Podcast/Smackdown Pt 2: Richard Dreyfuss Double Feature of '77 and Films Oscar Ignored
Monday, August 1, 2016 at 11:00PM 
As a companion piece to yesterday's Smackdown, a two-part podcast. If you missed Part One it's right here. Now we conclude our '77 festivities (did you enjoy or did we go to overboard?) with our panel, which includes Mark Harris, Guy Lodge, Nick Davis, Sara Black McCulloch, and Nathaniel R, discussing Tuesday Weld, Richard Dreyfuss, Diane Keaton, Looking for Mr Goodbar, The Turning Point and a few '77 extras.
Part Two Finale. Index (40 minutes)
00:01 One more anecdote on The Goodbye Girl
04:45 Richard Dreyfuss' big year and Steven Spielberg's interest/disinterest in actors in Close Encounters of the Third Kind
15:30 Tuesday Weld's career and the divisive Looking for Mr Goodbar
24:00 The Turning Point and a female-heavy Best Picture lineup
32:15 Performances that weren't nominated from: Saturday Night Fever, Opening Night, Handle With Care, Roseland, and Three Women
39:00 Thank yous!
You can listen to the podcast here or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you?
Reader Comments (13)
Nat I am interested who would have been your Best Actor picks.
Nice to hear the guests read the comments.Yay to Copeland.
To sort of answer one of Guy's questions, The Turning Point is the start of the second phase of Shirley MacLaine's career where I find most of her characters abrasive and hard to take. The first phase culminated in Sweet Charity, when she was in her early '30s. There followed an eight-year transition period between the two phases where she wasn't seen much onscreen (notably in that Clint Eastwood film and on her TV series). Much like her character in The Turning Point, MacLaine must have been less than thrilled about the shift from romantic leading lady to leading mom, and it comes through in the performances of the second phase.
Which now makes me appreciate her more, of course.
I just find Bancroft more captivating,it's her voice mainly,Maclaines voice always grates on me a bit accept for PCFTE.
I don't know if you mention this in the podcast but 1977 was one of the very few years I guess where both the Best Actor and the Best Actress had VERY strong roles in additional films that also received nominations. Dreyfus in Close Encounters and Keaton in Mr Goodbar. Curiously enough, they both won for their more comedic roles in Goodbye Girl and Annie Hall. Another coincidence: both additional films received nominations for Best Supporting Actress (Weld and Dillon) and Best Cinematography (Zsigmond got the award for Close and Willian Fraker was nominated for Mr Goodbar).
Close Encounters is also one of my favorites and I agree Dreyfuss is really good in it.
What I can't understand is why the female-heavy Best Picture trend didn't last in the 80s when there were all those wonderful actresses available. What went wrong?
Can't wait for 1984. It's a very important year for me. It's when I started watching adult* movies
*non-Disney
Marcos -- we do talk about the Dreyfus & Keaton double late in the podcast. It is very curious that we had a double comedy win. For me I think Keaton won for the right film (though she's also Oscar worthy in Goodbar and if it had been back to back years rather than the same one, I would have wanted her to win two in a row) but Dreyfus won for the wrong film. And this is not because I like Close Encounters more than Goodbye Girl but because Dreyfus has such tricky things to pull off in Close Encounters (in a film not all that caught up in its acting) and he never missteps and you get both elements of what made him memorable in comedy as well as his dramatic gifts. He has great moments in The Goodbye Girl but also moments where he clearly needs a stronger director.
mark ... for actor that year i probably would say...
DREYFUSS -Close Encounters (winner)
TRAVOLTA - Saturday Night Fever
ALLEN - Annie Hall
BURTON - Equus (i need to see this again. it's been a million years and i'm guessing i was too young for it at the time. though i did see it on stage in the most recent broadway revival)
DE NIRO - New York New York
which is close to the actor list but i haven't seen any of these films that got globe or oscar nods for male acting: A SPECIAL DAY, A SPECIAL DAY, HEROES, MACARTHUR
my 12 favorite films from 1977 (though i have huge gaps in my viewing pre mid 80s when i started trying to see everything) are:
(tier-totally obsessed with)
ANNIE HALL
3 WOMEN
(tier love them lots)
STAR WARS
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
(tier love them... but understand that they're a strange mix of genius, acquired taste, and unlikeable at times)
OPENING NIGHT
LOOKING FOR MR GOODBAR
NEW YORK NEW YORK
(like but dont remember well)
SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER
HIGH ANXIETY
(tier - have multiple contradictory feelings about)
EQUUS
JULIA
SUSPIRIA
Loved the SMACKDOWN! Listened to it on a long bike ride along the water's edge of Moreton Bay, Queensland.
Can't wait for the next one!
Peck is quite good in McArthur i'd put him in over Woody.
It's also notable that Marsha Mason earned her second Best Actress nomination in the first year she returned to films after her first nomination for Cinderella Liberty in 1973. Marsha also had a dramatic role in another film out earlier in 1977--the supernatural thriller Audrey Rose with Anthony Hopkins.
I'm glad you all focused on this year. I generally think of it as the year of Annie Hall, Star Wars, and 3 Women - and not much else. So it was informative to hear in-depth discussion of other films and how this was a somewhat atypical year in terms of the Oscars.
The other 1977 film that's been in my head a lot lately is Twilight's Last Gleaming, since it reflects a mix cynicism, bleakness, and naivete about US politics that seems to fit with some of what's going on this year.
Am very much looking forward to what you cover from 1984 across the next month, and would be delighted to see comments on/coverage of any of the following, if any of them interest the team - Kathleen Turner, Dune, Sixteen Candles/the John Hughes era/the actresses in those films, Purple Rain, Streets of Fire/its soundtrack, how the Footloose soundtrack was everywhere that year, and what people think of Temple of Doom (which seems to produce extreme reactions, whether positive or negative).
But whatever you get to in this coming month, thanks for all your work. It's always entertaining and informative.
Love the Smackdowns! You could never go overboard on this topic. Inside Oscar truly was the only window into these Oscar races growing up. It's so great to listen to kindred spirits discussing these films and performances. Pretty incredible that such a female-driven Best Picture line-up hasn't occurred since. Great year to discuss and now looking forward to the 1984 race which, incidentally, Inside Oscar has a cool little blurb suggesting the category as pretty much a free-for-all outside of Ashcroft.