Christmas Movie Releases of 1984

We come to the final article on the look back at the Christmas movie releases over the years. I hope you have enjoyed reading the articles as much as I have enjoyed researching and writing them. I will have the summer movies recollection back this May for one year later than this series.

This final article is for the Christmas movies of 1984. By this time the majority of movie palaces were either closed, or well on their way to closing, or had fallen victim to the wrecking ball (a tragic shame in the history of American architecture). Multi-plexes were popping up faster than you could count and soon many of the classic small town one screen theaters were falling victim to loyal audiences retreating to the newer theaters. In other words the little guy was fast being muscled out of the movie theater business. Those that still survive today should be cherished and visited regularly. They are relics that should be saved and only you can save them.

The Christmas movies for 1984 totaled thirteen as December was still the starting ground for the season, unlike today when a movie released the first week of November is considered part of the prestigious Christmas lineup. Oddly, in a season renowned for its serious movies and Academy Award considerations, this season had an amazing six comedies in the lineup and most made money which only proved audiences can laugh even when stressed out by Christmas shopping. The Academy was not well represented as only one eventual Best Picture nominee is included in the group. The list also consists of a notorious flop and another flop better known for a real life murder attached to it.

Here are the 1984 Christmas movies in alphabetical order. As a movie buff I am sure you won't be surprised to know I saw each and every one of these films upon their release.

2010 (MGM; Director - Peter Hyams) Another eagerly awaited film was this sequel to the classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. Writer/director Hyams wisely concentrated on action and his main characters instead of overdosing the film on sequences the viewer was meant to interpret later (though there are still a few). The film follows a joint American-Soviet expedition to the Discovery (the ship of the first film) to find out what happened to its crew and the HAL 9000 computer. Tensions are thick in the world which makes tensions think on the expedition. Roy Scheider heads the American team along with John Lithgow and Bob Balaban while the Russians are headed by the lovely Helen Mirren. Yes we do get to see the HAL 9000 and find out what happened to it (in a very credible explanation) and we also see Dave Bowman (Keir Dulleau), pilot of the Discovery in the original film. This new film has terrific effects and is an admirable sequel to a classic movie. Critics were mixed but the public made it a hit as it earned just over $40 million. The film would be nominated for five Academy Awards (Art Direction/Set Decoration; Costume Design; Visual Effects; Make-Up and Sound) and lost them all.

BEVERLY HILLS COP (Paramount; Director - Martin Brest) Eddie Murphy's first true starring role cemented his position as one of the most bankable actors of the decade. Murphy plays a Detroit cop whose best friend from high school is murdered in his own apartment and then heads to Beverly Hills to track down some answers. The effective mix of comedy and action balanced the film nicely though it does get a bit goofy towards the end. Still it is a most entertaining film that became the highest grossing movie of 1984. Critical reaction was mixed but the film made $234 million and would be nominated (and lost) for Best Original Screenplay.

CITY HEAT (Warner Bros; Director - Richard Benjamin) Another hotly anticipated movie that season was the first and only pairing to date of the two biggest stars of the 70's and early 80's, Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds. In it Eastwood plays a police lieutenant and Reynolds a private eye in the 1930's fighting the mob and each other to help track the killer of Reynolds' partner. Unfortunately the script is not that clear. This is a major mess of a movie starting with the script. Characters come and go without warning and the story is needlessly complicated from the get go. Relationships are established but not followed so you don't really know who is who and why things happen? Another issue is the setting - the 1930's. Now why in the world would you want to take the two most contemporary of actors and place them in a period piece? It makes no sense and both men look hopelessly out of place. The film was troubled from the get go as original writer/director Blake Edwards quit the film after apparently clashing with Reynolds (odd since the two had worked together on The Man Who Loved Women). He used a pseudonym for the screenplay (Sam O. Brown - the initials being S.O.B.) and actor Benjamin, who had directed two terrific movies no one saw (Racing With The Moon; My Favorite Year) stepped in and apparently gave free reign to his two stars so most of the movie Eastwood is scowling at the camera while Reynolds hams it up as if he is in a farce. The film has virtually no laughs but one or two chuckles. This is one of the biggest disappointments in my cinema-going life and continues to prove that two really big stars starring together usually makes a bad movie (see also - Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty in The Fortune; Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando in The Missouri Breaks; Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty in Ishtar). Critics had a field day attacking this film but the star power helped the film gross over $38 million.

