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The History of American Cinema: 1975

22/1 -

Superior Court Judge Norman R. Dowds lifts a temporary restraining order against a  segment of Bert Schneider and Peter Davis’s Hearts and Minds, a documentary about the Vietnam War.   National security advisor Walt W. Rostow had attempted to ban the use of an interview which he felt was damaging to his image. [ADD] 

31/1 -

Lawyers for the Walt Disney Co. take legal action against the producers of the pornographic film The Happy Hooker to have the Mickey Mouse Club Song removed from its soundtrack. [ADD] 

13/3 -

Hal Ashby’s Shampoo, starring Warren Beatty as a womanising hairdresser is released.   Beatty describes the film as an indictment of  “a whole country in a process of disintegration through hypocrisy and a loss of leadership and values." [ADD] 

8/4 -

Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II wins the Best Picture award at the 47th Annual Academy Awards.   Bert Schneider, co-producer of the Oscar-winning documentary Hearts and Minds, reads out a message from a Viet Cong leader during his acceptance speech, and Dustin Hoffmann describes the ceremony as ‘obscene, garish and embarrassing.’ [MORE]

16/4 -

A report in Variety announces that Universal will use a series of advertisements during prime-time TV slots to publicise its forthcoming film, Jaws. [ADD] 

5/5 -

The Lincoln Center Film Society pays tribute to Paul Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward for their contributions to the cinema. [ADD] 

25/5 -

The American Film Institute organises a ceremony for the release of a new postage stamp in honour of the memory of D. W. Griffith. [ADD] 

10/6 -

Woody Allen’s Love and Death is released.   The film, a parody of Russian novels and films, sees Allen playing a cowardly peasant who inadvertently becomes a hero.   Diane Keaton also stars as Allen’s wife, with whom he plots to assassinate Napoleon. [ADD] 

18/6 -

The American Legion demands a boycott of Haskell Wexler, Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda’s Vietnam documentary Introduction to the Enemy. [ADD] 

20/6 -

Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Peter Benchley’s best-seller Jaws is released, and heralds in the era of the summer blockbuster.   Roy Scheider stars as Police Chief Brody who, with the aid of Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw, battles with a great white shark that is terrorising a sleepy New England holiday resort.   The film grosses $25.7 million in box-office receipts nationwide in its first two weeks. [ADD] 

13/8 -

As a result of legal proceedings taken by Epoch Productions against the Museum of Modern Art, D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation is declared out of copyright. [ADD] 

2/9 -

John Milius, working on the script of Apocalypse Now, a loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Hearts of Darkness set in Vietnam, declares that it will be the most violent film ever produced. [ADD] 

21/9 -

Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon is released.   Al Pacino stars as a bank robber who, with his accomplice John Cazale, holds a banks employees and customers hostage and finds himself becoming an unlikely media celebrity.   The film, from a script by Frank Person, is based on a real-life incident. [ADD] 

28/10 -

Charlton Heston is re-elected as chairman of the American Film Institute.   George Stevens Jr. is also re-elected. [ADD] 

3/11 -

Kathleen Nolan becomes the first woman to be elected president of the Screen Actor’s Guild. [ADD] 

19/11 -

Czech director Milos Forman’s screen adaptation of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is released.   Jack Nicholson stars as the rambunctious McMurphy who has himself committed to a mental institution rather than serve a prison sentence.   Louise Fletcher plays his nemesis, Nurse Ratched. [ADD] 

15/12 -

20^th Century-Fox’s board of directors green-lights George Lucas’s Star Wars. [ADD] 

18/12 -

Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon is released.   Ryan O’Neal stars in the title role as a British Army deserter who marries a wealthy widow (Marisa Berenson) in his quest to achieve power and nobility.   Shot with natural light, the film’s mise-en-scene resembles the landscapes and portraits of the artists of the period. [ADD] 

24/12 -

Composer Bernard Herrmann, chiefly remembered for his scores for Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock, dies of a heart attack at the age of 64 in Hollywood. [ADD] 

– Marcia Nasatir becomes the first woman to become an executive of a major studio since Virginia Van Upp when she becomes United Artists’ Vice President of Production. [ADD] 

Other Key American Films of 1975

At Long Last Love (Peter Bogdanovich) [ADD] 

Death Race 2000 (Paul Bartel) [ADD] 

French Connection II (John Frankenheimer) [ADD] 

Funny Lady (Herbert Ross) [ADD] 

The Great Waldo Pepper (George Roy Hill) [ADD] 

Lenny (Bob Fosse) [ADD] 

Nashville (Robert Altman) [ADD] 

Night Moves (Arthur Penn) [ADD] 

Posse (Kirk Douglas) [ADD] 

Rollerball (Norman Jewison) [ADD] 

The Wild Party (James Ivory) [ADD] 

The History of Cinema: 1975