On October 17, 1974, Benji, a film about a stray dog who helps
rescue several kidnapped children, opens in theaters; it will
go on to become a family classic.

Written and directed by Joe Camp, Benji starred a mutt named
Higgins, who had been rescued as a puppy from a California
animal shelter and went on to appear in the 1960s TV series
Petticoat Junction and the 1971 movie Mooch Goes to
Hollywood, with Zsa Zsa Gabor.

On August 25, 1939, The Wizard of Oz, which became one
of the best-loved movies in history, opened in theaters
around the United States.

Nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Picture
category, The Wizard of Oz lost to the Civil War–era
epic Gone With the Wind. The Wizard of Oz won a
Best Song Oscar for “Over the Rainbow,” which
became one of Garland’s signature hits. Garland
won a special award at that year’s Oscar ceremony,
for Best Juvenile Performer.

Apocalypse Now, the acclaimed Vietnam War film directed
by Francis Ford Coppola, opened in theaters around the
United States on August 15, 1979.

The film was inspired in part by Joseph Conrad’s 1899
novella Heart of Darkness, among other sources.

The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards,
including Best Picture, Best Director (Coppola), and
Best Supporting Actor (Duvall); it went on to win Best
Cinematography and Best Sound.

Apocalypse Now is today considered one of the greatest
films ever made.

Francis Ford Coppola

‘I love the smell Of Napalm in The Morning’… Robert
Duvall as Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore.

Harrison Ford

Dennis Hopper

Laurence Fishburne

On August 11, 1973, the nostalgic teenage coming-of-age
movie American Graffiti, directed and co-written by George
Lucas, opened in theaters across the United States. Set in
California in the summer of 1962, the film was nominated 
for five Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best
Picture, and helped launch the big-screen careers of Richard 
Dreyfuss and Harrison Ford, as well as the former child actor
and future Oscar-winning filmmaker Ron Howard.

Wolfman-Jack

Harrison Ford

National Lampoon’s Vacation, sometimes referred to as
simply Vacation, is a 1983 road trip comedy film directed
by Harold Ramis starring Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo,
Imogene Coca, Randy Quaid, John Candy, and Christie
Brinkley in her acting debut with special appearances by
Eddie Bracken, Brian Doyle-Murray, Miriam Flynn, James
Keach, Eugene Levy and Frank McRae.

Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase will be 80
on October 8th.