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The History of American Cinema: 1986

14/1 -

Rambo: First Blood, Part II breaks the Ghostbusters record by selling 435,000 videos on the first day of its release. [ADD]

6/2 -

French actress Catherine Deneuve presents President Ronald Reagan with a crystal replica of the Statue of Liberty to mark its centenary and the friendship between their two countries. [ADD]

7/2 -

Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters, a study of the relationship between three sisters (Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey and Dianne Wiest) is released.    A large supporting cast includes Lloyd Nolan, Maureen O'Sullivan, Michael Caine, Max von Sydow and Allen himself. [ADD]

19/2 -

Parting Glances, written, directed and edited by Bill Sherwood, is released.   In the tradition of the tearjerkers of the 40s it tells of the break-up of two male lovers against the backdrop of the Aids epidemic. [ADD]

7/3 -

Ismail Merchant and James Ivory's British production, A Room with A View is released in America.   An adaptation by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala of the E. M. Forster novel, the film stars Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott, Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench and Helena Bonham Carter. [ADD]

14/3 -

Ron Howard’s Gung Ho is released by Paramount.   Michael Keaton stars in this tale of a culture clash that arises when a Japanese company buys an American car plant.   Gedde Watanabe, Mimi Rodgers, John Turturro and George Wendt also star. [ADD]

24/3 -

Sidney Pollack’s Out of Africa wins the Best Picture Award at the 58th Annual Academy Awards ceremony.   Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple, which had been nominated for 11 awards, wins nothing. [ADD]

25/3 -

Kirk Kerkorian sells MGM/UA to CNN's Ted Turner in a complex deal that sees Turner gain ownership of the studios’ catalogue of old movies for broadcast on his cable TV network.   Turner is not expected to retain the film companies or production facilities. [ADD]

4/4 -

Clint Eastwood is elected mayor of the small Californian town of Carmel with 72% of the vote. [ADD]

23/4 -

Screenwriter Oliver Stone makes his directorial debut with Salvador, a critical examination of the State Department’s involvement in Central America starring James Woods. [ADD]

12/5 -

British director Tony Scott’s Top Gun is released.   A slick and glossy tale of fly boys at the Navy’s aviation training school, the film stars Tom Cruise as a cocky pilot with a thing for his improbably glamorous flight instructor, Kelly McGillis.   Anthony Edwards also appears. [ADD]

24/5 -

Former cowboy and veteran stuntman and actor Yakima Canutt dies of natural causes in Hollywood at the age of 90. [ADD]

26/5 -

Francis Ford Coppola 23-year-old son Gian-Carlo is killed on the South River in Maryland when the boat he was piloting runs into a rope. [ADD]

27/6 -

Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker’s comedy Ruthless People, in which Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater kidnap Danny DeVito’s vulgar wife (Bette Midler) and are then distressed to discover that he doesn’t want her back, is released.   Anita Morris and Bill Pullman also star. [ADD]

15/8 -

David Cronenberg's body-horror film The Fly, a very loose remake of the cult 50s horror, is released.   Jeff Goldblum plays the unfortunate Seth Brundle, who gets his genes spliced with that of a common housefly during an experiment, and finds himself mutating into something rather unpleasant.   Geena Davis plays the girlfriend thinking about reaching for the personal columns. [ADD]

8/8 -

Spike Lee’s first feature, the low budget She’s Gotta Have It, is released. [ADD]

15/8 -

Claude Lelouch promotes the release of his latest film, Un homme et une femme, 20 ans déjà (A Man and a Woman: 20 Years Later), a sequel to his 1966 film.   Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant reprise their roles. [ADD]

1/9 -

British film producer David Puttnam takes up his appointment as chairman of Columbia Pictures. [ADD]

19/9 -

The New York International Film Festival screens the French films Tenue de soirée (Bertrand Blier), Autour de minuit ('Round Midnight) (Bertrand Tavernier), and 37°2 le matin (Betty Blue) (Jean-Jacques Beineix). [ADD]

19/9 -

Independent writer/director Jim Jarmusch’s third feature, Down by Law, is released.   Tom Waits, John Lurie and Roberto Begnini star as a trio of escaped prisoners on the run in Louisiana. [ADD]

19/9 -

Writer/director David Lynch’s Blue Velvet is released.   Kyle MacLachlan plays a small-town youngster who discovers a sleazy underbelly to the picture-book town in which he lives when his discovery of a severed ear leads him to a psychotic kidnapper and blackmailer (Dennis Hopper, in a career-resurrecting performance)   Laura Dern, Isabella Rossellini and Dean Stockwell also feature. [ADD]

26/9 -

Peter Faiman’s Crocodile Dundee, starring Australia’s popular TV comedian Paul Hogan, is released.   Hogan plays the title role, a laid-back resident of the Aussie outback who travels to the Big Apple with Linda Kozlowski. [ADD]

8/10 -

Paul Newman reprises his role of Fast Eddie Felson from Robert Rossen’s The Hustler in Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money.   This time, though, it is Tom Cruise who is potting the pool balls under Eddie’s wing.   Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio co-stars as Cruise’s girlfriend. [ADD]

7/11 -

Alex Cox’s British-American co-production, Sid and Nancy, is released.   The film tells the story of the doomed love affair between punk rocker Sid Vicious (Gary Oldman) and Nancy Spungen (Chloe Webb). [ADD]

7/11 -

Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild, a comedy in which Melanie Griffith’s free spirited adventuress kidnaps Jeff Daniels’ staid executive, is released. [ADD]

13/11 -

John Huston is forced to cancel a press conference protesting against the colourisation of The Maltese Falcon (1941) by the WTBS TV channel because of ill health.   The practice of colourising classic films has already been condemned by the Directors Guild of America and the American Film Institute. [ADD]

14/11 -

Columbia announce that they are to release La Bamba, Luis Valdez’s forthcoming biopic of Richie Valens, in bilingual versions. [ADD]

19/12 -

Vietnam veteran Oliver Stone’s Platoon is released.   It is the first film about the conflict actually made by a veteran, and reflects his own experiences in the field.   Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger star. [ADD]

– An audio commentary is added to a film for the first time when MCA/Universal includes reminiscences from James Stewart on the spare audio channel of a video disc of Winchester ’73. [ADD]

– Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan’s Cannon Corporation briefly becomes one of the film world’s largest ever industrial empires. [ADD]

Other Key American Films of 1986

Aliens (James Cameron) [ADD]

Children of a Lesser God (Randa Haines) [ADD]

Desert Bloom (Eugene Corr) [ADD]

Down and Out in Beverly Hills (Paul Mazursky) [ADD]

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (John Hughes) [ADD]

Heartbreak Ridge (Clint Eastwood) [ADD]

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (John McNaughton) [ADD]

Mosquito Coast (Peter Weir) [ADD]

Peggy Sue Got Married (Francis Ford Coppola) [ADD]

Shop of Horrors (Frank Oz) [ADD]