This page lists 35 films I saw in theaters in 1972. My movie database lists only films I see in theaters, not those I see on TV, videotape, DVD, or the internet. My culture page lists other cultural events.
I was a graduate student in the Stanford Computer Science Department starting in the fall of 1968. By the end of 1972, I had finished the required courses for my Ph.D., so I was supposed to be hard at work on my dissertation. Instead, I watched lots of movies. I had access to Stanford Artificial Intelligence Project computers, and starting in late October 1972 I listed the movies I saw in a computer file. The data here is from file films.pub dated 1/10/1973, as preserved at saildart.org. The original list includes 39 films I watched on TV in addition to the 34 films seen in theaters listed here. I kept going to movies, but I stopped showing up at Stanford AI, so this list stops in early 1973. I started keeping film data again in 1982. I wish I had the data for the missing years (and for earlier years)!
The early 1970s was a very rich period for repertory cinema, and as this list shows I traversed the Bay Area to see great films. I liked the tiny Academy Cinema in Palo Alto and was very unhappy when it folded, but it reopened in 1973 as the Festival Cinema and I had a wonderful time working there with a great group of friends. I learned to love silent films at the Avenue Theater on San Bruno Avenue in San Francisco, where Bob Vaughn accompanied on the big Wurlitzer.
I have kept movie date/title/director data consistently since 1982, with additional details since 2010. I also have some incomplete data from earlier years.
See also: 1963 1964 1965 1966 1968 1972 1973
1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
2020 2021 2022 All
Click on a heading below to sort the list accordingly. Click on a title or director entry to search for it in IMDB.
Date | Title | Director | Year | Theater | City | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
11/12/72 | Hollywood Party | 1934 | Academy | Palo Alto | ||||
11/22/72 | Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex | Allen, Woody | 1972 | Carlos | San Carlos | |||
11/23/72 | Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The | Buñuel, Luis | 1972 | Music Hall | San Francisco | |||
11/23/72 | Tale of Two Cities, A | Conway, Jack | 1935 | Gateway | San Francisco | |||
12/22/72 | Camille | Cukor, George | 1936 | Gateway | San Francisco | |||
11/23/72 | David Copperfield | Cukor, George | 1935 | Gateway | San Francisco | |||
12/24/72 | Gaslight | Cukor, George | 1944 | Academy | Palo Alto | |||
12/07/72 | Adventures of Robin Hood, The | Curtiz, Michael | 1939 | Academy | Palo Alto | |||
12/19/72 | Mildred Pierce | Curtiz, Michael | 1945 | Academy | Palo Alto | |||
12/07/72 | Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, The | Curtiz, Michael | 1939 | Academy | Palo Alto | |||
11/12/72 | Singin' in the Rain | Donen, Stanley | 1952 | Academy | Palo Alto | |||
11/22/72 | What's New, Pussycat? | Donner, Clive | 1965 | Carlos | San Carlos | |||
11/27/72 | Gone with the Wind | Fleming, Victor | 1939 | Century 25 | San Jose | |||
11/17/72 | Intolerance | Griffith, D.W. | 1916 | Avenue | San Francisco | |||
11/08/72 | Big Sleep, The | Hawks, Howard | 1946 | Charles | Boston MA | |||
12/15/72 | Birds, The | Hitchcock, Alfred | 1963 | College of San Mateo | San Mateo | |||
12/08/72 | Dial M for Murder | Hitchcock, Alfred | 1954 | College of San Mateo | San Mateo | |||
12/01/72 | Strangers on a Train | Hitchcock, Alfred | 1951 | College of San Mateo | San Mateo | |||
12/08/72 | Thirty-Nine Steps, The | Hitchcock, Alfred | 1935 | College of San Mateo | San Mateo | |||
11/12/72 | Singin' in the Rain | Kelly, Gene | 1952 | Academy | Palo Alto | |||
12/22/72 | Pride and Prejudice | Leonard, Robert Z. | 1940 | Gateway | San Francisco | |||
11/21/72 | Anastasia | Litvak, Anatole | 1956 | Academy | Palo Alto | |||
12/12/72 | Phantom India Part I | Malle, Louis | 1971 | SF Museum of Art | San Francisco | |||
12/12/72 | Phantom India Part II | Malle, Louis | 1971 | SF Museum of Art | San Francisco | |||
12/24/72 | Meet Me in St. Louis | Minnelli, Vincente | 1944 | Academy | Palo Alto | |||
11/05/72 | Princess Yang Kwei-Fei | Mizoguchi, Kenji | 1955 | Harvard Square | Cambridge MA | |||
11/21/72 | Roadhouse | Negulesco, Jean | 1948 | Academy | Palo Alto | |||
11/05/72 | Tokyo Story | Ozu, Yasujiro | 1953 | Harvard Square | Cambridge MA | |||
11/24/72 | Black Pirate, The | Parker, Albert | 1926 | Avenue | San Francisco | |||
11/10/72 | Greed | Stroheim, Erich von | 1925 | Avenue | San Francisco | |||
10/31/72 | Charles vif ou mort | Tanner, Alain | 1969 | Central II | Cambridge MA | |||
10/31/72 | Salamandre, La | Tanner, Alain | 1972 | Central II | Cambridge MA | |||
12/25/72 | Emigrants, The | Troell, Jan | 1972 | Fine Arts | Palo Alto | |||
11/03/72 | Deux Anglaises et le Continent, Les | Truffaut, François | 1972 | Boston MA | ||||
12/19/72 | Irma la Douce | Wilder, Billy | 1963 | Academy | Palo Alto |