Christmas Movie Releases of 1979

This article will cover the movies released at Christmas in 1979, which is not revered as one of the best. By now I would imagine many readers were old enough to attend some of these films.

In 1979 there were twelve movies released over the holiday for movie fans. By this time movie palaces were on their way out in many cities while twin, triple and quad screens were popping up all over the place. Several of these films were big budgeted, loud event pictures that failed to live up to expectations. A great director saw his first flop, a comic genius made his starring film debut as did a rambunctious singer. A television show got a re-boot but didn't live up to the hype. Walt Disney went to outer space and got its first PG-rating.l Still in all two of the five nominated Best Pictures were released during this period and the list of films plays almost like a curiosity piece of failures and failure to live up to films.

Here is the list of the twelve movies released during the Christmas season of 1979. I hope these bring back some memories.

ALL THAT JAZZ (Columbia/20^th Century Fox; Director - Bob Fosse) One of the big Academy Award films was this biographical musical semi-based on the life of its creator, Bob Fosse. Choreographer Joe Gideon's (Roy Scheider) life is on as fast a track as a locomotive as he edits one movie, directs rehearsals on a play, sleeps with many women and begins hallucinating about his childhood while confessing to an Angel of Death (Jessica Lange). The film is filled with terrific musical numbers and is quite a lesson on the behind the scenes of filmmaking and (especially) rehearsing a play. Some audiences were turned off by the adult nature of the film and the oddity of seeing an actual shot of open heart surgery but Fosse's point is clear: He is examining every inch of himself both inside and out. Critics were sharply divided (as audiences were), you either loved it or hated it. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards (winning for Art Direction/Set Decoration; Costume Design; Editing and Song Score Adaptation; losing for Best Picture; Director; Actor (Scheider); Original Screenplay and Cinematography. The film made a solid $21 million at the box office.

THE BLACK HOLE (Walt Disney Pictures; Director - Gary Nelson) One of the several highly anticipated films of that Christmas season was this sci-fi/thriller from Walt Disney, whose ads promised to take patrons into places they had never seen. The bigger draw was that this was Disney's first PG rated movie and that increased the hype. The story revolves around the ship, Palomino that discovers a stranded ship in space and brings on board its psychotic captain and mechanical sidekick. The crew then discovers the black hole and the new captain is determined to discover what is inside it. The film is filled with terrific special effects and a good musical score but is also saddled with boring characters and too many "cutesy" robots ala Star Wars. The film's one shocking moment is when the captain's robot skewers one of the members of the Palomino and this is what would earn the film its PG rating. Critics were unkind to the film but it made an impressive $25.5 million and would be nominated (but lose) for two Academy Awards (Best Cinematography; Best Visual Effects).

CUBA (United Artists; Director - Richard Lester) Sean Connery stars in this romantic drama about an ex-army officer who comes to Cuba as an advisor on fighting revolutionaries while reuniting with his true love (Brooke Adams) who is now settled into a routine marriage. Critics were unkind to this slowly paced film and it became one of the major flops of the season.

THE ELECTRIC HORSEMAN (Columbia Pictures; Director - Sydney Pollack) Robert Redford stars as an ex rodeo star now reduced to riding a horse while wearing a suit covered in lights, in conjunction with a breakfast cereal in Las Vegas. Bored, drunk and feeling exploited, Redford learns the corporate moguls are going to drug his horse for an upcoming sponsorship show so he decides to ride the horse off into the sunset to get his freedom. Jane Fonda plays a reporter who hunts Redford down in the wilderness and soon they begin to fall in love. It's a pleasant but mild film that should have been deeper and more important considering the talent involved but perhaps a lightweight romance was all they had in mind. The film was nominated for (and lost) one Academy Award (Best Sound) and received mixed reviews. But the star power of Redford and Fonda lifted it to a solid hit grossing $30 million.

GOING IN STYLE (Warner Bros; Director - Martin Brest) The one true sleeper of the holiday season is this terrific dramedy with George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg as three men sick of sitting around getting older, waiting to die, and decide to rob a bank to get a little excitement in their lives. And that is just the beginning. George Burns gives his best performance as the ring leader and credit writer/director Brest, then 28, with putting together such a wonderful film with actors over the age of 70. Brest, who went on to Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run, Scent of a Woman and, unfortunately, Gigli, juggles comedy, drama and pathos without over doing it at any point. This is a film that is rarely seen and should be better known. It was one of the best films of the year and I urge any movie fan out there to seek it out. The film was greeted with good reviews and did solid, if not overwhelming, business.

THE JERK (Universal; Director - Carl Reiner) Here was the one Christmas film that overcame its critical notices to be a solid hit. This was the big screen starring debut (after brief appearances in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Muppet Movie) for comedian Steve Martin. In the film he plays the adopted son in a family of black sharecroppers (and is unaware he is adopted) and hits the road to see America, in St. Louis. Martin co-wrote the silly script which stretches believability to its ultimate limits. It has its moments but you can tell this is a freshman effort despite the direction of the usually solid Carl Reiner. As I said critics ravaged the film but audiences turned it into a smash hit making over $43 million.

