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The History of American Cinema 1974

January - June

7/2 -

Blazing Saddles, Mel Brooks’ irreverent satire of the Western genre, is released.   Gene Wilder stars as the Waco Kid with Cleavon Little as the black sheriff.   Harvey Korman and Madeline Kahn also star. [ADD]

7/3 -

Robert Redford’s Wildwood Productions acquire the rights to Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s book, All the President's Men for $450,000. [ADD]

26/3 -

Jack Clayton's The Great Gatsby premieres in New York. Robert Redford and Mia Farrow head a cast that includes Bruce Dern, Karen Black, Sam Waterston, Howard Da Silva and Edward Herrmann. [ADD]

2/4 -

Best Picture Oscar goes to George Roy Hill’s The Sting at the 46th Annual Academy Awards.   The ceremony is briefly disrupted when a naked man streaks across the stage as co-host David Niven is introducing Elizabeth Taylor. [MORE] 

5/4 -

Steven Spielberg’s first feature film, The Sugarland Express, is released.   Produced by Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown, the film stars Goldie Hawn and William Atherton as a couple who become a media sensation when they are pursued by a battalion of police cars. [ADD]

2/5 -

Steven Spielberg starts filming Jaws on location at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. [ADD]

6/5 -

A fire causes $3 million worth of damage at the Samuel Goldwyn studios. [ADD]

10/5 -

Barbra Streisand is awarded the prize for the worst actor of 1973 for her performance in The Way We Were by the satirical magazine The Harvard Lampoon. [ADD]

21/6 -

That's Entertainment!. MGM’s compilation of excerpts from its catalogue of musicals, is released.   The film is co-hosted by Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Gene Kelly, Peter Lawford, Liza Minnelli, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Mickey Rooney, Frank Sinatra, James Stewart and Elizabeth Taylor.  [ADD]

14/6 -

Alan J. Pakula’s political thriller The Parallax View is released.   Warren Beatty stars. [ADD]

17/6 -

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are divorced. [ADD]

20/6 -

Roman Polanski’s film noir Chinatown, from a script by Robert Towne, is released.   Jack Nicholson stars as Jake Gittes, a private eye who becomes embroiled in a plot to control Los Angeles water supply.   In addition to Faye Dunaway and John Huston, Polanski has a small but memorable role as an undersized hard man. [ADD]

23/6 -

A city ordinance which makes drive-in cinemas criminally liable for showing films with nude scenes if they are visible outside the cinema grounds is ruled to be "unconstitutional interference" by the Supreme Court in Washington. [ADD]

24/6 -

The Supreme Court overrules the decision of a court in Georgia by ruling that the film Carnal Knowledge is not obscene. [ADD]

The History of Cinema: 1974