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The History of American Cinema: 1973

July - December

3/7 -

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor announce that they are to separate. [ADD}

4/7 -

Georgina Spelvin, the star of the erotic film The Devil in Miss Jones is arrested in New Jersey while on a promotional tour for the film. [ADD}

25/7 -

Alan Hirschfield replaces Leo Jaffe as president of Columbia Pictures.   Jaffe becomes chairman of the company's board of directors. [ADD}

11/8 -

American Graffiti, George Lucas’s second feature is released.   Following the lives of a group of teenagers in a small California town in 1962 and featuring rock-and-roll hits from the period, the film stars a cast of relative unknowns including Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark and Harrison Ford. [ADD}

28/9 -

MGM president James T. Aubrey announces that ‘the bottom has fallen out of the (distribution) business' as the studio enters into a 10-year distribution deal with United Artists.   UA also purchase MGM's Robbins, Feist and Miller music publishing company and its half interest in Quality Records of Canada for approximately $15 million. [ADD}

13/10 -

Terrence Malick’s Badlands, based upon the true story of Charles Starkweather ans Caril-Ann Fugate, lovers who embarked on a killing spree in the 50s, is released.   Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek star as the murderous sweethearts. [ADD}

17/10 -

Sydney Pollack's romantic drama The Way We Were is released.   Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford star as an unlikely couple during the 40s and 50s. [ADD}

10/11 -

John Frankenheimer’s adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's play The Iceman Cometh, the first film from the American Film Theater, is released.   Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan and Fredric March star. [ADD}

5/12 -

Sidney Lumet’s Serpico, based on the real-life exploits of a New York cop who uncovered corruption in the NYPD, is released.   Al Pacino stars in the title role. [ADD}

5/12 -

The MGM Grand, the biggest hotel and casino complex in the country, opens in Las Vegas. [ADD}

16/12 -

Franklin J. Schaffner’s adaptation of Henri Charrière's semi-autobiographical best-seller, Papillon, is released.   Steve McQueen stars in the title role as the prisoner determined to escape form Devil’s Island, with Dustin Hoffman in support. [ADD}

19/12 -

Charles Chaplin's A King in New York is released in the States sixteen years after it was released elsewhere.   Chaplin had refused to release the film in America until last year's reconciliation. [ADD}

26/12 -

William Friedkin’s groundbreaking horror film The Exorcist, based on William Peter Blatty’s best-selling novel, is released.   Linda Blair is the girl possessed by demons, while Ellen Burstyn is her naturally concerned mother and Max von Sydow the priest who performs the harrowing exorcism on the girl. [ADD}

- Columbia Pictures mortgages its radio stations to pay off $150 million of debt. [ADD}

- The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Board declares the ‘Hollywood’ sign a monument of cultural and historical significance. [ADD}

Other Key American Films of 1973

Emperor of the North Pole (Robert Aldrich) [ADD}

Executive Action (David Miller) [ADD}

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Peter Yates) [ADD}

Heavy Traffic (Ralph Bakshi) [ADD}

The Last American Hero (Lamont Johnson) [ADD}

The Last Detail (Hal Ashby) [ADD}

The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman) [ADD}

Mean Streets (Martin Scorsese) [ADD}

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Sam Peckinpah) [ADD}

Sleeper (Woody Allen) [ADD}

Soylent Green (Richard Fleischer) [ADD}

The Sting (George Roy Hill) [ADD}

The History of Cinema: 1973