Great recap. Thanks so much for posting it.
I seem to recall that the movie got some great reviews and was well received. I definitely remember going to see it when it opened. But, unfortunately, in '74 I was only reading Variety sporadically, so I don't remember and can't look up how well it did. And as David said, movies were handled very differently back then - they didn't open everywhere on the same weekend - they opened in different regions of the country over a period of time. If you lived in and around major markets like NYC, LA, Boston, Chicago, ect. they usually opened fairly quickly after release. But if you lived in, say, South Dakota, who knows how long it took for a film to get to you?