1975

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by director Milos Forman finally debuted. Producer Kirk Douglas had struggled for years to bring Ken Kesey’s novel to the big screen – and it finally was, by his son/producer Michael Douglas – who won an Academy Award (for Best Picture). It was the first film to take all the five major Oscar awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress) since Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night 41 years earlier.

Steven Spielberg’s Jaws was the first modern summer ‘blockbuster’ film to top the $100 million record in box-office business in North America. It earned its 27 year-old director (and Universal Studios) a place in Hollywood.

Director George Lucas, John Dykstra and producer Gary Kurtz created a facility called Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) in Lucas’ own studio (Lucasfilm) in Marin County to help in the creation of special effects and miniature models for his first film in a trilogy — Star Wars. The company  has been a major player in the development of advanced and computer-generated visual effects for scores of films, and the top effects house for Hollywood.

The first episode of “NBC’s Saturday Night” (the original title) was broadcast on October 11, 1975. George Carlin was the host of the first late-night, live-broadcast sketch comedy and variety show, with Billy Preston and Janis Ian as musical guests. It set the standard for subsequent shows, and was renamed Saturday Night Live in 1980.

Rival film critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel debuted their PBS-TV film review show on local Chicago PBS affiliate WTTW.  Dolby Stereo (an optical four-channel technology) for films was introduced in 1975-6.

We lost Pierre Fresnay, George Marshall, George Stevens, Susan Hayward, Fredric March, Richard Conte, Michel Simon, Rod Sterling, Pier Paolo Pasolini, William A. Wellman, and Bernard Herrmann.  Tim Curry, Carrie Fisher, Richard Gere, Nastassia Kinski, Christopher Lloyd, Bill Murray and John Travolta made their film debuts.

“Love Will Keep Us Together” by The Captain and Teneille spent 5 weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, making it the number one single of 1975. The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.  Seascape by Edward Albee won for drama.  Roger Ebert won a Pulitzer for Film Criticism and Gary Trudeau won for Editorial Cartooning (Doonesbury).  Time Magazines “Man of the Year” were American Women.

Desperate crowd storms the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.

The War in Vietnam ended with a victory by the North Vietnamese.  The last U.S. military in the country escaped in helicopters from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon in April.  The U.S. pulled its troops out of Cambodia.

Stagflation (high inflation with high unemployment) continued to rage with oil prices reaching record highs ($13/barrel!).  Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft.  Spanish dictator Francisco Franco died, fueling a weekly joke (“Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead”) on Saturday Night Live for years to come.   The civil war in Lebanon began.

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I have previously reviewed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest  and The Rocky Horror Picture Show on this site.  The short list I will select from is here.  Suggestions and warnings are welcome!