Halloween Is Released In Theaters

It's December 1st, 1977, at a movie theater in London, England.

Cameras flash as John Carpenter and Deborah Hill make their way through a crowd of elegantly dressed actors, producers and critics.

No one pays attention to the two young Americans.

John is tall and rail-finned with a dark bushy mustache and long unruly hair.

Deborah is shorter with frizzy blonde hair.

They're holding hands, clinging to each other in the excited mass of unfamiliar faces.

The London Film Festival is under way and everyone around seems to be toasting successes and making new friends.

But John and Deborah feel out of place, even though they're about to walk into the premiere of their own movie.

Arriving at the theater doors, they walk past the poster for Assault on Precinct 13.

It shows a group of armed men climbing through a shattered window.

At the bottom are the words, written and directed by John Carpenter.

It's a thrill for John and Deborah to see those words.

But if anything, it undersells how much work they put into the movie.

John didn't just write and direct the film.

He also scored it and edited it with Deborah's help.

Entering the lobby, John and Deborah finally see a familiar face.

Irwin Yablons, the movie's distributor.

He rushes up and shakes their hands.

Irwin is short, bald and bursting with energy.

Without him, it's likely that no one would have seen John and Deborah's film, but he took a risk and managed to get a salt on Precinct 13 onto the festival circuit.

And now he tells John and Deborah that there's someone he wants them to meet.

Irwin has an idea for a movie and a wealthy backer who's here tonight has agreed to finance it.

They just need someone to make it and Irwin has just the right person in mind.

In 1977, John Carpenter is still an almost unknown filmmaker trying to get by.

He's confident, skilled and single minded in his ambition, but he needs a big hit to prove himself.

So he's delighted when his new movie receives a rapturous reception at the London Film Festival and goes on to become one of the most popular releases in Europe that year.

Assault on Precinct 13 will be the perfect stepping stone for John, but even he won't be able to predict the success of his next project, a risky horror movie that will change Hollywood and spawn a billion-dollar franchise when it's released on October 25th, 1978.

From Noiser and Airship, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is History Daily.

History is made every day.

On this podcast, every day, we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is October 25th, 1978.

Halloween is released in theaters.

It's October 31st, 1977, on an airplane flying across the Atlantic to Los Angeles, a month before the festival screening of Assault on Precinct 13.

The independent movie producer and distributor, Erwin Yablonz, fidgets nervously in his first-class seat.

Wearing a slick suit and sipping whiskey on the rocks, the 43-year-old Erwin looks the part of a hotshot Hollywood executive, but in reality, his career seems to be going nowhere.

Erwin's not the only filmmaker in his family.

His younger brother, Frank, is also a producer, but a far more successful one.

In just the last few years, Frank has overseen the release of The Godfather, The Godfather Part 2, Chinatown, and been the executive producer of a slew of other hits.

Erwin, meanwhile, has produced obscure action movies.

His films are low-budget, which means they're also low-risk, but even those small risks don't seem to be paying off.

Compared to his high-flying brother, Erwin increasingly feels like a failure.

As the other passengers doze around him, Erwin racks his brain for ideas.

He needs a foolproof movie premise, something guaranteed to get people into theaters.

He lets his mind drift, and then, remembering what the date is, he has an epiphany, Halloween.

That's what he'll call his next movie.

It makes perfect sense to Erwin.

Halloween is one of the most dramatic nights of the year, and he can already picture the dark suburban streets and glowing jack-o-lanterns filling the silver screen.

Oddly, though, he can't think of another film that's also set on Halloween, much less one named after it.

But the idea does make him think of another holiday horror movie he saw several years ago.

In Black Christmas, a man infiltrates a sorority house and kills off the girls inside one by one.

That movie was not a success, but Irwin still liked it, so he decides to take the general plot and rework it.

His film will be set on Halloween, and instead of stalking sorority girls, his villain will kill babysitters.

Everyone has either a babysitter or been a babysitter themselves, so the terror at the center of his film will be relatable, and horror is the perfect genre, because audiences don't expect big movie stars, so Irwin can make it on the cheap.

Still, he realizes that this Halloween movie will need to grab headlines if it's going to be a success.

It will need to be shocking and new, and with that in mind, as soon as he lands in California, Irwin calls Syrian-American investor Mustafa Akkad.