KRAMER VS. KRAMER (Columbia; Director - Robert Benton) The big film of the Christmas season both financially and at awards time was this powerful and timeless drama about a career man who suddenly finds himself a single father when his wife walks out on him and their son. Ted Kramer (brilliantly played by Dustin Hoffman) must learn fatherhood and once they bond his ex-wife (the equally brilliant Meryl Streep) comes back and demands custody of the child. This is a sweet, funny and very serious look at divorce and parenting. The reaction was so powerful in 1979 that some people swore they would never divorce while others swore they would never marry, quite a thing for a movie to accomplish. The film was the darling of the critics and was the big Christmas hit making over $60 million. Not surprisingly the film would be nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning five for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay (both for director Benton), Actor (Hoffman) and Supporting Actress (Streep). The four awards lost were Best Supporting Actor (young Justin Henry), Supporting Actress (Jane Alexander), Cinematography and Editing.

1941 (Universal/Columbia; Director - Steven Spielberg) After bringing audiences Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, director Spielberg, feeling he could do no wrong, decided to go with an all-star madcap comedy and, after its first scene (a hilarious takeoff on Jaws) it seemed Spielberg had conquered the film comedy and had another blockbuster on his hands. Then the rest of the film settled in. The story concerns hysteria in California as fears the Japanese are going to attack escalates. Spielberg introduces over a dozen characters in the film but forgot to centralize any of them. John Belushi's Wild Bill Kelso comes closest but Ned Beatty's role as a concerned father comes closest to a character the audience cares about. Without that the film is roughly two hours of crashes and explosions with some terrific special effects and one of John Williams' best (and most underrated) musical scores. Unfortunately most of the big name talent (including Dan Aykroyd, Warren Oates, Robert Stack, Lorraine Gary, Treat Williams, Toshiro Mifune, Christopher Lee, Tim Matheson, Nancy Allen and MANY others) is wasted in throwaway roles. The film is not a total lost cause. As I said the special effects are terrific (especially in an improbable scene with a rolling ferris wheel) and there is a dance scene at an RSO show that is well done. But it was and is a major disappointment. The film's over inflated budget came to $35 million and the box office gross was only $23 million, making it a big loser at the box office. Academy Award nominations for Cinematography, Visual Effects and Sound did not help and each nomination was a loser.

ROLLER BOOGIE (Compass International; Director - Mark L. Lester) A drive-in movie if there ever was one so one must wonder why this was given a coveted spot on the Christmas release list. Undaunted by the failure of a roller skating movie a few months earlier, Skatetown U.S.A., Roller Boogie stars Linda Blair as one of many teenagers banding together in a fight to keep their local rink open. The film is filled with teen romance and wall to wall music and sandwiches in a whole lot of bad acting. It won't surprise you to learn the film was fodder for the critics (but still not as severely as Scavenger Hunt) and made a paltry $6 million.

THE ROSE (20^th Century Fox; Director - Mark Rydell) Singer Bette Midler made an effective film debut as a Janis Joplin type singer who is entering a low point in her life with drugs, alcohol and her relationships with men. It's a typical biopic with the ups and downs that is rescued by three performances: Midler, Frederic Forrest as her chauffeur/lover and Alan Bates as her manager. Midler rises to the occasion and also belts out some beautiful songs and makes the film worth seeing. The Rose was nominated for four Academy Awards (Best Actress - Midler; Best Supporting Actor - Forrest; Editing, Sound) but failed to win a trophy. Reviews were mixed despite near unanimous praise for Midler and the film made a decent gross of $19 million.

SCAVENGER HUNT (20^th Century Fox; Director - Michael Schultz) A silly comedy with mostly television actors in the leads (Cloris Leachman, Tony Randall, Richard Mulligan) plus some seasoned veterans (Cleavon Little, Vincent Price, Richard Benjamin) acting greedy and crazy in this farcical comedy about a millionaire games inventor who announces on his death bed he has orchestrated a scavenger hunt and the winning team gets his fortune while the others get nothing. The film is fairly predictable and the items in the hunt are nothing unusual or special considering the supposed brilliance of the inventor. Critics lambasted this film more than any other in this Christmas season but family audiences made it a minor hit.

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (Paramount; Director - Robert Wise) The most eagerly awaited movie of the Christmas of 79 was this big screen adaptation of the sci-fi television show from the 60's that would reunite the original cast. Ardent fans, knows as "Trekkies" were eagerly awaiting the arrival of this film for a year (can you imagine if they could have blogged back then?) and the film finally was the first of the bog holiday films to hit theaters. The story has Admiral (formerly Captain) Kirk rounding up his own troops to help destroy and alien phenomenon of some sort that heads towards Earth and destroys everything in its path. The film features some dazzling special effects but is generally considered too slow by all but the most fervent "trekkies." The $37 million film would go on to gross over $56 million despite mostly negative reviews and would spawn many sequels and television re-births that continue today. The film was nominated for (and lost all) three Academy Awards (Best Art Direction/Set Decoration; Visual Effects, Score).