Picture This Playlist 127: The Spectacular 70s
Picture This: Film Music on the Radio 05/03/2026 Wayne Cresser WRIU-FM, 90.3 Kingston, RI Sundays 6-8 pm On the web at: www.wriu.org
A Word about Tonight’s Show—The focus of the 5/3 program was film music of the 1970s, primarily; we’ll get to the TV side of things next week, 5/10, and continue with more scores and songs from 70s movies because I left a lot on the table. A few motifs emerged as we worked through the playlist. One, the 70s produced films which not only impacted audiences at the time, but also continue to resonate with people who love films, including critics. The Godfather, parts I & II, the first Stars Wars Movie, now called Star Wars a New Hope, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Raiders of the Lost Ark, MASH, Chinatown, Jaws, Rocky, Taxi Driver, and Saturday Night Fever, to name a few. With those films, the beginnings and consolidations of great directorial careers, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Frances Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Federico Fellini, Robert Altman, George Roy Hill and Hal Ashby, to name some of the directors, and their associated composers, Nino Rota with Fellini and Coppola, Bernard Hermann with Scorsese, Jerry Goldsmith with Roman Polanski on Chinatown, and with Franklin J. Shaffner on Patton, and of course John Williams with Lucas on Star Wars and Spielberg on Jaws and Close Encounters, and of course, I was just getting started…
Avant Gardener from The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas, composed and performed by Courtney Barnett.
Theme from The French Connection, composed and performed by Don Ellis
Superfly from Superfly, composed and performed by Curtis Mayfield
Jive Talkin’ from Saturday Night Fever, composed and performed by the Bee Gees
Rock n’ Roll High School from Rock n’ Roll High School, composed and performed by written the Ramones
Blow Me Down from Popeye, (demo version), composed and performed by Harry Nilsson
Dialogue from Harold and Maude with Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon, scripted by Colin Higgins
Don’t Be Shy from Harold and Maude, composed and performed by Cat Stevens.
Bus Ride to Paradise from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, composed and performed by Jack Nitzsche
The Conformist’s Waltz from The Conformist, composed by Georges Delarue
Amacord (“I Remember”) from Amacord, composed by Nino Rota
The Godfather Waltz from The Godfather, composed by Nino Rota, conducted by Carlo Savina
Love Theme from Chinatown, composed by Jerry Goldsmith
I Still Can’t Sleep/They Cannot Touch Her (Betsy’s theme) from Taxi Driver, composed by Bernard Herrmann
The Theme (“Gonna Fly Now”), from Rocky, composed by Bill Conti
The Theme from Patton, composed by Jerry Goldsmith
End Credits (dialogue and music) from MASH, music composed by Johnny Mandel
All music composed by John Williams
Princess Leia’s Theme from Star Wars: A New Hope
Wild Signals from Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Main Theme from Superman
Main Title and First Victim from Jaws
Tapedeck in his Tractor from Nashville, composed and performed by Ronee Blakely
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door from Pat Garret and Billy the Kid, composed and performed by Bob Dylan
Solace from The Sting, composed and performed by Marvin Hamlisch
Dravot’s Farewell (Minstrel Boy) from The Man Who Would Be King, traditional/arrangement by Maurice Jarre, dialogue by Sean Connery and Michael Caine
Raffle of a Dog/Freeway Dialogue/Chopin Fantasy in F Minor: Opus 49 from Five Easy Pieces, “Raffle” composed and performed by Billy “Green” Bush, and “Chopin Fantasy,” performed by Pearl Kaufman, Freeway Dialogue performed by Bush and Jack Nicholson