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The History of American Cinema: 1984

27/1 -

Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose is released.   Allen stars in the title role of a small-time agent whose acts always drop him for a bigger agent when they hit the big time.   Mia Farrow also stars as the girlfriend of an Italian crooner attempting a comeback. [ADD]

31/1 -

American film critics vote Gérard Depardieu the best foreign actor of 1983 for his performances in Andrzej Wajda’s Danton and Daniel Vigne's La Retour de Martin Guerre. [ADD]

10/2 -

Canadian financier Jack Singer takes over the Zoetrope Studios from Francis Ford Coppola after their working relationship comes to an acrimonious end. [ADD]

20/2 -

Disney announces the creation of Touchstone Pictures, a new production company that will make films for adult audiences. [ADD]

9/3 -

Ron Howard’s Splash, the first movie released through Touchstone Pictures, Disney’s new production company, is released.   The film earns box-office receipts of $6.174 million in its first three days. [ADD]

19/3 -

James Cameron begins filming The Terminator with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton. [ADD]

30/3 -

Hugh Hudson’s Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes is released.   French-American actor Christopher Lambert stars is the latest incarnation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ hero and Andie MacDowell is his Jane.   Ralph Richardson also appears. [ADD]

30/3 -

Robert Zemeckis’ Romancing the Stone, a romantic adventure in the style of Raiders of the Lost Ark, is released.   Kathleen Turner stars as a romantic novelist who finds adventure in Colombia with dashing mercenary Michael Douglas.   Danny DeVito provides the villainous element of the tale. [ADD]

9/4 -

James L. Brooks’ Terms of Endearment wins five Oscars, including Best Picture, at the 56th Annual Academy Awards. [MORE]

2/5 -

Iranian exile Parviz Sayyad’s Ferestadeh (The Mission) is released. [ADD]

1/6 -

Once Upon a Time in America, Sergio Leone's three-hour homage to the American gangster film, is released.   James Woods and Robert De Niro star as childhood friends who grow up to be New York’s most powerful gangsters in an epic story that spans nearly half-a-century. [ADD]

8/6 -

Joe Dante's Capraesque film, Gremlins is released.   Zach Galligan receives a cute Mogwai from his inventor father which, when wet, spawns the eponymous monsters that cause mayhem throughout his hometown. [ADD]

8/6 -

Ralph Bell, vice-president of the Screen Actors Guild, and Tap Dance Kid stars Alfonso Ribiero and Martine Allard present Walt Disney’s Donald Duck with an honorary SAG membership card at a birthday brunch in the Rockefeller Plaza in commemoration of his 50^th birthday. [MORE] [ADD]

8/6 -

Ivan Reitman's $32 million budget Ghostbusters is released.   Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Bill Murray star as a group of redundant parapsychologists who form an organisation to deal with a plague of spirits menacing New York City.   Sigourney Weaver provides Murray’s love interest. [ADD]

27/6 -

The MPAA introduce a new film rating – PG-13, which means parental guidance is recommended for children under 13.  Films which fall within this new category include Dune, The Flamingo Kid, Garbo Talks, Johnny Dangerously, Mrs. Soffel, The Razor's Edge, Red Dawn, The River and The Woman in Red. [ADD]

6/9 -

Milos Forman’s adaptation of Peter Schaffer’s play Amadeus is released.   Filmed in the director’s hometown of Prague, it stars Tom Hulce as the outrageous musical genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who incurred the wrath of the far less talented court composer Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham). [ADD]

21/9 -

Carl Reiner’s comedy All Of Me, in which half of Steve Martin’s body is possessed by Lily Tomlin’s spirit is released.   It is the fourth collaboration between the director and star. [ADD]

1/10 -

Barry Diller resigns as president of Paramount after 10 years to replace Alan Hirschfield as president of 20th Century-Fox. [ADD]

1/10 -

Jim Jarmusch’s first feature film, the minimalist Stranger Than Paradise, is released. [ADD]

26/10 -

James Cameron’s The Terminator, in which Arnold Schwarzenegger plays an android from the future programmed to kill waitress Linda Hamilton to prevent her from giving birth to a future revolutionary leader, is released.   Michael Biehn is the good guy sent back to protect her. [ADD]

16/11 -

Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street creates a new horror movie icon in the guise of Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), a pizza-faced bogeyman with razor-sharp talons and a stripy vest.   Kreuger haunts the dreams of Elm Street’s teenage residents and kills them as they sleep. [ADD]

26/11 -

Robert Zemeckis’ begins filming the $15 million fantasy film Back to the Future with Michael J. Fox. [ADD]

5/12 -

Eddie Murphy scores another hit with his role as Axel Foley, a Detroit cop transplanted to LA to find the killer of an old friend in Martin Brest’s Beverly Hills Cop for Paramount.   British actor Steven Berkoff plays the hissable villain. [ADD]

14/12 -

The Cotton Club, Francis Ford Coppola’s depiction of the musicians and gangsters that frequented the eponymous Harlem jazz club, is released.   Richard Gere, Gregory Hines and Diane Lane star. [ADD]

Other Key American Films of 1984

Birdy (Alan Parker) [ADD]

Blood Simple (Joel Coen) [ADD]

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg) [ADD]

Love Streams (John Cassavetes) [ADD]

The Natural (Barry Levinson) [ADD]

Places in the Heart (Robert Benton) [ADD]

Racing With the Moon (Richard Benjamin) [ADD]

Secret Honor (Robert Altman) [ADD]

Streets of Fire (Walter Hill) [ADD]

The Times of Harvey Milk (Robert Epstein) [ADD]

Under the Volcano (John Huston) [ADD]