Let’s be honest here when we’re talking about a movie ‘holding up through the years’ and the idea of saying ‘it couldn’t be made today’. The two ideas aren’t the same to be realistic and to go even further with it, the humor that’s so prevalent today isn’t any better than the humor of over four decades ago, it’s simply shifted with the times. Back in the 70s comedy was very different, just as it was in the 80s, the 90s, and so on and so forth. Saying that something couldn’t be made as it was would be accurate enough for some movies, but saying that it didn’t stand the test of time would be woefully inaccurate since many upon many comedies from the 70s are still treasured in a big way by a good many people. It might have something to do with the fact that comedy was allowed to run wild and do what it wanted without so many people being ‘offended’ by every little thing they see, or it could be something else just as simple, but the fact remains, the movies on this list, and many comedies from the 70s, were deemed pretty controversial but they were still funny. Sometimes you’ve got to embrace the worst of society and just laugh at it to rob it of any real power. Satire is after all the means by which we take the worst of the world and turn it on its head so that we can enjoy life instead of being depressed by it.
Here are five movies from the 70s that still hold up today.
5. Annie Hall
There are Woody Allen fans out there (don’t laugh, there really are) who would likely defend this man to the death when it comes to anything to do with his life, and this movie would be one of those things. Annie Hall might not be a lot of people’s idea of a great comedy but back in the day it was considered to be pretty funny and Woody Allen has had his share of fans that think he’s a riot. It’s definitely a different brand of comedy no doubt, but all the same his material has lasted for this long and it’s bound to last longer since it’s not looking to one-up anyone and is more or less the kind of comedy you can just enjoy without feeling the need to compare it to anything.
4. The Bad News Bears
Keep in mind, this movie like many others comes from a different time when the ideas that were put into the script were still dated and in a big way easy to ridicule because of that same fact. The whole idea of ‘girls can’t play baseball’ has gone by the wayside in a big way throughout the years, maybe not thanks to this movie but definitely because women have proven that they can do just about anything a man can do. The whole point of this comedy however was to show the progress of a group of misfits that had no chance of winning anything when they first started out and eventually became a team that would defy the odds in a big way. Plus it has Walter Matthau, who was about as funny as can be.
3. Young Frankenstein
Gene Wilder was one of the comedic kings in his day since he knew how to set up a scene and how to deliver a line in a way that would make people laugh or wonder if they should be laughing. He had his turn at the more dramatic movies as well, but while he was being the funny guy there wasn’t a lot he couldn’t do since he was just that good. This story about Victor Frankenstein’s grandson became one of the better known movies of Wilder’s career as it’s still among the many movies that a person can mention and get a grin out of people when they remember the hilarity and absurdity of it.
2. Blazing Saddles
This movie absolutely has racist ideas in it, but the funny part about it is that Mel Brooks is about the only guy that could really get away with it then or at any time and make a movie that was not only hilarious but controversial as well. That doesn’t erase the humor but it certainly gets the attention of people that want to be offended by everything they see today while missing the whole point of the movie. The point is that the black sheriff who was set up as a patsy ends up being the hero along with a white sidekick that’s there to back him up and offer a little more comic relief. So yeah, despite all the stuff that’s thrown in that will openly offend people, it does have a positive message that some folks can see pretty easily.
1. National Lampoon’s Animal House
This is still THE college movie that a lot of other college movies need to be thankful for since it created a standard that in some ways isn’t perfect since it did go into a few controversial topics, but still holds up for the most part since it was so much fun. In its cartoonish way, Animal House is the perfect college movie since it’s not bound by conventional means and gets to go absolutely nuts at times while sticking to reality when it wants to. In other words it’s a parody of what college is really like, and that’s a big reason why it works so well.
Satire is how we get through the day sometimes.
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