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30 years ago

Club Paradise - July 11, 1986
This Harold Ramis comedy stars Robin Williams as a former Chicago firefighter who starts a resort on a Caribbean island that is the point of a military takeover. As he puts it sarcastically: “Fun with guns in the sun!” Peter O’Toole, Rick Moranis, Jimmy Cliff, Twiggy, and others co-star. With Karate Kid 2 and weeks-old (or months, in the case of Top Gun) holdovers still dominating the top of the box office, Club Paradise opened at #5 with $4.1 million from 1,172 theaters and earned $12.3 million overall, far short of other Ramis comedies like Caddyshack, Vacation, and Groundhog Day.

Aliens - July 18, 1986
Released seven years after the first Alien, this sequel took on a notably different style from Ridley Scott’s slower-paced nail-biter. The Terminator director James Cameron took the sci-fi and horror of the first film and made it into an outright action genre film. Michael Biehn leads a team of space Marines on a mission to secure any aliens for possible military technology use by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation under the lead of Paul Reiser’s character, Burke. Where in the first film Sigourney Weaver had been struggling just to survive, in this film she acts as protector of young survivor Newt, and elevates Ripley to one of the most badass action heroines of the genre. Newt has few lines but a memorable one with “They mostly come out at night… mostly.” in the same scene as Bill Paxton’s outburst, “That’s it, man! Game over, man! Game over!” Aliens finally took down The Karate Kid Part II for the #1 spot with $10 million from 1,437 theaters and eventually earned $85 million (seventh best for the year) and seven Oscar nominations with two wins (Visual Effects and Sound Editing, along with Actress, Editing, Art Direction, Sound, and Original Score). This was the best box office performance of the series, which included two more appearances for Weaver, plus two crossovers with Predator, before Ridley Scott returned to direct the prequel Prometheus in 2012.

35 years ago

Escape from New York - July 10, 1981
Kurt Russell stars as Special Forces convict “Snake” Plissken in futuristic 1997, coerced into saving the U.S. President, who is stranded in the walled off prison of Manhattan. Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Adrienne Barbeau, and Isaac Hayes (as The Duke of New York City) co-star in this action thriller from John Carpenter. Escape from New York earned $25 million in the U.S. and brought back Russell 15 years later for the sequel Escape from L.A.

The Fox and the Hound - July 10, 1981
Yet another lovely animated adventure from Disney features the lifelong friendship of two animals that would normally be enemies. Mickey Rooney voices Tod the fox, and Kurt Russell voices the adult Copper the hound (Corey Feldman provided the voice for hound as a puppy), with Pearl Bailey, Jack Albertson (Grandpa Joe in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory) and Sandy Duncan providing other voices. The Fox and the Hound grossed $40 million during its first run and was re-released in 1988. A sequel was released to video in 2006.

Arthur - July 17, 1981
Dudley Moore stars as a lovable millionaire alcoholic named Arthur Bach who is engaged to marry a wealthy woman played by Jill Eikenberry but starts falling for Liza Minnelli’s working class character through a random encounter. John Gielgud co-stars as Arthur’s butler, Hobson. Arthur grossed $96 million - the fourth highest of the year’s releases - on just a $7 million budget, and earned Oscars for Gielgud and the Burt Bacharach/Christopher Cross theme song “Best That You Can Do” in addition to nominations for Moore and Steve Gordon’s screenplay. Moore, Minnelli, and Gielgud returned in 1988 for the sequel, and Russell Brand starred in the 2011 remake; neither was as successful as the first film.



Come back next week for another installment of Marquee History!

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