I Just Watched...

[Detective Jim McLeod]

Yes, Alma is back as a Spanish name, pronounced "Ahlma." The name from the past was "you can call me Al-ma."

What movie character was named Alma? I seem to remember one.

Donna Reed in From Here To Eternity (1953) she has a made up name of Lorene but later confesses it is really Alma.

[txfilmfan]

Yes, Alma is back as a Spanish name, pronounced "Ahlma." The name from the past was "you can call me Al-ma."

What movie character was named Alma? I seem to remember one.

Not a character, but Alma Reville was a script writer, assistant director and had various other behind the scenes jobs - one of which was being married to Alfred Hitchcock.

The two characters that come to mind are Alma Del Mar and Alma Del Mar Jr. from Brokeback Mountain (now nearly 20 years old! - hard to believe)

[Lorna]

Yes, Alma is back as a Spanish name, pronounced "Ahlma." The name from the past was "you can call me Al-ma."

What movie character was named Alma? I seem to remember one.

MISS PATRICIA NEAL in HUD played a character named ALMA- for which she won THE ACADEMY AWARD

[Hibi]

Yes, Alma is back as a Spanish name, pronounced "Ahlma." The name from the past was "you can call me Al-ma."

What movie character was named Alma? I seem to remember one.

MISS PATRICIA NEAL in HUD played a character named ALMA- for which she won THE ACADEMY AWARD

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I knew there was a famous one. Thanks!

[Hibi]

DELETE

[Hibi]

Yes, Alma is back as a Spanish name, pronounced "Ahlma." The name from the past was "you can call me Al-ma."

What movie character was named Alma? I seem to remember one.

Not a character, but Alma Reville was a script writer, assistant director and had various other behind the scenes jobs - one of which was being married to Alfred Hitchcock.

The two characters that come to mind are Alma Del Mar and Alma Del Mar Jr. from Brokeback Mountain (now nearly 20 years old! - hard to believe)

Yes, that's right.

[Hibi]

Yes, Alma is back as a Spanish name, pronounced "Ahlma." The name from the past was "you can call me Al-ma."

What movie character was named Alma? I seem to remember one.

Donna Reed in From Here To Eternity (1953) she has a made up name of Lorene but later confesses it is really Alma.

Right. I'd forgotten about her.

[j.lunatic]

Yes, Alma is back as a Spanish name, pronounced "Ahlma." The name from the past was "you can call me Al-ma."

What movie character was named Alma? I seem to remember one.

Alma as played by Vicky Krieps in Phantom Thread (2017)?
Alma Reville as played by Helen Mirren in Hitchcock (2012)?

[HoldenIsHere]

Yes, Alma is back as a Spanish name, pronounced "Ahlma." The name from the past was "you can call me Al-ma."

What movie character was named Alma? I seem to remember one.

Geraldine Page's character in SUMMER AND SMOKE was named Alma.
There's even a line where Alma says that her name is Spanish for soul.
"Body vs. spirit" is a central theme of SUMMER AND SMOKE.

[kingrat]

Yes, Alma is back as a Spanish name, pronounced "Ahlma." The name from the past was "you can call me Al-ma."

What movie character was named Alma? I seem to remember one.

MISS PATRICIA NEAL in HUD played a character named ALMA- for which she won THE ACADEMY AWARD

I have read that in the source novel, the character is a black woman named Halmea. In other times, someone like Ruby Dee could have played the part. It turned out great for Patricia Neal, though, and she was wonderful.

[HoldenIsHere]

My introduction to daytime soaps was the ABC soaps.
The woman that my sister & I stayed with after school recorded all of the ABC soaps.
The one my sister and I liked the best was ALL MY CHILDREN.
We didn't really care for GENERAL HOSPITAL.

Our aunt (my mother's sister) later introduced us to DAYS OF OUR LIVES.

My grandmother watched all those old NBC soaps. She left her TV on NBC all day because she didn't want to get up to change the channel. I didn't like the soap operas (there were a lot of them in the late 60s and early 70s) but I did watch the NBC game shows with her.

My mother watched As the World Turns (brought to you by All Tempa Cheer - can still remember the voiceover announcer), The Edge of Night and Love is a Many Splendored Thing when I was young, but switched to All My Children in the mid-70s. A lot of the soaps were actually produced by Procter & Gamble in house and sold to the networks, so nearly all the ads were P&G products on those soaps.

I started watching AMC in the early 80s and continued to follow it as best as I could in the summers and when I went off to college. Once I started working, I stopped watching it. My college roommate watched Another World, because his HS girlfriend did.

I think the early 1980s was when the Erica Kane character (played by Susan Lucci) became the central character on ALL MY CHILDREN, with Erica ultimately becoming an international celebrity, first as a super model and later as the head of a cosmetics empire. Susan Lucci brought a light comedic touch to the role and made what could have been a one-note self-centered b-word into an endearing character.

[Hibi]

Yes, Alma is back as a Spanish name, pronounced "Ahlma." The name from the past was "you can call me Al-ma."

What movie character was named Alma? I seem to remember one.

Geraldine Page's character in SUMMER AND SMOKE was named Alma.
There's even a line where Alma says that her name is Spanish for soul.
"Body vs. spirit" is a central theme of SUMMER AND SMOKE.

Yes, I thought there was a Geraldine Page character named that, but couldn't remember which one.

[Hibi]

At the risk of sounding like Jimmy Carter, there was a "malaise" that settled in over films in the second half of the '70s. This is not to say that there weren't some excellent titles that were still released in these years. What is true though is though that there were a convergence of events that come to fruition both in the industry and in the public, which led to several wandering years.

