Films in Review -- complete year 1972 (10 issues)

New York: National Board of Review. Very Good+. 1972. (Vol. XXIII, Nos. 1-10). Magazine. [all issues are VG+ or better (many close to Fine), with various bits of minor external wear; all issues are complete and internally clean]. (B&W photographs) A full year of issues of this erstwhile (and somewhat idosyncratic) film journal, most noted (and valued) by film buffs for its deeply-researched career articles (often corrected or supplemented by attentive readers in subsequent issues' Letters columns). This year's career-article subjects are: Don Ameche, Jane Wyatt, Jean Simmons, Ann Harding, Louis Wolheim, Joan Blondell, Theodore Roberts, Maurice Chevalier, Marion Davies, Sydney Greenstreet, Lon McCallister, Dave O'Brien, Lana Turner, Carl Mayer, Rita Hayworth, Nazimova, and Randolph Scott. (If any of these career articles interests you, see the NOTE at the end.) Most of the current film releases of the year are reviewed (often quite quirkily or crankily), and this was a pretty good year, which saw the release of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (which editor Hart, predictably, hated), CABARET, THE GODFATHER, THE SORROW AND THE PITY, WHAT'S UP, DOC?, SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, FRENZY, JUNIOR BONNER, DELIVERANCE, FAT CITY, SOUNDER, and FELLNI'S ROMA. All these any many more are reviewed in the course of the year, and as a regular reader of this magazine during this period, I can testify that the regular critics, who were very much writing from an "old-school" perspective, could often be hilariously off the mark with regard to films that didn't line up with their sensibilities -- but at the same time, they were sometimes surprisingly pithy and perceptive. There were monthly columns devoted to films on TV, film music, and film collecting -- and of course the Letters section, a veritable hotbed of dedicated and knowledgeable readers sending in corrections, additions, arguments and additional perspectives (one regular sub-heading in the Letters column was "Erudition Wanted & Supplied." NOTE, please, that if you are interested in one particular career article or other individual feature story, but don't want to buy the whole set just to get it, please send us an inquiry; we are deeply stocked on this periodical, and may well be able to supply you with the individual issue you're seeking, at a modest price. .