Why 1974 Might Be the Greatest Year in Screenwriting

In the arts, some years are sacred. For example, historians regard 1874 as the year modern art began, 1971 was one of the best years in music, and, in cinema, 1939 is referred to as the high watermark because that year’s contenders for the Outstanding Production Oscar included Gone With The Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Ninotchka, and Goodbye, Mr Chips.

As for screenwriting, the most hallowed year should be 1974. It was the year that The Godfather Part II, Chinatown, The Conversation, and Lenny were written, among other classics.

Read More: A Brief History of Screenwriting

The Height of the New Hollywood

The Oscars are not always the best guide to filmmaking and screenwriting excellence; there are numerous examples of the Academy overlooking great films and scripts. However, once in a while, usually when the film industry is going through one of its rare golden ages, the Oscars are a great indicator of filmmaking and screenwriting greatness.

1974 is undoubtedly one of those years.

1974’s cinematic triumphs took center stage at the 1975 Academy Awards, showcasing the year’s best films and scripts with a one-year time lag. Nevertheless, the fact is that 1974 and 1975 represent the midpoint of an actual decade and the high-point of the New Hollywood of the 1970s, which ended up becoming Hollywood’s Second Golden Age after the era of Classic Hollywood (1930-1960).

‘Cleopatra’ (1963)

As this whistle stop tour of Hollywood history suggests, the 1960s were not a particularly memorable decade for film. Whereas almost every other form of popular culture, especially music, was exploding with invention, the 1960s in Hollywood, particularly the first half, was the era of the big and often bloated musical or historical epic, such as My Fair Lady (1964), The Sound of Music (1965), Cleopatra (1963), and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964).

It was only towards the end of the 1960s that Hollywood began to get its mojo back, in large part because American filmmakers finally learned the lessons of their foreign counterparts, especially their French counterparts in the nouvelle vague or French New Wave of the early 1960s, and developed a new kind of cinema for the new post-war world emerging in the 1960s.

‘Bonnie and Clyde’ (1967)

In many ways, the starting point for the New Hollywood was Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Arthur Penn’s ultra-violent and utterly unheroic depiction of the titular Depression-era bank robbers who fired the starting pistol (or even the Tommy Gun) on the increasingly graphic depiction of violence in cinema, a process that came to full slow-motion fruition with Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969).

If Bonnie and Clyde, and especially Easy Rider (1969), mark the beginning of the New Hollywood movement, then 1974 arguably marks the end of it, or at the very least the high point before the quick decline.

Read More: Movie Brats: 5 Key Players in the Film Movement That Changed Hollywood

‘Easy Rider’ (1969)

The 10 Best Screenplays of 1974

The Academy nominated 10 screenplays in 1975, splitting them evenly between the Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Screenplay categories, with five contenders in each.

Almost all of them were extraordinary, with the very best among them—the winners in each category—undoubtedly ranking among the finest screenplays ever written.

‘Lenny’ (1974)

Best Adapted Screenplays

Francis Ford Coppola‘s dual screenwriting nominations showcases his boundless talent and tireless drive. The Godfather Part II won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, and deservedly so since it remains one of the only successful sequels that is also a prequel, building on the original The Godfather story by showing Michael Corleone’s transition into a Godfather while also explaining how his father, Vito Corleone, became a crime-lord in the first place. 

The Godfather Part II was undoubtedly the Best Adapted Screenplay of 1974. Indeed, the only argument about the screenplay revolves around whether Coppola should have submitted it in the Best Original Screenplay category instead, as it primarily comprises original material created by him (including elements based on the history of his own Italian-American family), despite being nominally based on Mario Puzo’s original novel.

‘The Godfather: Part II’ (1974)

Three other Outstanding Adapted Screenplays are ready for rediscovery five decades later. The first is Lenny, Bob Fosse’s incendiary film based on Julian Barry’s 1971 play of the same name. Dustin Hoffman gave one of the finest performances of his career as Lenny Bruce, the ultimate anti-establishment stand-up comic. Barry, who also wrote the screenplay, captures both the manic intensity of a comic genius and the ceaseless frustration of someone born at the wrong time; if Bruce had lived two decades later, he would not have faced nearly so many charges of indecency.

The second is Murder On The Orient Express, recently remade by Kenneth Branagh (but pointlessly so). Based on one of Agatha Christie’s most famous novels, Paul Dehn adapted the novel for the screen. With a genuinely all-star cast (appropriately enough, given the ensemble nature of the piece)and directed by Sidney Lumet (who proved that he could direct period dramas and contemporary dramas), it was an instant classic and repays rereading today.

