What’s New in Old Movies: July 2025

by Don Stradley

Depending on who tells the tale, it was either The Exorcist, Jaws, or Star Wars that changed the course of filmmaking in the 1970s. Producers and studios saw the audience reaction to those movies and forgot all about the small, personal films that had been winning all the trophies. The time had come to put more emphasis on big budget extravaganzas; arthouse cred be damned. But a good argument could be made that the disaster films of the period were just as crucial to the change. Airport and The Poseidon Adventure may have kicked things off, earning more money and more acclaim, but Earthquake (1974) kept the ball rolling, using the same formula of an all-star cast dealing with a catastrophe. Earthquake was no match for The Towering Inferno, the year’s box office king, but raking in a cool $80 million on a budget of $7 million made it a winner for Universal, and one of the top grossers of the year. 

It doesn’t get the kudos of other disaster films of the period, but a list of titles that Earthquake crushed in terms of tickets sold would include The Godfather II, Chinatown, Benji, The Great Gatsby, and the year’s James Bond offering, The Man with the Golden Gun. Even Airport 1975, a disaster flick which seems to have lasted longer in our memories, didn’t come close to matching the box office receipts of Earthquake. 

The story was predictable, the effects unimpressive even in 1974, but Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner, both near the end of their long reigns as genuine movie stars, headed an excellent cast. The lineup included Lorne Greene, Walter Matthau (in a funny cameo), Richard Roundtree, and George Kennedy. There was a score by John Williams and, even higher on the credits than Heston, a new special feature called “Sensurround,” which was being pushed by Universal as the best thing since Cinemascope. Though I never saw Earthquake in Sensurround, I did see Midway (1976) a sort of disaster movie dressed as a war epic, and one of only four movies to use Sensurround. I remember it was very loud and the walls of the theater shook. I can only imagine what Earthquake was like. Quite rumbly, I guess.

Newsday praised Earthquake as “thoroughly enjoyable, engrossing trash.” As for the Sensurround effect, Newsday compared it to “an express train rushing too close to your platform in a subway.” The new 4K Blu-ray from Universal can’t recreate the Sensurround effect in your living room, but you’ll get to see Heston grimace as Los Angeles crumbles. It was directed by Mark Robson, an unheralded filmmaker who made a lot of great movies. (123 mins, 4K Blue-ray, available July 7. Also available in a special, slightly more expensive steelbook edition, though neither appears to have much in the way of extras.) 

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All those big budget blockbusters to come would brush aside films like Carnal Knowledge (1971). Directed by Mike Nichols from a script by Jules Feiffer, the film starred Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel as a pair of aimless college buddies dealing with life in the 1950s and ‘60s, with Candace Bergen as the woman they both love. The film was a water-cooler subject in its day, partly for its sexual frankness but also because it served as a kind of snapshot of what love and marriage had turned into after the Second World War. Though the conclusions weren’t uplifting, the film’s impact was undeniable. 

There are no heroes in Carnal Knowledge. The characters are all out for themselves. Yet Nicholson and Garfunkel seem to represent the splintering of the American male of the day. Nicholson plays the sort of macho headcase who can’t maintain a relationship, while Garfunkel is the unapologetic wimp who needs a mother figure, though he is every bit as conniving as any two-bit barfly, the crafty nerd who turns passive aggressiveness into a formidable weapon. Though critic Rex Reed of the New York Daily News called it “a sad and very depressing film,” he pointed out that “even on those occasions when you find yourself not liking the characters, you still care.” Reed likened the experience of Carnal Knowledge to “a year on an analyst’s couch.” 

Ann-Margret grabbed the most accolades, and not only for the nude scenes that got the film banned in Georgia. As “Bobbi,” the dimwitted sexpot who ends up with Nicholson, she’s a big, blubbering scene stealer. In her memoir, My Life, Margret said the role left her “teetering on the brink of a breakdown,” and it’s no wonder. She’s the most memorable character in the film. She won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and earned an Oscar nomination and a New York Film Critics Circle nomination in the same category. 

The new Carnal Knowledge 4K Blu-ray from Criterion includes many special features, most centered around Mike Nichols, including a 2011 conversation between Nichols and Jason Reitman, a Q&A with Jules Feiffer, and more. (Available July 22)

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Jack Lemmon earned his second Oscar for his role in Save The Tiger (1973), a film about a man facing middle age and a failing business. If the fellows in Carnal Knowledge thought they had problems, Lemmon’s character, Harry Stoner, could bury them in his angst. He craves the old songs, the old baseball players, the old cars of his youth, and doesn’t know how to deal with the changing world around him. “He fought in World War 2 and nobody even remembers it,” Lemmon said in an interview to promote the film. When Stoner resorts to committing a crime to save his business, he’s still daydreaming about the good old days, the old boxers, the women, the movie stars. When he picks up a young female hitchhiker on the Sunset Strip, we feel his frustration at trying to communicate with her. Harry Stoner can’t help getting old, but it seems a handy manual would be nice for certain occasions. How do you talk to someone who has never heard your favorite song and couldn’t care less about it? 

The story was a hard sell in the early 1970s, with Paramount doubtful the young movie audiences of the day wanted to see a story about a depressed businessman nearing 50. It turned out the studio heads were correct. The movie was a financial flop, and even the critics were undecided. Most agreed that Lemmon gave a great performance, but not everyone embraced the movie’s grouchy mood. Still, director John Avildsen and screenwriter Steve Shagan turned in a small masterpiece of modern anxiety. At the time of its release, Lemmon declared Save the Tiger was one of his favorite projects. “It’s a hell of a part,” he told Newsday. “A deep, rich part.” During his Oscar acceptance speech, Lemmon described the whole production as “one of the great moments of my life.”

Because Paramount was stingy, the production was a rather low budget affair, meaning Lemmon worked for much less than his usual rate. He worked cheap in favor of a percentage of the box office, which turned out to be nothing. He got the Oscar, though, so that’s something. At the time, Rex Reed praised everyone involved with Save The Tiger, including the Paramount executives for gambling on a film that is so “passionate about its concerns.” “I hope it marks the beginning of a habit in Hollywood,” he wrote, “not the realization of a miracle.” 

Unfortunately, Earthquake was coming, with the miracle of Sensurround, and within a few years there’d be fewer movies like Save the Tiger. Along with all else Harry Stoner missed, a certain type of movie was vanishing, along with its audience. 

The new Save the Tiger Blu-ray from Kino Lorber is available August 12.