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The History of American Cinema: 1978

20/1 -

Columbia Pictures pays $9.5 million for the film rights to the Broadway musical Annie – the largest amount paid to date. [ADD]

15/2 -

Hal Ashby’s Coming Home, about the impact of the Vietnam war on the people at home, is released.  Jane Fonda commissioned Nancy Dowd to write the script and stars as the wife of a marine on active service (Bruce Dern) who has an affair with an old school friend (Jon Voight) who has been paralysed from the waist down in the conflict. [ADD]

2/3 -

The president of the MPAA, Jack Valenti denies reports of a government investigation into alleged corruption in the motion picture industry following the resignation of Columbia president David Begelman after he admitted embezzling studio funds. [ADD]

3/4 -

Woody Allen’s Annie Hall wins the Best Picture award at the 50^th Annual Academy Awards, beating the favourite, Star Wars, to the prize. [MORE]

5/4 -

Louis Malle’s controversial drama Pretty Baby, in which 12-year-old Brooke Shields plays a child prostitute in a New Orleans brothel in 1917 is released.   Susan Sarandon and Keith Carradine also star. [ADD]

15/4 -

The Radio City Music Hall in New York, the world's largest cinema, closes due to lack of audiences and new films. [ADD]

19/4 -

Five of United Artists executives – Arthur Krim, Robert Benjamin, Eric Pleskow, Mike Medavoy and William Bernstein – leave the company to form Orion Pictures and enter into a distribution deal with Warner Bros, who will provide financial backing for the new studio. [ADD]

13/6 -

Randal Kleiser’s musical Grease is released.   In a throwback to teen rock ‘n’ roll/beach party movies of the 50s, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John star as sweethearts at Rydell High.   The cast also features Stockard Channing, Jeff Conaway, Barry Pearl, Michael Tucci, Kelly Ward, Didi Conn, Jamie Donnelly and Dinah Manoff, and 50s veterans Eve Arden, Joan Blondell and Sid Caesar. [ADD]

15/6 -

The Doheny Plaza theatre in Los Angeles is bombed at 4.26am, causing an estimated $1,000 damage.   The cinema is scheduled to screen Vanessa Redgrave’s allegedly anti-Israel documentary, The Palestinian.   Two suspects are arrested. [ADD]

20/7 -

Alan Hirschfield is fired from his position as President and Chief Executive Officer of Columbia over the handling of the Begelman affair.   The studio issue a press release which states, ‘It has recently become apparent that for Columbia to move forward to new levels of accomplishment, fresh leadership and greater management unity are required.’ [ADD]

28/7 -

John Landis’s anarchic comedy, National Lampoon's Animal House, is released.   The film follows the antics of the members of a frat house at a college campus in the early 60s.   Chief mischief-maker is Saturday Night Live comedian John Belushi. [ADD]

17/9 -

United Artists’ Stephen Bach holds discussions with director Michael Cimino about his proposed new project, The Johnson County War. [ADD]

19/10 -

Actor Gig Young commits suicide in New York after first shooting his bride of three weeks. [ADD]

25/10 -

John Carpenter’s horror film Halloween is released.   Jamie Lee Curtis stars as a home-alone teen stalked by a seemingly invincible killer. [ADD]

8/12 -

Michael Cimino’s second film, The Deer Hunter, is released.   The film follows three Pittsburgh steel workers from their home town to the Vietnamese battleground, where they are captured by the Vietcong and forced to play Russian roulette against each other.   Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage and Meryl Streep star, with support from John Cazale, Chuck Aspegren and George Dzundza. [ADD]

10/12 -

Joel Schuster and Jerome Segal's comic-strip hero Superman receives his first major film outing in Richard Donner’s Superman – The Movie.   Christopher Reeve stars as the Man of Steel, while his arch-nemesis Lex Luthor is played with relish by Gene Hackman.   A strong supporting cast includes Ned Beatty as Hackman's stooge, Otis; Jackie Cooper as Clark Kent's boss, Perry White; Glenn Ford as Clark's foster-dad, Jonathan Kent; Valerie Perrine as Miss Teschmacher; Terence Stamp as General Zod; and Susannah York as Lara. [ADD]

31/12 -

The studios report a 5% increase in box-office receipts from US releases over 1977. [ADD]

– Ralph Bainger develops a colourisation process for Color Systems Technology. [ADD]

– Samuel Goldwyn Jr. founds the Samuel Goldwyn Company. [ADD]

Other Key American Films of 1978

Blue Collar (Paul Schrader) [ADD]

Dog Soldiers (Karel Reisz) [ADD]

Every Which Way But Loose (James Fargo) [ADD]

Girlfriends (Claudia Weill) [ADD]

Interiors (Woody Allen) [ADD]

The Last Waltz (Martin Scorsese) [ADD]

The History of Cinema: 1978