The Deer Hunter (1978) on Netflix
Michael, Nick, and Steven are Russian-American steelworkers in Clairton, Pennsylvania. All three have enlisted to serve in Vietnam, while Steven is marrying Angela and Nick dates Linda.
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- Rotten Tomatoes86%
Trailer
Plot summary
The three friends work at the steel mill in Clairton, Pennsylvania, and spend weekends hunting deer with Stan, Axel, and John. Steven is marrying Angela, who is pregnant by another man. Nick dates Linda, and Michael is secretly infatuated with her. With Michael's agreement, Nick offers Linda a place in their house while the men are gone, so she can escape her abusive alcoholic father. At the wedding, Linda catches the bouquet and accepts Nick's proposal. At John's bar, the three meet a traumatized Green Beret who refuses to say anything about Vietnam. Nick asks Michael to promise never to leave him behind in Vietnam.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Deer Hunter (1978)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- All of Cazale's scenes were filmed first because he had terminal cancer, and the studio wanted to dismiss him, but Streep, with whom he was in a romantic relationship, and Cimino threatened to withdraw; according to Streep, De Niro paid for his insurance because he wanted Cazale in the film, which was Cazale's last.
- According to Cimino, De Niro requested a live cartridge in the revolver for the scene in which he subjects John Cazale's character to an impromptu game of Russian roulette, and Cazale agreed but obsessively rechecked the gun before each take to be sure the live round was not in the next chamber.
- Casting the Viet Cong referee proved troublesome because local actors refused to authentically slap De Niro and Walken during the Russian-roulette scene, so Somsak Sengvilai, noted as holding a particular disdain toward Americans, was cast, and the slaps he delivered were genuine.
- After Roy Scheider withdrew two weeks before the start of filming due to creative differences, producer Michael Deeley pursued De Niro, who was paid one million dollars for the role, in search of star power to sell a film with a "gruesome-sounding storyline and a barely known director".
- Aspegren was not an actor but the foreman at an East Chicago steel factory visited by De Niro and Cimino during pre-production; they were so impressed with him that they offered him the role, making him the second person cast in the film, after De Niro.
- At the 29th Berlin International Film Festival in 1979 the Soviet delegation said the film insulted the Vietnamese people, and the ensuing domino effect led to walk-outs by the Cubans, East Germans, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Poles and Czechoslovaks, with two members of the jury resigning in sympathy.
- Jan Scruggs, a Vietnam veteran, thought of the idea of building a National Memorial for Vietnam Veterans after seeing a screening of the film in March 1979, and he established and operated the memorial fund that paid for it; Cimino was invited to the memorial's opening.
- What really upset the studio was "God Bless America": Sheinberg thought it was anti-American and was vehement, saying something like, "You're poking a stick in the eye of America."