THE COTTON CLUB (Orion; Director - Francis Ford Coppola) Coppola returns to the epic gangster film set in a famous Harlem nightclub where talented dancers lived and loved both onstage and off while entertaining gangsters who populated the club. This was a dazzling and violent epic that had plenty of production problems but Coppola delivered a solid film with a cast including Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, Diane Lane, Bob Hoskins and Fred Gwynne (TV's Herman Munster, who deserved an Academy Award nomination). The film is also notorious for being involved with a real life murder. One of the promoters producer Robert Evans was trying to get money from ended up disappearing for several weeks and was found murdered. Evans was cleared but the woman who introduced the two men is now serving a life sentence for the crime. The film itself had very mixed reviews (some called it another Coppola masterpiece while others likened it to Coppola's dud One From The Heart) and while the film made $26 million, it could recoup the $58 million budget.-

DUNE (Universal; Director - David Lynch) Perhaps the most eagerly anticipated movie of the season was this adaptation of Frank Herbert's epic novels. It became all too apparent almost immediately that adapting just one of the novels was going to be long and confusing and Lynch's directing style was too off kilter for the material. From the opening scrolls on screen many viewers (myself included) were completely lost and had to spend the next three (!) hours trying to follow an impossible to understand plot with its murky photography and over acting by the likes of Sting. Critics also tore this film apart and while it did make $27 million, the film was a flop having cost $45 million.

THE FLAMINGO KID (20^th Century Fox; Director - Garry Marshall) Tough kid actor Matt Dillon decided to change his image with this delightful comedy in which he plays a high school graduate with a summer job at a country club. While there he falls in love and meets his mentor (nicely played by Richard Crenna) who shows him the ropes of confidence, romance and success. Dillon proves to be a winning talent in this little movie that found an audience after a good critical reaction. The box office gross was $24 million.

JOHNNY DANGEROUSLY (20^th Century Fox; Director - Amy Heckerling) Michael Keaton's second starring role (following the sleeper hit Mr. Mom) was this comedy take-off on gangster films that was supposed to do to the genre what Blazing Saddles did to the Western. Keaton plays the title character, a honest man who must enter the world of gangsters to help pay for his mother's increasing medical bills. Unfortunately the film lacks wit and pacing and becomes a slow, draggy comedy looking for laughs instead of earning them. Keaton was ably supported by a good cast including Joe Piscopo, Maureen Stapleton, Marilu Henner, Danny DeVito, Peter Boyle, Griffin Dunne and Ray Walston. The film's director was coming off an unexpected hit with Fast Times At Ridgemont High so the blame lays squarely on the script that was credited to four writers and likely had many others contribute uncredited. Rule of thumb - When 3 writers or more are credited with a script, nine times out of ten it will make for a lousy movie because usually the writers are all off in their own directions with no direct connect with the other writers. The film was panned by the critics and made $17 million.

THE KILLING FIELDS (Warner Bros; Director - Roland Joffe) Based on the powerful true story, The Killing Fields tells the true story of the friendship between a New York Times journalist (Sam Waterston) and a local representative (played by non-professional and Cambodian born Haing S. Ngor) while they cover the civil war in Cambodia. As they learn of the tragedy and madness of war, the journalist is forced to leave and the local sends his family with the Americans but is unable to get out himself. Thus begins two journeys: The local's attempt to escape and the journalist's attempt to find him. John Malkovich made his film debut as press photographer in this stirring film that won't leave a dry eye in the house. The film was lauded by critics and made an impressive $16 million, impressive because its release was very limited until after the Academy Award nominations were released. The film was nominated for seven awards, winning three (Supporting Actor for Ngor who became only the second non-professional actor to win an acting Oscar; Cinematography and Editing) and losing its other four (Picture, Director, Actor (Waterston) and Screenplay).

