Opening Wednesday at a Theater or Drive-In Near You: The Shadow Cinema of the American' 70s

Many film buffs and cinema historians believe that the 1970s represented a great decade of filmmaking, perhaps the last one before the onslaught of popular "blockbusters" and their numerous prequels and sequels. The 1970s engendered modern-day classics such as the "Godfather" films, Cabaret, The French Connection, and Annie Hall, but also gave rise to the ilk of Jaws and Star Wars, often blamed for the decline of the "golden age." Film and culture critic Taylor opines that many worthy 1970s movies (or at least those worthy of reconsideration) have been unfairly overlooked; he terms them the shadow cinema. In a series of essays, he writes about a little more than a dozen of these films in various genres, among them so-called blaxploitation films such as Coffy and Foxy Brown, offbeat Westerns, including Ulzana's Raid and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, and the thrillers Winter Kills and The Eyes of Laura Mars. For each, he talks about the plot, cultural underpinnings, and sometimes troubled production histories.