The Top 10 Films of 1974

Ah, 1974. Remember back a half-century ago? President Richard M. Nixon abruptly resigned in the wake of Watergate; Hungarian professor Erno Rubik invented his eponymous cube; and the IMAX movie format made its debut at Expo ’74 in Spokane, the second most successful world’s fair ever held in the state of Washington. Meanwhile, in Hollywood, two nascent moviemaking trends–disaster films and sequels–were on full display in the year’s top 10 box office roster (with one entry representing both categories). Let’s revisit the era of puka shells and Birkenstocks to see what movies were luring audiences to their spanking-new multiplexes:

The Towering Inferno – Producer Irwin Allen’s fiery follow-up to his 1972 hit The Posideon Adventure was based on two different novels (“The Glass Inferno” and “The Tower”); was produced by two studios (20th Century-Fox and Warner Bros.); and the two leads’ (Steve McQueen and Paul Newman) fight over top billing lead to the creation of the “staggered but equal” credits, with McQueen’s name on the lower left of publicity and Newman’s on upper right. And yes, Fred Astaire’s turn as a roguish con artist earned him his only Academy Award nomination.
Blazing Saddles – They don’t make westerns like this anymore, and they sure couldn’t get away with making it today! Director/cowriter Mel Brooks’ frontier farce was almost shelved by Warners after a screening for executives met with a tepid response, but it went on to become the studio’s biggest success that summer. Fun Fact: Co-writer Richard Pryor was originally set to play Sheriff Bart, but his history with drugs made him uninsurable at the time, so the role went to Cleavon Little.
Young Frankenstein – That’s right, Mel had the second and third slots on this list. Released several months after Blazing Saddles, the hilarious horror spoof was suggested to Brooks by star and co-writer Gene Wilder, who wanted it as faithful to the ’30s Universal films as possible. Columbia Pictures was set to produce but balked at the budget and Brooks’ insistence on shooting it in black-and-white. Their loss was 20th Century-Fox’s gain.
Earthquake – The first picture to make use of Universal’s “revolutionary” sound effects process Sensurround, this bone-rattling depiction of a catastrophic temblor ripping through southern California and leveling downtown L.A. boasted an all-star cast that included Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, Lorne Greene, George Kennedy, Geneviève Bujold, Richard Roundtree, and (SPOILER ALERT!) Walter Matthau as the drunk in the bar.
The Trial of Billy Jack – Few movie series were more ’70s in their attitude than the Billy Jack films, featuring director/co-writer/star Tom Laughlin as a half-Native American Vietnam vet-turned-martial arts expert. This drama, the third entry in the tetralogy, finds Billy sent to prison for killing a corrupt politician’s sleazeball son. Upon his release, Billy teams up with a fellow martial artist (Master Bong Soo Han) to defend the students and staff of an experimental school for troubled kids on an Arizona reservation from hostile townspeople and the National Guard.
The Godfather Part II – Yes, this was the film that began the now-common practice of numbering movie sequels as opposed to coming up with new titles. And that’s about the only negative thing I could say about Francis Ford Coppola’s masterful continuation of the Corleone crime family’s saga, which weaves together young Vito Corleone’s (Robert De Niro) early days in America and son Michael’s (Al Pacino) bloody rise to power. And, of course, it became the first sequel to garner a Best Picture Academy Award, which the original also won two years earlier.
Airport 1975 – “The stewardess is flying the plane!” Plucky flight attendant Nancy Pryor (Karen Black) must take the controls of a 747 after a midair crash with a private plane blinds the pilot and kills the first officer and flight engineer. Meanwhile, airline flight instructor–and Nancy’s estranged boyfriend–Al Murdock (Heston, making his second appearance on this list) tries to make a midair transfer to the damaged jet. This was the second entry in Universal’s popular Airport series. Fun Fact: Dana Andrews, doomed pilot of the private plane, was the hero of the 1957 aviation thriller Zero Hour!, which was the basis for 1980’s disaster flick satire Airplane!
The Longest Yard – Interestingly, neither Blazing Saddles nor Young Frankenstein was nominated for Best Picture – Comedy or Musical in the year’s Golden Globes. The award instead went to Robert Aldrich’s raucous prison tale starring Burt Reynolds as a former pro quarterback coerced by the scheming warden (Eddie Albert) into leading an all-inmate squad in a game against the guards. 1974 was the second of 12 consecutive years that Reynolds made the Motion Picture Almanac’s Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll.
Death Wish – A New York City architect (Charles Bronson) takes the law into his own hands after thugs kill his wife and rape his daughter, setting out on a one-man street patrol and blasting away any hood unlucky enough to cross his path. Few 1974 films divided the critics and audiences like director Michael Winner’s gritty vigilante thriller which was eventually followed by four sequels and a 2018 remake with Bruce Willis. And yes, that’s Jeff Goldblum in his film debut as one of the marauding thugs.
The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams – And what would the ’70s have been without Sunn Classic Pictures, the Utah-based indie studio that flooded the TV airwaves with ads for such releases as The Outer Space Connection, In Search of Noah’s Ark, and this family-friendly frontier drama? Dan Haggerty played the 1850s farmer/woodsman who flees into the mountains after being wrongly accused of murder and learns to survive while befriending animals, including a bear cub named Ben. Made on a $140,000 budget, the film went on to gross over $45 million in the U.S., and its 1976 TV airing led NBC to produce a two-season series starring Haggerty in 1977-78.