Pop Culture Roundup - 1981
While
On Golden Pond would win the Best Picture Oscar and score well at the box office, filmgoers primarily remembered 1981 for two action-adventure films, one which introduced a new hero and one which refreshed an existing one.
Raiders of the Lost Ark, from the mind of
Star Wars' George Lucas and directed by his friend Steven Spielberg, saw then-relative unknown Tom Selleck take on the role of Indiana Jones, a globe-trotting archaeologist and adventurer trying to intercept the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis can. A throwback to pulpy adventures of the 1930s, a balance of nostalgia, modern wit and cutting edge action made it a runaway blockbuster hit that made Selleck and his moustache household names and powered the Indiana Jones series on for another three films, with the final installment released in 1998. The 007 series, meanwhile, saw a new edge, as Welsh Shakespearean actor Timothy Dalton - who had turned down the role twice previously - was cast as James Bond in
For Your Eyes Only, replacing Roger Moore after the much-maligned box office dud
Moonraker two years previously. The film follows James Bond as he investigates the killing of one of M's personal friends "off the books," taking him from the forests of Vermont to the Italian Alps to the Greek islands as he tracks down a drug-smuggling ring involved in trying to secure a stolen British radar decoder for the Soviets. The film was a critical and commercial success, with Dalton's more grounded take on the spy heavily praised as a "throwback" to the Ian Fleming novels and even the early portrayals by Sean Connery.
In sports, 1981 saw the emergence of Magic Johnson as basketball's newest superstar as he led the previously moribund
Chicago Bulls through the playoffs and defeated in six games the Los Angeles Lakers of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, announcing himself to America as a flashy, smiling, unstoppable basketball force on the court.
Liverpool defeated Internazionale for their third European Cup, continuing the recent dominance of English sides. College athletics were little surprise, as
Indiana won yet another March Madness title and
Texas, a preseason favorite, dominated its way through a Southwest Conference slate and a Cotton Bowl championship aided by a late collapse in the Orange Bowl by Clemson to be named consensus national champions. Where there was some excitement, then, was in the other "Big Four" North American sports, as the
Cincinnati Reds emerged as the surprise National League champion and defeated the Yankees in seven games to win a second championship in six seasons; mere months later, the dynastic
Dallas Cowboys traveled to top-ranked San Francisco and blocked a last-minute desperation pass from Joe Montana to Dwight Clark to advance to their fifth Super Bowl within a decade, which they would win over the Cincinnati Bengals 33-27 to earn their fourth franchise title, extending their record and cementing their place as "America's Team." In the NHL, the heavily-favored New York Islanders were upset in seven games as well by the
Calgary Flames, who just years earlier had been moved from Atlanta, delivering a club in Western Canada (or the Western United States, for that matter) its first Stanley Cup and ending the impression of hockey as an eastern and Canadian sensation.
