1970s in film
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The decade of the 1970s in film involved many significant developments in world cinema.
Trends
Asian cinema
An
European cinema
In
North American cinema
The decade opened with
In the years previous to 1970, Hollywood had begun to cater to the younger generation with films such as The Graduate. This proved a folly when anti-war films like R. P. M. and The Strawberry Statement became major box-office flops. Even solid films with bankable stars, like the Pearl Harbor epic Tora! Tora! Tora!, flopped, leaving studios in dire straits financially. Unable to repay financiers, studios began selling off land, furniture, clothing, and sets acquired over years of production. Nostalgic fans bid on merchandise and collectibles ranging from Judy Garland's sparkling red shoes to MGM's own back lots.
More of the successful films were those based in the harsh truths of war, rather than the excesses of the 1960s. Films like the
One of the most insightful films of the decade[
Sean Connery returned to the role of James Bond in 1971 in Diamonds Are Forever after George Lazenby filled the role in 1969. Roger Moore succeeded Connery in 1973 with an adaptation of Ian Fleming's Live and Let Die which was the most successful of his Bond films in terms of admissions.[citation needed] Live and Let Die was followed by an adaptation of The Man with the Golden Gun in 1974, which at the time garnered the lowest box office taking of any Bond film before it. After its release Harry Saltzman co-owner of Danjaq with Albert R. Broccoli sold his half to United Artists causing a three-year gap until the next Bond film, the longest gap since the start of the franchise in 1962. The series picked up again in 1977 with The Spy Who Loved Me and ended the decade with Moonraker in 1979, which was the highest grossing Bond film (not adjusting for inflation) of all time until GoldenEye in 1995.
An adaptation of an
Three Airport sequels followed in 1974, 1977, and 1979, each successor making less money than the last.[
The early 1970s also brought a rebirth of gritty crime film,[
An adaptation of a Mario Puzo novel, The Godfather, was a box-office and critical success in 1972. The three-hour epic followed a Mafia boss, played by Marlon Brando, through his life of crime. Beyond the violence and drama were themes of love, pride, and greed. The Godfather went on to earn $134 million at American box office, and $245 million throughout the world, becoming the highest-grossing film of all time. It won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay. Its director Francis Ford Coppola was passed over in favor of Bob Fosse and his musical, Cabaret, which also earned an Oscar for its star, Liza Minnelli. The Godfather Part II followed in 1974, with roughly the same principal cast and crew, earning Oscars for star Robert De Niro, its director, composer, screenwriters and art directors. The film also earned the Best Picture Oscar for that year.
Not all of the "street smart" urban related films were 100% live action. Director Ralph Bakshi released the first animated full-length feature specifically oriented towards adults (Fritz the Cat) then moved on to two other features that dealt with the mafia and other ethnic-related urban issues. Both Heavy Traffic and Coonskin would prove that this kind of material could be handled effectively in the animation genre. Bakshi would later produce fantasy oriented films (Wizards and The Lord of the Rings) before the decade ended.
Inaugurated by the 1969
In the middle 1970s, films began to also reflect the disenfranchisement brought by the excesses of the past twenty years. A deeply unsettling look at alienation and city life,
Throughout the 1970s, the horror film developed into a lucrative genre of film. It began in 1973 with the terrifying
The blockbuster was born in 1975. While The Exorcist was among the top five grossing films of the 1970s, the first film given the blockbuster distinction was 1975's Jaws. Released on June 20, the film about a series of horrific deaths related to a massive great white shark was director Steven Spielberg's first big-budget Hollywood production, coming in at $9 million in cost. The film slowly grew in ticket sales and became one of the most profitable films of its time, ending with a $260 million gross in the United States alone. The film won Academy Awards for its skillful editing, chilling score, and sound recording. It was also nominated for Best Picture that year, though it lost to Miloš Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (which also won acting awards for Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher). It spawned the successful sequel, Jaws 2 in 1978, which featured the same cast, but without Steven Spielberg. Another tailor-made blockbuster, Dino De Laurentiis' King Kong was released, but to less than stellar success. King Kong did mark the first time a film was booked to theaters before a release date, a common practice today.
The massive success of Jaws was eclipsed just two years later by another legendary blockbuster and film franchise. The
The success of Woody Allen's Annie Hall in 1977 stirred a new trend in filmmaking.[citation needed] Annie Hall, a love story about a depressed comedian and a free-spirited woman, was followed with more sentimental films, including Neil Simon's The Goodbye Girl, An Unmarried Woman starring Jill Clayburgh, the autobiographical Lillian Hellman story, Julia, starring Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave, and 1978's Heaven Can Wait and International Velvet.
