Nowadays it would be extremely unlikely, if not outright impossible, for the year’s two “best” films to open in the first quarter of the year. Yet that’s exactly what happened in 1972.

Cabaret opened on February 13th, nine days before the previous year’s Oscar nominations were announced and The Godfather on March 24th, three days after the previous year’s ceremony, both to near unanimous adulation from critics and audiences alike. Both were instantly seen as the indisputable front-runners for that year’s Oscars. The only question was which one would win Best Picture, and what would be their token competition.

The Golden Globes as expected, awarded both, The Godfather in Drama, Cabaret in Musical/Comedy while The National Board of Review chose Cabaret. Both the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics sidestepped the issue by giving their awards to foreign language films. The NSFC went for Luis Bunuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, which would go on to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. The NYFC chose Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers, which would have to wait until the following year to have a shot at Oscar do to the difference in N.Y. and L.A. release dates.

The Godfather led the nominations with ten, but would win only three Oscars, albeit important ones – Best Picture, Actor (Marlon Brando) and Adapted Screenplay (Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola). Cabaret would be nominated for ten and win eight, including Best Actress (Liza Minnelli), Supporting Actor (Joel Grey) and Director (Bob Fosse).

The Godfather was the first epic gangster film, the first in which family was more important than anything else, not that it stinted on the blood-letting. Far from it, but as violent as it gets, some of the most gut-wrenching death scenes are those reserved for betrayal within the family, both the extended gangster family and the related family of the central characters, the Corleones.

Al Pacino, James Caan and Robert Duvall all received Oscar nominations for Supporting Actor, and Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, Richard Castellano, Sterling Hayden and many others turned in fine performances as well.

Based on Kander and Ebb’s groundbreaking musical of the rise of Hitler, juxtaposed against the backdrop of decadent 1920s Berlin, Cabaret was based on John Van Druten’s play, I Am a Camera, itself based on Christopher Isherwood’s autobiographical book, Berlin Stories.

Liza Minnelli is Sally Bowles, the modestly talented British singer who wants to be a film star and Michael York is Brian Roberts, an aspiring writer based on Isherwood. Helmut Griem is the bisexual playboy who seduces them both and Joel Grey the master of ceremonies at the seedy nightclub in which Sally performs. Marisa Berenson is the young rich woman Brian teaches English to in order to pay the rent. If there is one complaint about the film, it’s that Minnelli is too accomplished a singer to be playing a character who can’t really sing or dance or do anything well. It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t want it any other way.

The three films that the Academy nominated to go against the two behemoths were John Boorman’s Deliverance; Jan Troell’s The Emigrants and Martin Ritt’s Sounder.

Musical film themes could still sell films in 1972 and the toe-tap inducing “Dueling Banjoes” from Deliverance was one of the most popular, but anyone expecting to see a jaunty film based on the best-selling record was in for a shock. Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox were the four friends who journey down river to devastating effects in America’s back-country. Its three nominations also included Best Director and Editing.

1972 was also the time when foreign language films were at their most popular at the box-office. The epic Swedish film, The Emigrants, about the struggle of a group of Swedish farmers to leave their harsh life and emigrate to the U.S. in the mid 19th Century, was one of the best. Followed by an equally impressive sequel, The New Land, the following year, the film was nominated for five Oscars including Best Director and Actress (Liv Ullmann).

The struggles of a family of black sharecroppers in the Deep South was the subject of Sounder, an exhilarating family film which also received nominations for Best Actor (Paul Scofield), Actress (Cicely Tyson) and Adapted Screenplay.

Other films that Oscar liked this year included The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie; Murmur of the Heart; The Candidate; The Ruling Class; The Heartbreak Kid; Pete ‘n’ Tillie; Butterflies Are Free; Travels With My Aunt; Lady Sings the Blues; The Poseidon Adventure; Young Winston; 1776; Sleuth and Fat City, but not Frenzy or Child’s Play.

