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The 1970s have certainly been a golden decade in terms of movies. From ingenious comedies to extravagant musicals, the 10-year period boasts a long list of cults. Among these, romances shine particularly brightly, offering narratives filled with passion and drama through unique stories that capture the nuances and complexities of human relationships.

However, not all these movies have happy endings. Many of the most romantic tales of the era embraced a different path from the traditional rom-com's cheerful conclusion, and they opted for more dramatic, often realistic resolutions, that would emphasize not just the beauty of love but also its complications and, sometimes, its fleeting nature. By focusing on the fragile beauty of relationships and the pain of separation or loss, these films portray love's impact on the human soul, even in its impermanence, making these stories profoundly memorable.

Love Story (1970) Directed By Arthur Hiller

Love Story

Love Story, directed by Arthur Hiller,...

Norman Lear’s Cold Turkey is preferred by 4 out of 5 doctors, and the other doctor is a fool that doesn’t smoke cigarettes. Lear’s triple-threat writing, producing and directing effort is by no means a lazy comedy, with its twenty featured actors dashing around like asylum inmates for ninety minutes. It’s not the show to help one kick the habit, that’s for sure — even though it makes smoking look appropriately disgusting.

Cold Turkey

Blu-ray

Olive Films

1971 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 99 min. / Street Date May 29, 2018 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98

Starring: Dick Van Dyke, Bob Newhart, Pippa Scott, Tom Poston, Edward Everett Horton, Bob Elliott, Ray Goulding, Vincent Gardenia, Barnard Hughes, Graham Jarvis, Jean Stapleton, Barbara Cason, Judith Lowry, Sudie Bond, Helen Page Camp, Paul Benedict, Simon Scott, Raymond Kark, Peggy Rea, Woodrow Parfrey, M. Emmet Walsh, Gloria LeRoy, Walter Sande, Harvey Jason, Ted Knight, Stan Gottlieb.

Cinematography:...

Long unavailable for home viewing, Robert Altman’s 1982 title Come Back to the 5 and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean has languished as a remote, minor title of the auteur’s filmography, trotted out to devotees at retrospectives. Based on the play by Ed Graczyk and featuring a bevy of eclectic actresses, it’s often and unfairly lumped into consideration with Altman’s other adaptations of stage material from the time period, including David Rabe’s Streamers (1983), Sam Shepard’s Fool For Love (1985) and Christopher Durang’s Beyond Therapy (1987). Often described as typically Altmanesque with its examination of Americana, a dialogue heavy showcase of melodrama squeezed from the banalities of everyday existence, at last it’s available for a wider appreciation, ripe for a recuperation as more than a mere trifle lost in a flood of greater titles from an American auteur.

It’s 1975 and a group of extreme James Dean fans,...

Broadway actress Marta Heflin dead at 68: Featured in several Robert Altman movies (photo: Marta Heflin in ‘A Perfect Couple’) Stage actress Marta Heflin, who was featured in a handful of movies in the ’70s and early ’80s, including three Robert Altman efforts, died on September 18, 2013, after "a long illness." Heflin (born on March 29, 1945, in Washington, D.C.) was 68. On Broadway, Marta Heflin was featured in the musicals Fiddler on the Roof, Hair, Soon, and Jesus Christ Superstar (replacing Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene). Additionally, she was seen in Ed Graczyk’s Robert Altman-directed 1982 play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, about a group of James Dean fans — among them Karen Black, Cher, Sandy Dennis, Kathy Bates, Sudie Bond, and Mark Patton — who get together on the twentieth anniversary of Dean’s death. Marta Heflin movies Along with her fellow Come Back to the Five and Dime,...

Director Robert Altman.

Robert Altman: Eclectic Maverick

By

Alex Simon

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the April 1999 issue of Venice Magazine.

It's the Fall of 1977 and I'm a bored and rebellious ten year old in search of a new movie to occupy my underworked and creativity-starved brain, feeling far too mature for previous favorites Wily Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Return of the Pink Panther (1975), and wanting something more up-to-date and edgy than Chaplin's City Lights (1931). I needed a movie to call my favorite that would be symbolic of my own new-found manhood (and something that would really piss off my parents and teachers). Mom and Dad were going out for the evening, leaving me with whatever unfortunate baby-sitter happened to need the $10 badly enough to play mother hen to an obnoxiously precocious only child like myself. I scanned the TV Guide for what...