Wrong movie; it was Jaws: The Revenge that paid for Michael Caine’s house.
Note the copy-and-pasted question that prefaced my response.
I’d like to nominate The Sting. Everyone saw it in the theater. I daresay that it–and The Great Gatsby–started off the trend of nostalgia during the Watergate era. It was clever, and ambiguous. Ragtime music had a brief resurgence. Even the Saturday Evening Post went back to its early Rockwellian roots.
When was the last time you heard someone refer to this Redford/Newman gem?
“The Entertainer” is still the go to background music for a scam in progress scene and the nose swipe is still the go to scammers’ secret signal, istm. Though it’s usually in a more comedic type of movie/show. Not really sure if people all know it’s from The Sting.
The nose swipe did not start with The Sting. Recall if you will these lines:
And laying his finger aside of his nose
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose
Santa was running the old False Good Samaritan scam, eh? His whole deal never smelled right.
I find it hard to think that The Sting is “forgotten”. It still shows up on cable. I watch it frequiently, myself.
In a 2000 Simpsons episode, and the example sort of makes your point:
‘Orca’ or ‘The Deep’?
Neither of which is a shark movie of course
Deep Blue Sea?
It’s been mentioned in passing but I nominate The Graduate. At the time it was considered a great movie that captured the times but it’s largely relegated to the dustbin. Great sound track, though.
My answer would have been Orca as well but as you say that wasn’t a shark movie.
I don’t think this one qualifies at all. When Mike Nichols died this week, this was the film he was still most known for. And look at how often it’s been referenced and mentioned–it’s just never stopped. I didn’t see the movie till I was about 19 or 20, but growing up in the 90s I saw the memorable scenes referenced in tons of places (Boy Meets World, Seinfeld, Simpsons, Daria, Wayne’s World). And the plot itself is still relevant–think of all the films about post-college 20somethings unsure what to do with their lives: Tiny Furniture, Girls, Frances Ha. This one would probably be my go to example for an older film that has never left the public consciousness.
That doesn’t make the point of The Sting being forgotten – it makes the point that The Sting II is forgotten. Justifiably, too. Even though it, too, was written by David S. Ward, who wrote the original, it misuses the characters and is inconsistent with the first film. It also lacks all period feel and appeal.
Jackie Gleason is “Fargo” Gondorff???
What about the Austin Powers movies? They were huge at the time, but today they seem a bit tired/goofy.
I’ve wondered the same thing. I’ve never met a single person that was a serious-enough Avatar fan to buy a t-shirt, letalone dress up, learn a language, etc.
I think the Avatar-is-the-next-big-fandom thing was a media presupposition / intentional marketing push, but never actually materialized when the movie turned out to be a by-the-numbers blockbuster at best and absolute garbage at worst and the “3D revolution” has been a general fizzle.
Funny thing about those; I was just talking about them the other day with some friends. (I’m 41, they are all younger.) Consensus was the the first film would probably be considered an all-time classic 100 years from now, at least as a shining example of the era, and the sequels would probably be thought of as embarrassments on the level of the Caddyshack, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber sequels.
Somebody’s going to point out that this has already been mentioned, but I’ve looked through the thread twice and haven’t seen it.
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
It was the archetypical Very Important Film. Stanley Kramer, Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier. Cutting edge topic. And it fell victim to everything that plagues a Very Important Film. Cardboard characters. Speechifying. Not just a product of its time, a product of a moment of its time.
What it’s mainly remembered for now is being Spencer Tracy’s final film (he died only a few weeks after completing it.)
That sounds off. The third was a clunker, but the first sequel is one of the best comedy sequels* out there. Not quite as good as the original, but it works pretty well and is memorable in its own right.
*Yes, this is a low bar.
Good one. Was not bound to stay all that fresh…