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The History of American Cinema: 1979

10/1 -

In a TV interview for CBS veteran actress Katharine Hepburn condemns the trend for pornography in films. [ADD]

12/1 -

Actor John Wayne, suffering from cancer, undergoes surgery to have most of his stomach removed. [ADD]

12/2 -

French director and writer Jean Renoir dies at his home in Beverly Hills from a heart attack, at the age of 86.   He is probably best remembered for his 30s masterpieces La Grande illusion (Grand Illusion) (1937) starring Jean Gabin and Erich von Stroheim, and for La Régle du jeu (The Rules of the Game) (1939). [ADD]

16/2 -

Paramount cancel their advertising campaign for Walter Hill's The Warriors, and remake the trailers following outbreaks of violence in several cinemas. [ADD]

23/2 -

While deciding to continue advertising the violent teen gang movie The Warriors, despite occasional incidents of violence and vandalism at screenings, Paramount offer to release exhibitors from contractual obligations if they do not wish to screen the film. [ADD]

7/3 -

The American Film Institute presents Alfred Hitchcock with its Life Achievement Award at a ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel attended by, amongst others, Cary Grant, Jane Wyman, James Stewart, Ingrid Bergman, producer Sidney Bernstein and studio head Lew Wasserman, and French director François Truffaut. [ADD]

14/3 -

Milos Forman’s screen adaptation of the hit 1967 stage musical Hair is released.   The young cast includes John Savage, Treat Williams, Beverly D'Angelo, Nell Carter and Melba Moore. [ADD]

14/3 -

Manhattan, Woody Allen's black-and-white love song to New York, is released.   Allen stars with Diane Keaton, Michael Murphy and Mariel Hemingway. [ADD]

16/3 -

James Bridges’ topical thriller The China Syndrome is released.  Co-producer Michael Douglas stars with Jane Fonda as cameraman and TV journalist investigated a hushed-up accident at a nuclear plant.   Jack Lemmon also stars as the plant’s chief engineer. [ADD]

9/4 -

Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter wins the Best Picture Awards at the 51st Annual Academy Awards ceremony. [MORE]

9/4 -

Following its success at the Oscars, Jane Fonda denounces The Deer Hunter as ‘a racist film, which presented the official version of the war in Vietnam.’ [ADD]

9/4 -

Bob Rafelson begins shooting Brubaker at Columbus, Ohio with Robert Redford.   However, his cameraman, Frenchman Bruno Nuytten, a replacement for Haskell Wexler, is the subject of a complaint from the cameramen's union, which is demanding the withdrawal of his work permit. [ADD]

29/4 -

Michael Cimino’s troubled location shoot for Heaven’s Gate is reported to be 10 days behind schedule after just one month of filming. [ADD]

25/5 -

The title creature of Ridley Scott's sci-fi horror Alien makes a memorable entrance on this date.   Sigourney Weaver is the focus of the dwindling crew of the Nostromo as the rapidly growing alien picked up on a derelict planet picks them off one by one.   Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto provide the alien food. [ADD]

11/6 -

Film legend John Wayne dies of lung and stomach cancer at the age of 72. [ADD]

5/8 -

David Field, the joint head of United Artists production, imposes a new budget of $27.5 million and a maximum running time of three hours on Michael Cimino’s Heaven's Gate. [ADD]

15/8 -

Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam war film Apocalypse Now, in which Martin Sheen’s Capt Benjamin Willard embarks on a quest for the deranged Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), is released after a troubled and protracted shoot.   A typhoon destroyed many of the expensive sets at the Philippines location, Sheen suffered a heart attack during filming, and Brando proved troublesome. [ADD]

31/8 -

The uncut original version of Abel Gance's Napoléon, painstakingly reconstructed by historian Kevin Brownlow is screened in the open air at a film festival in Telluride, Colorado with its final scene projected onto a triple screen. [ADD]

The History of Cinema: 1979