The Deer Hunter

Studio executives knew Vietnam would be a turn-off, so they simply avoided mentioning it at all. In order to help sell the deer hunter, Universal hired Alan Carr, the famed producer and promoter who'd just turned Saturday Night Fever into a smash. As Tom Mount remembers, that story almost stopped the deer hunter in its tracks. But as the movie went wide in early 1979, there was still the matter of reviews. Some war critics were troubled by how the movie pitted virtuous Americans against faceless, amoral Vietnamese.