Far-Out Films

A loving but rigorous analysis of famous and not-so-famous films of the early 1970s.

The 1970s brought seismic shifts to the established cinematic landscape. Bold young directors like Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Francis Ford Coppola, and rebellious new stars you knew by one name—Pacino, De Niro, Jack—embraced revolutionary social freedoms and utilized innovative special effects to create a golden era of exciting, influential, and bodaciously fun new movies. It was the Daring Decade, the greatest years ever in the history of American movies.

In The Daring Decade: Volume One, Chris Strodder, author of acclaimed books on pop cultural topics, guides you from 1970 to 1974 with entertaining and enlightening analysis of hundreds of memorable movies. All of the familiar “greatest hits”—The French Connection, The Godfather, American Graffiti, The Sting, The Exorcist, Chinatown, and many more—are here, but so are “blaxploitation” classics like Shaft and Super Fly, awesome disaster epics such as Airport and The Poseidon Adventure, offbeat favorites including Harold and Maude and Paper Moon, and a freaky assortment of crazy/scary/silly drive-in delights.

Fasten the seatbelt in your ’70s muscle car and hang on, because saddles will be blazing, chainsaws will be slashing, James Bond will be investigating, Dirty Harry will be scowling, and an Earthquake will be rumbling.

Illustrated with vintage movie art from the era, and enhanced with a foreword and afterword by two award-winning actors, this book, like the movies it celebrates, is far-out to the max!