MICKI AND MAUDE (Columbia; Director - Blake Edwards) In my mind this was the funniest film of 1984 and one of the funniest films I had seen in years and it still holds up. Dudley Moore plays a television reporter married to a lawyer who is always working and because of his odd schedule they make very little time for each other. Moore does a story of a local symphony and meets a cellist (Amy Irving) and the two begin an affair. He unwittingly gets her pregnant and finds out the same day that his wife (with whom he had a brief romantic interlude one night) is also pregnant. Loving both women and not wanting to hurt either of them, he marries the cellist thus becoming a bigamist and spends the rest of the movie trying to keep the secret of each wife from the other. The film is exceedingly well written and makes these farfetched situations very believable as he dodges one bullet after another. This is a must see comedy. Critical reaction was strongly mixed and the film grossed just over $26 million.

PARIS, TEXAS (20^th Century Fox; Director - Wim Wenders) Playwright Sam Shepard wrote this poetic and powerful drama about a man who is found wandering the desert who, when found by his brother, has no idea who he is. He spends the rest of the movie slowly regaining the memories of his life and starts visiting those to help put the pieces together. This was strictly an art film release playing in limited release and not many theaters, but the film found an audience thanks to strong performances by Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell and Nastasja Kinski. Critics went bananas for the film and it made an impressive $2.4 million.

PROTOCOL(Warner Bros.; Director - Herbert Ross) Goldie Hawn continued a string of comedies with her as the ditzy lead this time playing a cocktail waitress who saves a visiting dignitary and gets a top job in D.C. Soon she is both loved and hated by her fellow employees and then she finds herself involved in an arms deal with an Arabic country. Yes you read that right. This is one of Goldie's lesser efforts made even more remarkable by the fact that Herbert Ross directed. Ross, an accomplished and Academy Award nominated director, seems out of place here. The film was savaged by critics but Hawn's box office appeal (much like Sandra Bullock today) helped this weak comedy gross $26.3 million.

RUNAWAY (Tri-Star; Director - Michael Chrichton) Novelist and sometime director Chrichton created this futuristic thriller with Tom Selleck as a cop whose specialty is working on malfunctioning robots that are used in hostage and crime scenes. When one of these robots turns on the police and kills it is up to Selleck to track down the homicidal killer (played by Gene Simmons from KISS) before it's too late. This action/thriller is well done with its creepy spider-like robots that inject poison into you but the personal relationships bog down what could have been an otherwise solid thriller. The film is not bad but it could have been better. This was one of the bombs of the Christmas season having received terrible reviews and making only $6.7 million.

STARMAN (Columbia; Director - John Carpenter) Director Carpenter received his first decent sized budget and cast Jeff Bridges, Karen Allen, Richard Jaekal and Charles Martin Smith in this lovely sci-fi/adventure/romance about an alien who crash lands on Earth and takes refuge in a house where he soon takes the appearance of the dead husband of the woman who resides there. The alien insists she drive him across country so he can meet with his "people" before dying from too much exposure to Earth. The woman is confused at first but soon a friendship and then romance will develop. Jeff Bridges is superb in an Oscar nominated role as the title alien Karen Allen as his love interest. Carpenter fashioned an old fashioned romance under the guise of a thriller and came out with a terrific movie on the other side. Though critics were kind to the film, Starman under performed at the box office, perhaps a victim of too much at one time. This would be the third science-fiction film to be released that month. The film made $29 million but, sadly, Carpenter has never been entrusted with a big budget since then and has had to settle for cost cutting on his films, a move that disgusted Carpenter enough to stop making films for almost a decade. This film is now a cult favorite and is well received.