The Film Forum Brings New York City In The 70’s To The Big Screen

The folks at the Film Forum are setting up a NYC centric film festival with a few dozen films that were done right here on our at one time mean city streets. There are quite a few classics to filter through and this will begin next week on July 5th so get your plans in order and get the tickets that you want before anything sells out. Some have numerous showings across the festival while others seem to have only one. Commence your indulgence into the full press release and please be aware that based on the amount of films being presented I will NOT be listing these individually on our calendar.

The Press Release:
“FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD – NEW YORK IN THE 70s,” a 23-day, 44-film series spotlighting movies made in and about the city during the 1970s, will run at Film Forum from Wednesday, July 5 through Thursday, July 27.

The title of the series is taken from the classic Daily News headline – the most famous in the paper’s history. On October 29, 1975, President Gerald Ford declared that a near-bankrupt New York City would be denied federal aid. The following day, the News’ front page carried the banner headline (written by managing editor Bill Brink) “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD.” It became one of the most iconic images of the decade and helped seal Ford’s fate for a 1976 presidential run. (Only last week, the News revived the headline after the current administration’s withdrawal from the Paris Accord: “TRUMP TO WORLD: DROP DEAD.”)

New York City in the 1970s was perceived as a place of danger, decay, and paranoia, where people “didn’t get involved” (especially following high-profile crimes like the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese). The disastrous decade was marked by the financial crisis of 1975 and the 25-hour mid-summer blackout of 1977, the spread of crack and heroin, and the ubiquity of violent crimes (1,814 homicides in 1980, compared to 335 in 2016).

The decline of the city would inspire homegrown filmmakers like Sidney Lumet, John Cassavetes, Martin Scorsese, Jerry Schatzberg, along with transplants William Friedkin, Miloš Forman, John Schlesinger, Gordon Parks Jr., Hal Ashby and Chantal Akerman to create a body of films of gritty intensity that perfectly captured the mood of this chapter in NYC history.

The festival opens with Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy, starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, one of the first movies to dwell on the city’s seedier side. Other directors represented in the series include Woody Allen, Elaine May, Joseph Sargent, Carl Reiner, Ivan Passer, Otto Preminger, Arthur Hiller, Anthony Harvey, and Sidney Pollack. Films in the series include Serpico, The French Connection, Taxi Driver, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Saturday Night Fever, Marathon Man, Mean Streets, Network, Dog Day Afternoon, Klute, All That Jazz, News from Home, A New Leaf, The Wiz, and many, many more movies that defined a decade. “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD” has been programmed by Bruce Goldstein, Film Forum’s Director of Repertory Programming.

The Films in this Series:

Wednesday, July 5: Midnight Cowboy (12:30 4:40 9:15)
Wednesday, July 5: Taking Off (2:45 7:00)

Thursday, July 6: News From Home (12:30 6:00 10:10)
Thursday, July 6: Gloria (2:45 7:45)

Friday, July 7: The Panic In Needle Park: (12:30 2:40 4:50 7:00*)
Friday, July 7: Serpico (9:40)

Saturday, July 8: The French Connection (12:30 2:40 7:15*)
Saturday, July 8: The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three (4:45*)
Saturday, July 8: Saturday Night Fever (9:45)

Sunday, July 9: Klute (12:30 5:10)
Sunday, July 9: Dog Day Afternoon (2:45 7:25*)

Monday, July 10: Where’s Poppa (12:30 4:00 7:30)
Monday, July 10: Born To Win (2:10 5:40 9:15)