lbenschwartz Blog

Summer movie seasons come and go, but there was something the summer of 1982 ranks amongst the greatest. What made 1982 so special?  Well, while your standing in line, waiting for the third recycling Spiderman, Shrek, Pirates or Oceans, think about what you could have been going to your, most likely newly opened, suburban Cineplex. These were the movies of 1982:

May 14: Conan the Barbarian
May 21: Road Warrior
May 28: Rocky 3
June 4: Poltergeist and/or Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
June 11: E.T.
June 25: Blade Runner and/or The Thing
July 9: Tron
July 23: The World According to Garp
July 30: Last American Virgin and/or Night Shift
August 13: Fast Times at Ridgemont High and/or Officer and a Gentleman

Not only did some of the most memorable movies of the 80s meet the public, but this four month period in 1982 set the tone for what Hollywood proceeded to make for the remainder of the decade and beyond.

For one, consider the talent introduced here, and what they would go on to accomplish beyond 1982. This summer represents major milestones in the careers of the three big action movie stars of the 80s: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson.

Conan introduced the world to Arnold the star, and so heralded the beginning of the muscle bound action hero era. Stallone was certainly a top star at this point, but his career had hit a valley after two disappointments, Victory and Nighthawks. Rocky 3 brought him back to his most beloved character; at least his most beloved until five months later when First Blood premiered in October, 1982. Gibson had been toiling in small Australian movies and television series since he premiered as Mad Max in 1979. But The Road Warrior announced him as a major Hollywood action movie star.

But outside the action genre, the summer of 1982 also introduced us to Ron Howard the director (Night Shift), Sean Penn (Fast Times), a mature Robin Williams (Garp), Spielberg’s most successful creation (E.T.), and a largely ignored concert documentary, The Secret Policemen’s Other Ball, produced by two brothers of the name Weinstein.

If the movies are really a reflection of us, then 1982 depicts the major cultural shifts that were occurring during the first two years of the 80s. The figure of a single, powerful male taking on the world with bullets and gun smoke was an image the newly elected President Regan tried to project – in part as an answer to the decidedly girly manish Jimmy Carter. The attempted assassinations of President Regan, as well as the Pope and Anwar Sadat, combined with a sluggish economy and the ever-present threat of the Russians, created an appetite for heros that Schwarzenegger and Stallone rode throughout the 80s. Mad Max gave the public a hero against the backdrop of the age’s great anxiety – the threat of nuclear war and the destruction of civilization to follow.

Technology took great leaps in the early 80s with the introduction of IBM’s first personal computer, the first portable computer, the craze of video games, and on the space front, the launch of the first space shuttle. Tron was one of the first Hollywood pictures to capatilize on the public’s appetite for computers and video games. The androids in Blade Runner infiltrate a world threatened by a gluttony of technology, and the trusted family television becomes a child abductor in Poltergeist.

In John Carpenter’s The Thing, the threat comes from space, but its an unseen threat that come inhabit anyone at any time.  The combination of technology and paranoia is a thread that runs deeply through the summer of 1982. Of course, less ambiguous are what faces Captain Kirk in a sci-fi arms race with one Kahn, in the Star Trek sequel that proved once and for all blockbusters could be made from on TV shows (the first one was a commercial and critical disappointment).

The American family was facing divorce ratings approaching 50 percent, and family turmoil becomes a major theme of the times. E.T. finds a young boy seeking to fix his broken family with the help of a visitor from another planet. Again in Poltergeist, supernatural forces to destroy the seemingly happy nucular family. And in Fast Times and Last American Virgin, parental influence all but disappears as teenagers make their own rules in the suburbs, a land conquered by children while mom and dad vacate to the city for their double paycheck jobs.