seen The Great Gatsby. Perhaps I will watch it one day. If you grew up in Tennessee it's mandatory to have seen Walking Tall at least once. I didn't get to see it in the theatre, but I've watched it many times on television over the years. Buford Pusser even appeared at car lots in Murfreesboro when this movie came out. It would bring in crowds to the dealerships and he could promote the movie and himself. The film is pretty gritty and it was shot in Tennessee which is always interesting to us locals. It goes on much longer than it should have, but it's well worth watching. The action is decent and it just exudes Seventies Southernness that the Jackie and Dunlap at Redneck Matinee cover. I believe Walking Tall will be coming up on their podcast soon.

The Marbro Drive-In was showing 3 rated G action films. A Few Bullets More leads off the night, followed by Any Gun Can Play, and Dirty Heroes finished out the evening. A Few Bullets More was a re-titled movie from 1967 I'll Kill Him and Return Alone. It is a "Tortilla Western." Any Gun Can Play starred Ed "Kookie" Byrnes and was a satire of the "Spaghetti Western" genre. Which I guess is an appropriate lead in to an Italian made movie about World War II. I have not seen any of these 3 films, but I might have to check the two westerns out.