1970s in film

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The decade of the 1970s in film involved many significant developments in world cinema.

Trends

Asian cinema

Further information:
Philippine films of the 1970s
See also:
Bollywood

An

Five Fingers of Death (1972), starring Indonesian-born actor Lo Lieh, topped the North American box office in 1973, this paved the way for Lee's The Big Boss and Fist of Fury topping the US box office. Lee achieved his greatest global stardom with his last completed film, and the first kung fu film to be produced by a Hollywood studio, Enter the Dragon (1973). This led to a "chopsocky" kung fu craze across the world, and a wave of "Bruceploitation" films.[1] In 1978, Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung popularized the kung fu comedy subgenre with Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, Drunken Master and Enter the Fat Dragon
.

social-economic times of the region and its people. In Malayalam cinema, Adoor Gopalakrishnan made Swayamvaram in 1972, which got wide critical acclaim. This was followed by the film Nirmalyam by M. T. Vasudevan Nair
in 1973.

European cinema

See also:
Swedish films of the 1970s

In

German new wave. It was the voice of a new generation that had grown up after the second world war. These included directors like Wim Wenders, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg and Werner Herzog
.

North American cinema

See also:
Mexican films of the 1970s

The decade opened with

Hollywood facing a financial slump, reflecting the monetary woes of the nation as a whole during the first half of the decade. Despite this, the 1970s proved to be a benchmark decade in the development of cinema, both as an art form and as a business. With young filmmakers taking greater risks and restrictions regarding language and sexuality lifting, New Hollywood produced some of the most critically acclaimed and financially successful films since the "golden era
" of classical American cinema.

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

MASH, about a Korean War field hospital, were major box-office draws in 1970. Honest,[citation needed] old-fashioned films like Summer of '42, and the Erich Segal adaptation, Love Story, were commercial and critical hits. (Love Story and "Summer" remain, as of 2005
, two of the most successful films in Hollywood history. "Summer", costing US$1,000,000, brought in $25,000,000 at the box office, while "Love Story", with a budget of $2,200,000, earned $106,400,000).

One of the most insightful films of the decade[

BAFTA Award
nominations).

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

Universal Studios into the black for the year. The film earned senior actress Helen Hayes an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and garnered many other nominations in both technical and talent categories. The success of the film launched several other disaster films
, many of which following the same blueprint of major stars, a melodramatic script, and great suspense.

Three Airport sequels followed in 1974, 1977, and 1979, each successor making less money than the last.[

Steve McQueen and Paul Newman against a fire in a San Francisco skyscraper. The film cost a whopping $14 million to produce (expensive for its time), and won Academy Awards for Cinematography, Film Editing, and Best Original Song. The same year, the epic Earthquake featured questionable effects (camera shake and models) to achieve a destructive 9.9 earthquake in Los Angeles. Despite this, the film was one of the most successful of its time, earning $80 million at box office. By the late 1970s, the novelty had worn off and the disasters had become less exciting. 1977 brought a terrorist targeting a Rollercoaster, 1978 a Swarm of bees, and a less-than-threatening Meteor
in 1979.

The early 1970s also brought a rebirth of gritty crime film,[

African American filmmakers also found success in the 1970s with such hits as Shaft and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
. Like other sequels in the 1970s, Shaft went on to have two more adventures, each less successful than the last.

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

release of Andy Warhol's Blue Movie, the phenomenon of adult erotic films being publicly discussed by celebrities (like Johnny Carson and Bob Hope),[5] and taken seriously by critics (like Roger Ebert),[6][7] a development referred to, by Ralph Blumenthal of The New York Times, as "porno chic", and later known as the Golden Age of Porn, began, for the first time, in modern American culture.[5][8][9] According to award-winning author Toni Bentley, Radley Metzger's 1976 film The Opening of Misty Beethoven, based on the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (and its derivative, My Fair Lady), and due to attaining a mainstream level in storyline and sets,[10] is considered the "crown jewel" of this 'Golden Age'.[11][12]

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,

Academy Award
that year. The film also became a major commercial success and spawned four sequels through the rest of the 1970s and 1980s.

Throughout the 1970s, the horror film developed into a lucrative genre of film. It began in 1973 with the terrifying

Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes, as well as Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
.

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

Academy Award. The film also won for John Williams's uplifting score, as well as art direction, costume design, film editing, and sound. Star Wars effectively removed any specter of studio bankruptcy that had haunted the studios since early in the decade. When a television film, Star Wars Holiday Special, was released as a spin-off from Star Wars in 1978; it failed to receive the status of the original film, and was deemed a flop. It would be two years until the Star Wars series would be revived with The Empire Strikes Back. Another success in visual effects came the same year as Star Wars, with Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, another blockbuster and alien contact set in the wilderness. For the picture, Spielberg received his first Oscar nomination for directing. A year later the most iconic superhero was brought to the screen in Superman, who was portrayed by classically trained actor Christopher Reeve. It was met by resounding praise for strong performances and its epic scope which resulted in numerous sequels and is regarded as one of the greatest superhero films
ever made, beginning a new era of superhero films.

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

vetsploitation."[13]

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)

See also: Lists of highest-grossing films

All figures are for the United States and Canada. Some figures * are for rentals accruing to the distributor, not total box office gross.

List of domestic highest-grossing films in the United States and Canada
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

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "1977 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "1978 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
  3. ^ a b "1975 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "1979 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
  5. ^ a b c "1973 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
  6. ^ a b c "1976 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
  7. ^ a b "1970 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
  8. ^ "1999 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
  9. ^ a b c "1974 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
  10. ^ "1972 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
  11. ^ "1971 Domestic Gross". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-09-05.

References

  1. ISBN 978-0-521-77602-8
    .
  2. ISBN 9780415288545
    .
  3. ISBN 9789352140084
    .
  4. ISBN 9781452913025
    .
  5. ^ a b Corliss, Richard (March 29, 2005). "That Old Feeling: When Porno Was Chic". Time. Retrieved January 27, 2016.
  6. ^ Ebert, Roger (June 13, 1973). "The Devil In Miss Jones - Film Review". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved February 7, 2015.
  7. ^ Ebert, Roger (November 24, 1976). "Alice in Wonderland:An X-Rated Musical Fantasy". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved February 26, 2016.
  8. ^ Blumenthal, Ralph (January 21, 1973). "Porno chic; 'Hard-core' grows fashionable-and very profitable". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved January 20, 2016.
  9. ^ Porno Chic (Jahsonic.com)
  10. ISBN 978-0335219230.[page needed
    ]
  11. Playboy. Archived from the original
    on 2016-02-04. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
  12. ^ Bentley, Toni (June 2014). "The Legend of Henry Paris" (PDF). ToniBentley.com. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
  13. 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.
  14. ^ "The Godfather". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on 2021-10-28. Retrieved 2022-04-03.
  15. ISBN 978-0-7470-2000-4. Archived
    from 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).
  16. ISBN 978-1-134-21984-1. Archived
    from 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).
  17. 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.
  18. ^ "The Godfather: Part II". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on 2021-10-28. Retrieved 2022-04-03.

External links

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