Last year, Mustafa directed a film called Muhammad, Messenger of God.

It stoke controversy for depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a character on screen, which is highly offensive to many Muslims.

Now, Irwin wants to capitalize on Mustafa's reputation to boost his own project.

After hearing Irwin's pitch, Mustafa agrees to finance the film, and with an idea developed and funding secured, Irwin now needs to find someone to turn his vision into a reality.

Irwin already knows someone who can both write and direct the movie, John Carpenter.

So, the following month, Irwin and Mustafa fly to London to meet John.

They pitch Halloween to him and offer him the job for $10,000, as well as 10% of any profits.

John accepts under two conditions.

First, he wants complete creative control, and second, his girlfriend, Deborah Hill, is to be made a producer and co-screenwriter.

Irwin and Mustafa agree, and they all shake hands and contracts are drawn up.

After arriving back home in California, John and Deborah immediately get to work writing the script for Halloween.

To plot out the story, they are inspired by the style of old radio plays, which featured moments that would shock or excite its audience about every 10 minutes.

For the dialogue, Deborah draws on her own experience as a babysitter to write most of the victim's lines, while John writes most of the other male characters.

For the movie's villain, the two imagine a killer who is pure evil, a child who murders his sister but feels no remorse, and then grows up and decides to kill again.

In their initial drafts of the script, they refer to this villain simply as The Shape, and then later he'll acquire a more iconic name, Michael Myers.

John and Deborah will finish the script in just a few weeks.

Then they'll begin the next phase in pre-production, finding their cast.

John and Deborah will audition dozens of actors in their search for the right person for the lead role, but they'll struggle to find the perfect fit until they meet a young actress who's the daughter of Hollywood royalty and desperate to make a name for herself.

It's April, 1978, in Los Angeles, California, six months after independent movie producer, Erwin Yablons, came up with the idea for Halloween.

On the set of the TV show Operation Petticoat, Jamie Lee Curtis adjusts her army nurse's uniform and watches from behind the camera as the sitcom star acts out some exaggerated hijinks.

The show is set during World War II and is about four helpless nurses who are rescued from the South Pacific Island by a submarine crew.

Every week, they get into some wacky new adventure.

But 19-year-old Jamie Lee finds her role to meaning.

She's lucky if she gets more than one line an episode.

It feels like the writers and producers don't believe in her abilities.

She knows she was only cast because her father, the famous actor Tony Curtis, starred in the film the show is based on.

So week after week, shooting Operation Petticoat is chipping away at Jamie Lee's self-esteem.

She's desperate to land another more substantial, serious role, and preferably one in a film.

Half distracted, Jamie Lee watches the rest of the scene play out.

But when the director finally calls cut, a senior producer steps onto set and calls for quiet.

He has a sad announcement to make.

The network has just canceled the show.

That night, Jamie Lee returns to her tiny apartment and realizes that her humiliating sitcom nightmare may be over, but now she's unemployed.

She calls her agent to see if there are any auditions she can attend.

He tells her that there isn't anything promising at the moment, just a low-budget horror movie called Halloween.

Jamie Lee sinks into her bed.

She isn't interested in horror.

Not only does Jamie Lee have a famous father, but her mother is Janet Lee, the star of Psycho, the most successful horror movie of all time.

She really doesn't want another role where she'll be in the shadow of her parents.

But Jamie Lee is desperate, so she agrees to at least read the script.

The lead character, Laurie Strode, is a shy, quiet babysitter.

She's well-meaning and always responsible.

That doesn't exactly describe Jamie Lee.

She feels more called to Laurie's friends, who are funny and wild, but Laurie has a line on practically every page of the script, so Jamie Lee decides to go for it.

Two weeks later, she finds herself standing in a small audition room opposite John Carpenter and Deborah Hill.

Deborah is tender and welcoming, but John is more gruff.

Jamie Lee can't tell what he's thinking as he leads her through different pages of the script, asking her to laugh, cry, and chat casually on demand.

Finally, he asks her to scream.

It's critical that when Laurie finally confronts Halloween's villain, that the audience can feel her terror.

Jamie Lee has never had to truly scream for a role before, but her mother delivered one of the most iconic screams in film history and psycho, so Jamie Lee channels that energy and gives it her all.

A few days later, she finds out she landed the part.