Younger audiences were also beginning to be the focus of cinema, after the huge blockbusters that had attracted them back to the theater. John Travolta became popular in the pop-culture landmark films, Saturday Night Fever, which introduced Disco to middle America, and Grease, which recalled the world of the 1950s. Comedy was also given new life in the irreverent Animal House, set on a college campus during the 1960s. Up in Smoke, starring Cheech & Chong, was another irreverent comedy about marijuana use became popular among teenagers. The new television comedy program, "Saturday Night Live", launched the careers of several of its comedians, such as Chevy Chase, who co-starred in the 1978 hit Foul Play with Goldie Hawn.
The decade closed with two films chronicling the
1979 saw the poignant Kramer vs. Kramer, the inspiring Norma Rae, and the nuclear thriller, The China Syndrome. Alien scared summer film-going audiences of 1979 with its horrible monster from outer space, achieving similar success that Jaws had seen four years earlier. Meanwhile, The Onion Field and ...And Justice for All focused on the failures of the American judicial system. The year ended with Hal Ashby's subtle black comedy Being There and The Muppet Movie, a family film based on the Jim Henson puppet characters.
Highest-grossing films (United States and Canada)
All figures are for the United States and Canada. Some figures * are for rentals accruing to the distributor, not total box office gross.
Rank | Title | Studio(s) | Domestic gross | Year | Ref |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Star Wars | 20th Century Fox
|
$221,280,994 | 1977 | |
2 | Superman | Warner Bros. | $134,218,018 | 1978 | |
3 | The Godfather | Paramount Pictures | $133,698,921 | 1972 | |
4 | Jaws | Universal Pictures | $133,400,000 | 1975 | |
5 | Grease | Paramount Pictures | $132,472,560 | 1978 | |
6 | Smokey and the Bandit | Universal Pictures | $126,737,428 | 1977 | |
7 | Animal House | Universal Pictures | $120,091,123 | 1978 | |
8 | Close Encounters of the Third Kind | Columbia Pictures | $116,395,460 | 1977 | |
9 | Kramer vs. Kramer | Columbia Pictures | $106,260,000 | 1979 | |
10 | Enter the Dragon | Golden Harvest / Warner Bros. | $100,000,000 | 1973 | |
11 | Saturday Night Fever | Paramount Pictures | $94,213,184 | 1977 | |
12 | The Exorcist
|
Warner Bros. | $88,500,000 | 1973 | |
13 | The Amityville Horror | American International Pictures | $86,432,520 | 1979 | |
14 | Every Which Way but Loose | Warner Bros. | $85,196,485 | 1978 | |
15 | Rocky II | United Artists | $85,182,160 | 1979 | |
16 | The Way of the Dragon | Golden Harvest | $85,000,000 | 1973 | |
17 | Apocalypse Now | United Artists | $83,471,511 | 1979 | |
18 | The Goodbye Girl | Warner Bros. | $82,000,470 | 1977 | |
19 | Star Trek: The Motion Picture | Paramount Pictures | $82,258,456 | 1979 | |
20 | Heaven Can Wait | Paramount Pictures | $81,640,278 | 1978 | |
21 | Alien | 20th Century Fox | $80,931,801 | 1979 | |
22 | The Sting | Universal Pictures | $79,000,000 | 1973 | |
23 | Hooper | Warner Bros. | $78,000,000 | 1978 | |
24 | Jaws 2 | Universal Pictures | $77,737,272 | 1978 | |
25 | Up in Smoke | Paramount Pictures | $76,000,000 | 1978 | |
26 | 10 | Warner Bros. | $74,865,517 | 1979 | |
27 | The Jerk | Universal Pictures | $73,691,419 | 1979 | |
28 | Moonraker | United Artists | $70,308,099 | 1979 | |
29 | The Muppet Movie | Associated Film Distribution | $65,200,000 | 1979 | |
30 | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest | United Artists / Fantasy Films
|
$59,200,000 | 1975 | |
31 | Rocky | United Artists | $55,900,000 | 1976 | |
32 | American Graffiti | Universal Pictures | $55,900,000 | 1973 | |
33 | A Bridge Too Far | United Artists | $50,750,000 | 1977 | |
34 | Love Story | Paramount Pictures | $50,000,000 | 1970 | |
35 | The Towering Inferno | 20th Century Fox / Warner Bros. | $50,000,000 | 1974 | |
36 | Revenge of the Pink Panther | United Artists | $49,579,269 | 1978 | |
37 | The Deer Hunter | Universal Pictures | $48,979,328 | 1978 | |
38 | The Godfather Part II | Paramount Pictures | $47,542,841 | 1974 | |
39 | The Deep | Columbia Pictures | $47,346,365 | 1977 | |
40 | The Spy Who Loved Me | United Artists | $46,838,673 | 1977 | |
41 | Blazing Saddles | Warner Bros. | $45,200,000 | 1974 | |
42 | Airport | Universal Pictures | $44,500,000 | 1970 | |
43 | The Poseidon Adventure | 20th Century Fox