A surreal comedy of great charm, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, in addition to its win for Best Foreign Language Film, was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay, the first of only two nominations the great Spanish writer-director Luis Bunuel received in his long and distinguished career. French writer-director Louis Malle also received his first nomination (of three) for writing Murmur of the Heart, about an unconventional French family in the 1950s. The film they lost to, Michael Ritchie’s The Candidate, provides a scathing look at modern American politics with Robert Redford as a Senatorial candidate with nothing but good looks and a quick wit to sustain him. It was also nominated for Best Sound.

A dark comedy if there ever was one, Peter Madek’s The Ruling Class garnered Peter O’Toole his fifth Oscar nomination for his delicious portrayal of the delusional British Earl who believes himself to be both Jack the Ripper and Jesus Christ. Other dark comedies included The Heartbreak Kid, nominated for Best Supporting Actor Eddie Albert and Supporting Actress Jeannie Berlin, and Pete ‘n’ Tillie, nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay and Supporting Actress Geraldine Page.

Comedy of a more refined nature was evident in Milton Katselas’ Butterfleis Are Free, which earned Eileen Heckart a much deserved Oscar for Best Supporting Actress as the obsessive mother of a young blind man. The film was also nominated for Best Cinematography and Sound. George Cukor’s Travels With My Aunt was an Auntie Mame wannabe, that nevertheless had its moments, almost all of them involving Best Actress nominee Maggie Smith. Also nominated for Best Cinematography and Art Direction, it won for Best Costume Design over The Godfather; Lady Sings the Blues; The Poseidon Adventure and Young Winston.

Nominated for five Oscars including Best Actress, Diana Ross, Sidney J. Furie’s Lady Sings the Blues was expected be a hit based on its subject, jazz great Billie Holliday. What no one expected was that contemporary singer Ross would prove to be a dramatic force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately her subsequent acting career did not measure up to this one piece of brilliant work.

One of the most successful of the numerous disaster films of the era, Ronald Neame’s The Poseidon Adventure was nominated for eight Oscars and won one for Best Song, “The Morning After”. It also won a Special Oscar for Best Visual Effects, which did not have its own category at the time. Shelley Winters was nominated for her performance.

An historical drama, Richard Attenborough’s Young Winston was a bit stuffy in portraying the relationship of American born Lady Jennie Churchill (Anne Bancroft) to her famous son (Simon Ward), but was good enough to secure three Oscar nominations including Best Original Screenplay.

A far more satisfying historical film was Peter H. Hunt’s 1776, the musical about the writing of the Declaration of Independence filmed with much of its Broadway cast intact, including William Daniels as John Adams, Ken Howard as Thomas Jefferson and Howard Da Silva as Ben Franklin. It was nominated for Best Cinematography.

Four directorial comebacks were notable this year. Writer-producer-director Joseph L. Mankiewcz, a four time Oscar winner received his tenth and final nomination, his first in eighteen years, for directing Sleuth, which also received nominations for Best Actor nominees Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine, as well as Best Score. Writer-producer-actor-director John Huston, who had already been nominated thirteen of his career total of fifteen times, and won twice, was not nominated for Fat City, but the film did garner a Supporting Actress nomination for Susan Tyrell. Five time Oscar nominee and Honorary Oscar winning director Alfred Hitchcock wasn’t as lucky. His Frenzy, despite receiving rave notices, wasn’t nominated at all. Nor was Sidney Lumet’s film of the Broadway hit Child’s Play (no relation to the Chucky films) for which James Mason was runner-up to Sleuth’s Laurence Olivier at the NYFC voting for Best Actor. Lumet’s films would receive Oscar’s full attention in each of the next six years.

Most of the films discussed were released on DVD in the U.S., though several are now out of print and sell for outrageous prices if they can be found at all. Several such as The Emigrants; Pete ‘n’ Tillie; Travels With My Aunt; Young Winston and Child’s Play have never been on DVD. Child’s Play was never even released on VHS.

New DVD releases this week include the Australian hit, Animal Kingdom,and the psychological horror film, Buried,starring Ryan Reynolds.