Dirty Money, 1972

None of the various titles denominated for this film by Jean-Pierre Melville (who directed the are very unique, and can prove problematic when searching it on the web. Known first in France as Un Flic and as both Dirty Money and A Cop in English-speaking countries, a small town bank robbery is exposed as just part of a much bigger heist. 

Charley Varrick, 1973

“Cropdusters don’t wave guns.”

Maybe Walter Matthau isn’t a name with which you’re familiar. Dennis the Menace probably is. Before Matthau claimed all the grandpa roles like the one on Dennis, he was already known as a guy in Hollywood who could treat dialogues with just the right touch of comedic undertoning, which isn’t much unlike Harry Callahan, come to think of it. After first bringing us Dirty Harry, Don Siegel takes his old broom and makes the sweep again, walking on familiar ground in this director/actor collab. The rigid comedian Matthau plays “one man against the mafia,” and drives the comedy on home as he (nearly) takes flight in a cropduster’s airplane.  

The Seven-Ups, 1973

Roy Scheider is most remembered for the not-too-sea savvy copper in Jaws, but before that, he honed in on the streetcop persona in The French Connection. In The Seven-Ups, released two years after, his same character inConnection is reapplied (I love it when they do that!) to match a cop hellbent on finding his deceased partner’s murderers. I recommend that you go for this one if you’re feeling a good car chase scene. WHAMMY!

Dillinger, 1973

J. Edgar Hoover protested the making of this film for its depiction of the FBI (apparently just before he died in 1972). The casting of Warren Oates as John Dillinger was decided because turns out they were a split image. Judge for yourself:

Thieves Like Us, 1974

Like Chinatown, this is another period piece. As in, filmed in the seventies but set in the 30s (odd how period pieces age with time-a period piece set within another period…) It’s Louise Fletcher’s first movie role and an adaptation from the Edward Anderson novel. Director Robert Altman had taken to adapting it without realizing it had already been done-in the 1949 cult classic They Live by Night (not available on Netflix instant)

Dirty Harry, 1971

Who doesn’t love Dirty Harry? For many, this is the definitive Clint Eastwood role. I had already had the man with no name braingrained good and well before watching people kick Harry around. The two personalities are about as opposite as they can get, at least until justice is rightfully served in the end.

There's no question that Callahan uses heavy-handed tactics to get his man (he carries a .44 magnum, "the most powerful handgun in the world"), but he's gotta be when he's up against psychopaths like the man called Scorpio, who's gotta be one of the most sadistically characterized bad guys I've seen on camera.

"Please. I scare easy."

The Long Good Friday, 1980

I recognize it too. This film was released the year that disco broke (or punk broke, however you want to look at it), and therefore ought not be categorized as seventies cinema. But woah there! Hey now! Let’s break it down a bit first, lest we jump to any more conclusions.

Bob Hoskins, leading man. Bob Hoskins? Leading man? Hoskins is most often recognized as that suit in Roger Rabbit whose deviant desires target a cartoon woman. He was also Smee from Hook.  I was introduced to this film a year ago, when I was taking what’ll prolly prove to be the ballinest class of my total college career:  David Lavery’s English 4860: Gangster Films. Apparently the film company had planned to have Hoskins’ thick Cockney accent dubbed over by an American one, and Hoskins threatened to sue. Luckily, Hoskins won and we now have one of the greatest testaments of the gangster genre canon. And it’s not even American!

(Stick around for a young Pierce Brosnan, who plays a deadly IRA assassin!)