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The History of American Cinema: 1970

July - December

29/8 -

30-year-old Stanley R. Jaffe is made vice-president of Paramount.[ADD]

29/8 -

Following a meeting between Charlton Heston, president of the Screen Actors Guild and representatives from a group called Justice for Chicanos, the Guild promises to review and demonstrate against any films considered demeaning to Mexican-Americans. Films singled out include Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and El Condor (1970). [ADD]

8/9 -

All the major studios except 20^th Century-Fox begin proceedings against ABC and CBS for making their own films, claiming it is a contravention of the anti-trust law. [ADD]

12/9 -

Bob Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces, starring Jack Nicholson as restless drifter Bobby Dupea, is released. Karen Black and Susan Anspach also star. [ADD]

5/10 -

MGM starts auctioning its Culver City back lot. The third lot of 84 acres sells for $7.25 million [ADD]

11/10 -

Martin Ritt’s screen adaptation of Howard Sackler’s Broadway play The Great White Hope is released. James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander reprise their stage roles in a thinly disguised depiction of Jack Johnson. [ADD]

29/10 -

Billy Wilder’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is released. Wilder and long-term collaborator I. A. L. Diamond satirise the Sherlock Holmes myth with mixed results as Robert Stephens plays the cocaine-addicted, violin playing sleuth. Colin Blakely plays his trusty sidekick, Watson, and Genevieve Page is a seductive German spy. [ADD]

9/11 -

Jane Fonda appears in court in Cleveland charged with possession of narcotics. Fonda allegedly kicked the arresting officer when she was apprehended on her return from Canada on 3rd November and is therefore also charged with disturbing the peace. [ADD]

11/12 -

Disney’s The Aristocats is released. Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, it features the voices of Phil Harris, Eva Gabor, Sterling Holloway, Scatman Crothers and Paul Winchell, Pat Buttram and George Lindsay. [ADD]

14/12 -

Arthur Penn’s Little Big Man, in which Dustin Hoffman plays a 121-year-old survivor of Custer’s Last Stand, is released. [ADD]

14/12 -

It is announced that the former Ince studio at Culver City is to be demolished. [ADD]

16/12 -

Ryan O’Neal stars in Paramount’s adaptation of Erich Segal’s Love Story. Ali MacGraw co-stars as his ill-fated lover in this weepie remembered for its oft-parodied tagline, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” [ADD]

18/12 -

Rio Lobo, Howard Hawks’ final film, is released. Essentially a reworking of Rio Bravo, the film stars John Wayne, Jorge Rivero, Jennifer O'Neill and Jack Elam. [ADD]

31/12 -

The top ten box-office hits of 1970 account for 40% of the distributors' total takings for the year. [ADD]

Dec -

A report states that 38% of Hollywood film workers are unemployed. [ADD]

– Dolby Stereo System audio noise reduction is launched for cinemas. [ADD]

– 20^th Century-Fox’s losses rise to $77.4 million. [ADD]

- Roger Corman founds New World Pictures. [ADD]

Other Key American Films of 1970

The Ballad of Cable Hogue (Sam Peckinpah) [ADD]

Bloody Mama (Roger Corman) [ADD]

The Boys in the Band (William Friedkin) [ADD]

Brewster McCloud (Robert Altman) [ADD]

Cotton Comes to Harlem (Ossie Davis) [ADD]

Getting Straight (Richard Rush) [ADD]

Gimme Shelter (David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin) [ADD]

Husbands (John Cassavetes) [ADD]

Ice (Robert Kramer) [ADD]

The Landlord (Hal Ashby) [ADD]

The Liberation of L. B. Jones (William Wyler) [ADD]

MASH (Robert Altman) [ADD]

Medium Cool (Haskell Wexler) [ADD]

The Molly Maguires (Martin Ritt) [ADD]

The Revolutionary (Paul Williams) [ADD]

Soldier Blue (Ralph Nelson) [ADD]

The Strawberry Statement (Stuart Hagmann) [ADD]

The Student Nurses (Stephanie Rothman) [ADD]

Tora! Tora! Tora! (Richard Fleischer) [ADD]

Trash (Andy Warhol) [ADD]

The History of Cinema: 1970