The Movies and the Hits

Taking a little different tack on our look back at our favorite music while we were at Vanderbilt, I have been struck, after doing a little research, about our many of the top movies from that era (1969-1973) also contained some of the hits that topped the charts.

Let's start in 1969 with the "Best Picture" Oscar film MIDNIGHT COWBOY and the major hit of that summer "Everybody's Talking" by Harry Nilsson. Here it is from the movie and YouTube.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz6GzKWiIAs

And the hits just keep on coming!

This box office smash, BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, led way to a major pop chart hit for B. J. Thomas with "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" which I think won the Best Original Song Oscar in 1969.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VILWkqlQLWk

And the list goes on with this movie EASY RIDER and the hit song "Born to be Wild" from Steppenwolf....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJS8j9YYB9w

And it doesn't end there with other 1969 movies including "Hello, Dolly!", "Alice's Restaurant", "Paint Your Wagon" and "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" that generated the hit "Jean"....

But in the movie, the song was performed by its author, noted 60s poet Rod McKuen. It was Oliver who made it a pop hit, rising as high as #3 on the charts in the summer of 1969. Maggie Smith, the lead in the movie, didn't do too bad either, she won the "Best Actress" Oscar for her performance. Here's Oliver performing "Jean" which was also nominated (but didn't win) for "Best Original Song".....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AprKN7DxJlw

It wasn't just in 1969 that so many of our pop hits came from the movies. We'll take a look back at 1970 in our next posting.