USCCB - (Film and Broadcasting) - Ten Best List for the Year 1969

Ten Best List for the Year 1969

Downhill Racer -- Robert Redford plays a surly American skier with enough recklessness and skill to challenge the best Europeans but is unwilling to listen to his team's tough, long-suffering coach (admirably played by Gene Hackman) in preparing for the big skiing competition. Though the personal drama follows the formula of such sports movies, director Michael Ritchie concentrates on providing a vivid overview of a dangerous and photogenic sport and the fallible people who compete in it for the psychological rewards that some find worth all its rigors and traumatic nervous strain. A-III-adults (PG) 1969
The Fire Within -- Taut, well-constructed and thoroughly engrossing French movie records two days in the life of an alcoholic ex-playboy (Maurice Ronet) desperately searching for security, understanding and meaning in his life. Director Louis Malle's 1963 drama presents a stinging indictment of upper middle-class life in a work whose theme is one of soul-searching despair. A-III-adults (Not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America) 1969
Intimate Lighting -- A Prague cellist together with his girl friend returns to his hometown for a few days and stays with a childhood chum and his family. Director Ivan Passer's loving portrait of Czech life, culture and people is done with affection and earthy humor. A-III-adults (Not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America) 1969
Life, Love, Death -- French director Claude Lelouch examines the apprehension, trial and execution of a murderer (Amidou). The drama indicts capital punishment suggesting that it dehumanizes those who demand it, and especially, those who carry it out. Coldly intellectual, his treatment responsibly distances the viewer from a subject easily sensationalized. A-III-adults (R) 1969
Midnight Cowboy -- A Texas bumpkin (Jon Voight) comes to New York City expecting to make his fortune as stud to what he believes are its endless supply of lonely women. In trying to cope with reality of urban life, he relies on his friendship with another loser, a small-time con artist (Dustin Hoffman) crippled physically and emotionally with a hopeless dream of escaping to the sun. Director John Schlesinger treats with compassion this odyssey of two alienated outcasts blindly groping for some redemptive human fellowship in a society that values sex and money more than human beings. Some may find its realistic depiction of a sordid environment, with a graphic sexual encounter and a brutal outburst of violence, quite reprehensible. Others will find merit in its attempt to recognize the resilience of the human spirit and the dignity of the individual. Challenging fare, not for the casual viewer. A-IV-adults with reservations (R) 1969
My Side of the Mountain -- Toronto youth journeys into the Quebec wilderness to prove that he can take care of himself, adapts quite easily to life in the forest and is befriended by a migrant folk singer (Theodore Bikel) who eventually rescues him during a snowstorm. Produced by Robert B. Radnitz and directed by James B. Clarke, its intriguing story has substance instead of cliches, in addition to magnificent photography capturing the beauty of its natural setting. Intelligent family fare whose spirit of adventure and youthful independence can be enjoyed by all. A-I-general patronage (G) 1969
Oh! What a Lovely War -- British musical version of World War I covers events from Sarajevo to America's entrance in the conflict as told in a series of sketches conveying the mood, motives and attitudes of the British government, military, clergy, common soldier and the folks at home. Directed by Richard Attenborough, with a large and talented British cast, the ambitious but largely successful work intermixes song and comedy with the ugly reality of the battlefield. Its anti-war perspective emphasizes the futility and waste of a war in which a generation of young men sacrificed their lives. A-II-adults and adolescents (G) 1969
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie -- Poignant screen version of Muriel Spark's novel about a loveable, eccentric teacher (Maggie Smith in a grand performance) who just doesn't fit in with the faculty or administration at the conservative Edinburgh girls' school in the 1930s. She's demanding but her "gurrls" love her until one them (Pamela Franklin) betrays her. Director Ronald Neame handles with great sensitivity the moral ambiguities of the teacher's odd personal traits as well as that of her precocious student who poses in the nude for the art teacher. A-III-adults (PG) 1969
True Grit -- Rousing Western adventure based on the Charles Portis novel about a justice-minded little gal with true grit (Kim Darby) who tracks down her father's killer with the aid of a gruff overweight U.S. Marshall (John Wayne) and an over-eager Texas Ranger (Glenn Campbell). Directed with gusto by Henry Hathaway, their adventures and scrapes with death are furious and action-packed, though leavened nicely with human touches and good humor. Because of some stylized violence, young children may need the support of older members of the family. A-I-general patronage (G) 1969
Z -- When a leftist minister (Yves Montand) in the Greek government is assassinated, the investigating magistrate (Jean-Louis Trintignant) tries to untangle the shadowy affair in order to find those responsible. The French dramatization directed by Costa-Gavras is a taut political thriller that goes beyond Greek politics and party labels because it is interested in justice and critical of any system of government that justifies criminal acts and violence in attaining its objectives. A-II-adults and adolescents (PG) 1969