The third great adapted screenplay of 1974 has one of the greatest screen credits or combination of screen credits ever. It is Young Frankenstein, which was “Written by Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks, based on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” It is one the best (and the most ludicrous) Hollywood co-writing credits since the most famous co-writing credit of them all, which is the one for Kiss Me Kate (1929) that stated: “By William Shakespeare, with additional dialogue by Sam Taylor.” At least Young Frankenstein is consciously ludicrous; indeed, it is one of the greatest ever pastiches of a genre.

Only one of the five Best Adapted Screenplays of 1974 stands out for not being a classic. That is The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, based on the 1959 novel by Mordechai Richter of the same name, which is remembered now (if it is at all) for starring Richard Dreyfuss, one of the greatest stars of 1970s cinema, even if Kravitz is not one of his greatest films.

Read More: Bound for the Screen: 13 Great Book-to-Movie Adaptations

‘The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz’ (1974)

Best Original Screenplays

The competition for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 1975 was similar to that for the Best Adapted Screenplay in that there was one outstanding nomination that deservedly won, three other serious contenders, and one that does not hold up today.

The entirely deserving winner of the Best Original Screenplay in 1975 is the screenplay that is often described as being the best screenplay ever written: Chinatown. While The Godfather II was in many ways an extraordinarily experimental screenplay because it followed two timelines simultaneously (Michael Corleone in the late 1950s and Vito Corleone at the start of the 20th century), Chinatown was more orthodox, even classical, by comparison. 

But if the form of Chinatown (a detective story) was relatively conventional, the subject matter (murder, land theft, and ultimately incest) was incredibly unconventional, indeed unprecedented, for a major Hollywood film.

‘Chinatown’ (1974)

The three serious contenders for the Best Original Screenplay were The Conversation, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, and Day For Night. The Conversation was, of course, Coppola’s other film of 1974, a small, relatively low-budget surveillance drama that he somehow crammed in between the two Godfather films, even if he had to leave the final editing of it to his sound editor, Walter Murch.

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is the first Martin Scorsese film to be Oscar-nominated, even if it pales in comparison with his real breakthrough, Mean Streets (1973), from a year earlier. Alice is far more conventional than the still-astonishing rock and roll rush of Mean Streets. However, Ellen Burstyn is wonderful as the titular Alice, who desperately seeks a new life for herself and her young son after her husband dies in a road accident.

‘Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore’ (1974)

Finally, Day for Night (or La Nuit Américaine/American Night) is Francois Truffaut’s equivalent of his great compatriot Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt (Le Mépris) (1963) in being a film about filmmaking itself. It may not be as wildly inventive and innovative as Truffaut’s early films, especially The 400 Blows (Lest Quatres Cents Coups) (1959) or Jules et Jim (1962), but it is still a fine film by a great filmmaker.

As with the Best Adapted Screenplay competition in 1975, there was an outlier in the Best Original Screenplay category in that it was for a film that has not withstood the twin tests of time and changing tastes. That is Harry and Tonto, one of the strangest road movies ever, depicting a widower, Harry, traveling across America with his pet cat, Tonto. Although charming at times, it is neither a great film nor a great script. The film catapulted veteran actor and comic Art Carney to Oscar glory, solidifying its place in cinematic history as his star vehicle.

‘Day for Night’ (1974)

There Are Other Great Years for Screenwriting, but 1974 Reigns Supreme

Of course, there have been other great years for screenwriting. Among the best examples is 1969, in which two completely different “cowboy” pictures—Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Midnight Cowboy—won Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay, respectively, with the latter becoming the first X-rated film to win the Best Picture Oscar.

In the 21st century, 2013 is probably the best year for screenwriting so far, at least in terms of how it was recognized by the Oscars, with the equally extraordinary but completely different 12 Years A Slave and Her winning the Best Original and Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars, respectively.

’12 Years a Slave’ (2013)

Nevertheless, 1974 stands alone as the high point in the history of Hollywood screenwriting. There would be other wonders to come post-1974, including One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and Raging Bull (1980), which, as Peter Biskind suggested in his book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock ‘N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, is probably the last truly great film of the era.

Soon after The Godfather Part II, Chinatown, The Conversation, Lenny, and all the other great films and scripts of the mid-1970s, the unstoppable onslaught of the Blockbuster era began with Jaws (1975) and culminated with Star Wars (1977).

So, it is no wonder that we look back to the 1970s as the last Golden Age of American filmmaking because, in so many ways, it was.

Read More: Explore the Golden Age of Hollywood