In early May 1978, Jamie Lee arrives on set.

Halloween is shooting on location in Pasadena, just northeast of downtown Los Angeles.

But the filmmakers tell her that California isn't spooky enough, so Pasadena will be transformed to look like Illinois in the fall.

By setting their story in an average suburb in the middle of the country, John and Deborah say they want to make their audiences feel like the events could occur anywhere.

The film is about evil, and the scariest thing about evil is that it can show up anywhere.

Jamie Lee is encouraged by John and Deborah's ambitions for the movie, but as shooting begins, she sometimes doubts that Halloween will make it across the finish line.

The production crew is very young, and they all seem to have multiple jobs on set.

Even their boyfriends and girlfriends are hanging around and chipping in.

There is only one trailer for hair, makeup and costuming, and money is so tight that when the visual effects crew blows fake leaves in front of the camera to evoke a fall setting, the crew has to chase the leaves down the street and collect them for the next take.

The film's villain, Michael Myers, is undeniably terrifying, however.

The actor playing him wears a white mask with matted hair poking out of the top.

The prop master created the unsettling look by simply spray painting a silicon Captain Kirk mask white, but the result is haunting, and Jamie Lee Curtis hardly has to pretend to be terrified, as the murderous Michael Myers chases after her.

The Halloween shoot lasts four weeks, and afterwards Jamie Lee will go home to continue auditioning for other movies, hoping to land her breakout role.

And over the next few months, she sometimes wonders whether Halloween will ever see the light of day, but then she finally gets an invitation to the film's premiere.

As she prepares for the big night, Jamie Lee tries to tamp down on the bubble of excitement in her chest.

It's great to have the leading role in an actual movie, but she's certain there's no way this low budget horror film will ever make her a star.

It's October 25th, 1978, outside the AMC Empire Theater in Kansas City, Missouri.

Irwin Yablon stands outside the theater as a small crowd filters excitedly around him on a makeshift red carpet.

Above him, the marquee reads Halloween, and next to the theater door is a large cardboard display of the movie's poster, a fiery jack-o-lantern wielding a kitchen knife.

As someone with aspirations of producing big studio films, Irwin realizes that premiering a film on a Wednesday in Kansas City is not exactly glamorous.

The cast and crew have even had to fly here at their own expense, but this is the biggest theater Irwin can afford to book for the event.

He had been banking on one of the major studios seeing the finished film, loving it, and agreeing to finance its distribution, but none of the executives he invited to the screening in Los Angeles even showed up.

So always resourceful, Irwin took that setback in stride and paid to print 400 copies of the film himself.

Then he called up theaters all around the country and pitched the movie to them one by one.

In a few weeks, he patched together a grassroots release schedule, and now the big opening night has arrived.

A limo pulls up outside the theater and John Carpenter, Debra Hill, Jamie Lee Curtis, and the film's most established star Donald Pleasence steps out to scattered applause.

A few photographers snap pictures as the group makes their way into the theater.

The director John and lead actor Jamie Lee seem especially anxious.

They hope that Halloween will rocket them toward the stardom they've been dreaming of, but it could just as easily be an embarrassing flop.

When the lights go down and the movie begins though, it's clear that those fears are unfounded.

The audience is thrilled and terrified by what they see.

The crowd screams, cheers, and gasps at all the right moments, and that reaction will soon be repeated in theaters across the country.

After its small-scale premiere in Kansas City, Halloween will become a box office sensation, grossing $47 million in the United States alone.

That would be over $200 million today on a budget the equivalent of just $1.5 million.

Halloween will be one of the most successful independent productions of all time, and it will inspire a new wave of slasher horror movies and launch the mainstream careers of John Carpenter, Deborah Hill, and Jamie Lee Curtis.

In the decades that follow, there will be no fewer than six sequels to the movie, with Michael Myers becoming one of the most recognizable villains in cinema history.

But he will be most remembered for his first and most terrifying appearance in the original Halloween that premiered on October 25th, 1978.

Next, on History Daily, October 28th, 1886, a colossal statue symbolizing the friendship between America and France is dedicated in New York Harbor.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily.

Hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Jake Sampson.

Sound design by Gabriel Gould.

Music by Thrum.

This episode is written and researched by Owen Long.

Edited by Joel Callan.

Managing producer, Emily Byrne.

Executive producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.