Hope you're all having a great weekend. For your nostalgic viewing pleasure, here's the original theatrical trailer for the other big science fiction classic of 1977, Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.
I haven't posted nearly enough about this fantastic sci-fi film on the blog over the last three years. It was highly influential on me back in '77, and its commercial and critical success re-ignited public interest in Unidentified Flying Objects, inspiring everything from Ed Hunt's low-budget Starship Invasions to Jack Webb & NBC's Project U.F.O.
Looking back on it 35 years later, the trailer is surprisingly dry & serious, with Columbia clearly determined to make sure that CE3K is not dismissed by audiences as mere "entertainment," but as a serious piece of cinema. Of course, it's both - terrifically entertaining and a great movie.
One of my all time favorite movies. I must have watched this film dozens of times. Three cheers for the third kind. :)
ReplyDeleteSince Columbia was literally depending on Close Encounters to save it from bankruptcy in 1977, it's no wonder the studio wanted people to think of this as a "prestige" picture, rather than some typical '50s-style flying saucer invasion film (which was still pretty much the standard in the '70s, with the possible exception of The Man Who Fell to Earth). Of course, it was Columbia's insistance on getting the film out before Spielberg felt satisfied with it which led to the revised Special Edition version in 1980.
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