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The History of American Cinema: 1974

July - December

13/7 -

Chicago’s famous cinema, the Biograph, from which John Dillinger emerged to be shot by FBI agents after watching Manhattan Melodrama in 1934, closes down. [ADD]

30/8 -

The first Telluride Film Festival takes place. [ADD]

1/10 -

Tobe Hooper’s $200,000 budget horror film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is partly based on the deeds of the Wisconsin Ghoul, Ed Gein, is released. [ADD]

2/10 -

Joseph Sargent's thriller, The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three, is released.   Robert Shaw stars as the leader of a gang who hijack a New York subway train and hold its passengers ransom for $1 million.   Walter Matthau co-stars as the Transport Authority policeman out to foil them. [ADD]

17/10 -

Joe Camp’s $500,000 children’s film Benji is released and goes on to gross in excess of $23 million. [ADD]

Oct -

John Water’s lowbrow bad taste festival Female Trouble is released.   Harris Glen Milstead – better known as Divine – stars as Dawn Davenport, a schoolgirl who ultimately becomes a mass murderer as a result of her parent’s refusal to buy her cha-cha heels for Christmas. [ADD]

15/11 -

Mark Robson’s Earthquake, starring Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner and Geneviève Bujold, is released.   It is the first film to be released in Sensurround that transmit noise so deep it is inaudible but which creates vibrations that are felt by the audience. [ADD]

8/11 -

Barry Diller becomes president of Paramount Pictures after Frank Yablans resigns from the position. [ADD]

11/12 -

MGM's profits for 1973-74 rise by 190 percent over the previous year thanks largely to its income from the new MGM Grand in Las Vegas. [ADD]

14/12 -

John Guillermin and Irwin Allen’s The Towering Inferno is released.   An all-star cast, including Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Jennifer Jones, O. J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn and Robert Wagner, get hot and bothered when they are trapped in the upper floors of a burning tower block.  Newman earns $2 million plus 10% of the gross – rising to 15% after the movie breaks even. [ADD]

24/12 -

An editorial appears in the New York Times criticizing The Godfather I and II for "breaking the record for pornography and violence," prior to the first film being broadcast on American TV. [ADD]

31/12 -

Box office receipts, unadjusted for inflation, are the highest on record, while distribution receipts are up 25% on 1973. [ADD]

- The Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame is inaugurated. [ADD]

Other Key American Films of 1974

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (Martin Scorsese) [ADD]

Claudine (John Berry) [ADD]

Daisy Miller (Peter Bogdanovich) [ADD]

The Gambler (Karel Reisz) [ADD]

Hearts and Minds (Peter Davis) [ADD]

Thieves Like Us (Robert Altman) [ADD]

A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavetes) [ADD]

The History of Cinema: 1974