There are FAR WORSE former Presidents to emulate than MR. CARTER, so it's cool- no worries.

Thank you, that was a really deep and thought provoking post on 1978 in film and the 1970s in film in general- anyone who is reading this, I highly recommend you go back and read the whole thing- it pointed out some things about the decade in film that had never occured to me.

there really was no decade like the 1970s when it came to film, and this from someone who has (like yourself) only seen the films as a sort of post-mortem, neither one of us was alive (or in my case, cognizant) for the entire decade. and no offense to those of you reading this who were, but thank GOD.


Lord, it was such an aesthetically challenged time in HISTORY. Really, where MOD went to DIE.

in fact, when I was about 7 or 8, my sister (who was born in 1973) and I watched THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY on HBO and she kept kidding me about how THIS PARTICULAR FILM WAS MADE THE YEAR I WAS BORN- AND HOW IT PERFECTLY CAPTURED ALL THINGS HAPPENING IN 1978, and I don't think she realized HOW PERSONALLY I TOOK IT- REALLY TO THE CORE, and felt a degree of shame over being born in 1978- aka THE NADIR OF FASHION, FILM, ART DESIGN, AND POPULAR CULTURE.

(Again, those of you alive in the 1970s, I am SO SORRY for all of this)

anyhow, I am ultimately glad that I left so many films of the decade unwatched because it's been like finding unopened presents under the tree the day after christmas- i've seen so much from the 30s and 40s and 50s and 80s and 90s.

it's only been in the last 10 years or less that I've seen CABARET and DOG DAY AFTERNOON and GODFATHER II and THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and (I could go on and on)

There are those who believe th 1970s were one of the great Hollywood decades, maybe the greatest, but I am not among them. The late 60s/early 70s were a grim time. The George Floyd protests were reminiscent, but on a much smaller scale. Because of the Vietnam War, America was closer to revolutionary talk than in the lifetime of those of you who are younger. The combination of black militants and white middle-class college students, both opposed for different reasons to the Vietnam War, was the essential spark. Once the war started winding down, this very loose but essential alliance fell apart and, in effect, the country was waiting for Reagan ("It's morning in America"). People tended to speak of this era as "the 60s." I knew that "the 60s" were dead the day I saw An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). Salvation through military service? Taken seriously by, well, just about everybody?

The college student radicals (a treasured word to them)--the word "progressive" was never used at this time in any political context--were opposed to the war because they didn't want to be killed (reasonable), wanted to have sex right now (well, OK) and thought their **** didn't stink (questionable). If anything you read about this era sounds vague, unformed, and out of focus, that catches the spirit. By and large, these people were smarter than the Trump-serrectionists of January 2021, but didn't come nearly as close to doing anything serious to--get ready to boo at the word--"the establishment."

On to the druggy 1970s. Yes, many people, and many in Hollywood, were on various kinds of drugs. A friend from this era said she could identify which drugs the makers of various films were on. To those who loved the music of the 60s, no word could possibly be more vile than "disco." Both music and lyrics were radically simplified. Don't think, just get up out on the floor, and boogie oogie oogie till--well, you get the picture. Meanwhile, gay lib was getting underway, if intermittently, and women's lib was a big, big thing. The media--a term not really used until this decade--was heavily invested in the women's lib issue, of all kinds and at all intellectual levels.

The 1970s were a bad time for New York, as several people noted recently in these pages. New York meant high crime and racial tension. Nixon had a Southern strategy, but the big switch of the South from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican hadn't happened yet. Jimmy Carter was a Democratic governor of Georgia. The whole blue state/red state concept hadn't appeared.

The 1970s were the hot era for self-help books. I remember going to a guy's apartment and his bookshelves were evenly divided between gay fiction and self-help books.

This is the psychic and political and drug-induced morass from which 1970s films came.

The early 70s was not a good period for movies. As the 70s progressed it got better. Hollywood was gobsmacked by the success of Easy Rider. Suddenly, the Hollywood output seemed old fashioned. (IT WAS) Road show big budget films were tanking, but then they went in the other direction trying to cater to young people releasing all kinds of youth themed films, most of which bombed. Older audiences stayed away and the younger audiences were hard to please and fickle. Once Hollywood zeroed in on disaster films and the like, older audiences started coming back and the studios started making money again, and new directors broke out (not always at the box office) and kept younger audiences engaged. Jaws really changed how films opened with its mass opening at hundreds of theaters.

[Fedya]

For some reason, my first thought when I saw this actress's face was "Agnes Moorehead?".

I’ve never seen Agnes Moorehead’s thighs. The face is puzzling.

I would have said closer to a young Aline MacMahon.

[Lorna]

[quote=Hibi post_id=200675 time=1716226502 user_id=849
The early 70s was not a good period for movies. As the 70s progressed it got better.
[/quote]

See, i feel the exact opposite- as someone who has come late to viewing films of the 70s, the early 70s and especially 1971 have a lot of interesting and fascinating films for me- many of which are admitedly not mainstream and/or horror, but they count nonetheless: THE WICKER MAN, STRAW DOGS, THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES, CHINATOWN, LAST PICTURE SHOW, HAROLD AND MAUDE, WHAT'S UP DOC?, THE BOY FRIEND, THE DEVILS, VANISHING POINT- it's once we hit 1975 that my interest in the decade IMMEDIATELY WANES (JAWS and some outliers notwithstanding)