|
$42,000,000 | 1972 | |
44 | Oh, God! | Warner Bros. | $41,687,243 | 1977 | |
45 | Fiddler on the Roof | United Artists / The Mirisch Production Company | $40,500,000 | 1971 | |
46 | Young Frankenstein | 20th Century Fox | $38,800,000 | 1974 | |
47 | Annie Hall | United Artists | $38,251,425 | 1977 | |
48 | A Star Is Born | Warner Bros. | $37,100,000 | 1976 | |
49 | King Kong | Paramount Pictures | $36,900,000 | 1976 | |
50 | Earthquake | Universal Pictures | $36,300,000 | 1974 |
Lists of films
See also
- Film, History of film, Lists of films
- Popular culture: 1970s in music, 1970s in sports, 1970s in television
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "1977 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "1978 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
- ^ a b "1975 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "1979 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
- ^ a b c "1973 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
- ^ a b c "1976 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
- ^ a b "1970 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
- ^ "1999 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
- ^ a b c "1974 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
- ^ "1972 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
- ^ "1971 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
References
- ISBN 978-0-521-77602-8.
- ISBN 9780415288545.
- ISBN 9789352140084.
- ISBN 9781452913025.
- ^ a b Corliss, Richard (March 29, 2005). "That Old Feeling: When Porno Was Chic". Time. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (June 13, 1973). "The Devil In Miss Jones - Film Review". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved February 7, 2015.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (November 24, 1976). "Alice in Wonderland:An X-Rated Musical Fantasy". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved February 26, 2016.
- ^ Blumenthal, Ralph (January 21, 1973). "Porno chic; 'Hard-core' grows fashionable-and very profitable". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved January 20, 2016.
- ^ Porno Chic (Jahsonic.com)
- ISBN 978-0335219230.[page needed]
- Playboy. Archived from the originalon 2016-02-04. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
- ^ Bentley, Toni (June 2014). "The Legend of Henry Paris" (PDF). ToniBentley.com. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
- ISBN 0-87972-429-3.
The Avenger Vet evolved in the context of the wave of exploitation films produced in the latter half of the 1960s and the early 1970s, that although coterminous with the course of the war, were part of the phenomenon of psychic denial and collective amnesia about Vietnam that characterized American consciousness during that era. These films might most properly be called "Vetsploitation"5 films. Like the network television shows about the era, they were not directly about the war, but instead focused on returning servicemen "as freaked out [losers] who replayed the Vietnam war by committing violence against others or themselves. Vets were time bombs waiting to go off, a new genre of bogeymen (Gibson 3). Note 5, p. 51: They existed side by side with Blaxploitation, Femsploitation, and Teensploitation films in the world of "B" cinema.
- ^ "The Godfather". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on 2021-10-28. Retrieved 2022-04-03.
- ISBN 978-0-7470-2000-4. Archivedfrom the original on 8 June 2020. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
The Lee film, Enter the Dragon, was made with Warner; it grossed US $100 million in the United States alone (Sun 1982: 40).
- ISBN 978-1-134-21984-1. Archivedfrom the original on 8 June 2020. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
Golden Harvest took on Bruce Lee and began co-producing with Hollywood companies, leading to its kung-fu action films, including the Bruce Lee vehicle Enter the Dragon (dir. Robert Clouse, 1973), which "grossed US $100 million in the United States alone" (Lent 100; also Sun 1982:40).
- ISBN 978-1-317-45946-0.
Lee was called back to Hollywood during the shooting of his third movie, The Way of the Dragon, which was completed in 1972 and released in 1973 in the United States, where it grossed $85 million.
- ^ "The Godfather: Part II". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on 2021-10-28. Retrieved 2022-04-03.