December 11, 1930: A protest of All Quiet on the Western Front by members of the Nazi Party in Berlin will lead to the banning of the film from Germany.
December 12, 1939: Douglas Fairbanks, dashing and athletic leading man of the silent era and co-founder of United Artists, dies of a heart attack at age 56.
December 14, 1939: Seventy-five years after General Sherman set it ablaze, the city of Atlanta is lit up again– for the world premiere of Gone with the Wind.
December 12, 1941: Lon Chaney, Jr. follows in his father’s frightening footsteps, playing the title role in The Wolf Man and reviving Universal’s horror genre.
December 11, 1963: The Cardinal, the first film released in Panavision 70, a process which enlarges 35mm film to 70mm and is then projected onto a wide screen, debuts.
December 15, 1966: The most famous name in family entertainment, Walt Disney–animator, producer and multi-Oscar-winner–dies of a heart attack at age 65.
December 15, 1967: The film version of Jacqueline Susann’s potboiler Valley of the Dolls, starring Patty Duke and Sharon Tate, opens and becomes an instant camp classic.
December 15, 1968: Brian de Palma‘s Greetings, starring Robert De Niro, opens with an X-rating, the first film to do so under the MPAA’s new rating system.
December 12, 1972: Audiences flip for The Poseidon Adventure. Its success will lead to a rash of disaster films, many made by Poseidon producer Irwin Allen.
December 15, 1978: The Deer Hunter, Michael Cimino‘s Vietnam epic, opens, stunning audiences and eliciting controversy for its “Russian roulette” sequences.
December 11, 1991: Despite success with Dances with Wolves and The Silence of the Lambs, Orion Pictures files for bankruptcy protection in federal court.