Hollywood's Fall and Ris£: 1960-1980

CHAPTER • HOLLYWOOD'S FALL AND RIS£: 1960-1980 he postwar struggles for racial equality in the United States achieved T some success in the 1960s, during the presidencies of John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Both administrations promoted liberal domestic policies (which Johnson termed the "Great Society"), including the pas sage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Johnson's "War on Poverty" insti tuted work-study programs in colleges and created the Job Corps. At the same time, these administrations carried on the policy of containing com munism within the East-West conception of the cold war. The United States had begun to support the French fight against Ho Chi Minh's Com munist fOtces in Vietnam in the 1950s. In 1963, the year in which Kennedy was assassinated, America decisively entered the hostilities. Over the fol lowing nine years, the United States would send hundreds of thousands of soldiers into a war that became increasingly unpopular at home. The early 1960s saw a new fra nkness a bout sexual beha vior, accel erated by the invention of the birth-control pill and changing vie'vvs of women's roles. A freer socia I milieu encou raged the"cou ntercul ture," that broad tendency among the young to drop out of the mainstream and experiment with sex and drugs. The counterculture also played a role in sustaining the New Left, a radical political stance that distanced itself from both traditional liberalism and 1930s-style SOCialism and communism. Soon, student movements were arguing for more domestic social change and U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. Between the late 1960s and the early 1970s, social activists clashed with authority to an extent not seen since the Great Depression. The lib eral stance of the civil rights movement had given way to the more radi cal position of the Black Power movement. Opposition to U.S. involve ment in the Vietnam War had intensified. Social cohesion seemed to vanish. Marrin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, and Malcolm X were assassinated. Police attacked demonstrators during the 1968 Democratic 511 512 CHAPTER 22 Hollywooc.l's Fallanc.l Rise: 1960-19S0 Convention in Chicago, and President Nixon widened bia, Disney, and Umversa]-still controlled distribution, the Vietnam War. Campuses exploded; 400 closed or and nearly all money-making films passed through their held strikes during 1970. hands. Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Cleol)atra (1963), The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam in 1973 Dr. Zhivago (1965), and other historical epics played for could not heal the deep divisions in American society that months. Broadway mUSICals continued to yield such hits the war had created. The New Left collapsed, partly due as West Side Story (1961), The Music Man (1962), and to internal disputes and partly because tlle shooting of The Sound of Music (1965), the decade's top-grossing students at Kent State University in 1970 seemed to prove film. Independent teenl)ics such as Beach Blanket Bingo the futility of organized action. Nixon's successful bid for (1965) catered to the drive-in audience with the lure of the presidency resulted from middle-class voters' resent clean fun in the sun. The Disney studios dominated the ment of eastern liberals, the left, and the counterculture. family market with hugely successful films like 101 Dal The upheavals of this period led to an international matians (1961), Mary Pol)pins (1965), and The Jungle critical political cinema (see Cha pter 23). In Amenca, Book (1967). Although stars were free agents, many Emile De Antonio, the Newsreel group, and other film signed long-term production deals with studios. Para makers practiced an "engaged" filmmaking of social mount had Jerry Lewis, Universal had Rock Hudson and protest. At the same time, with diminishing profits from Doris Day, MGM had Elvis Presley. Each studio's output blockbusters, the Hollywood industry tried to woo the sta bilized at between twelve and twenty fea ture releases younger generation with countercultural films. The ef per year-a pattern that would hold for several decades. fort brought forth some experiments in creating an The Majors had made peace with television. Networks American art cinema. were paYll1g high prices for the rights to broadcast films, Respondll1g to the U.S. government's turn to the and the studios began making "telefeatures" and series right in the early 1970s, left and liberal activists em programs. braced a micropolitics: they sought grassroots social change by organizing around concrete issues (abortion, The Studios in Crisis race- and gender-based discrimination, welfare, and en vironmental policy). Many American documentary Despite all the evidence of prosperity, the 1960s proved filmmakers participated in these movements (p. 584). to be a hazardous decade for the studios. Movie atten At the same time, however, this activism was fiercely op dance continued to drop, leveling out at about I billion posed by the rise of the New Right, conservative orga per year. Studios were releasing fewer films, and many nizations that organized local support for school prayer, of those were low-budget pickups or foreign produc the abolition of newly won abortion rights, and other tions that would have been passed over in earlier years. issues. The struggle between reform movements and Most of the Majors were stuck with large facilities, New Right forces was to become the central political forcing them to lease sound stages to television. Big drama of the 1970s, and many films (jaws, The Paral stars proved a mixed blessing. Once they joined a pack lax View, Nashville) bear traces of it. age they usually insisted on control of the script and di The drama was played against the backdrop of a rection, along with a percentage of a film's grosses, yet waning U.S. economy, fallen prey to oil embargoes and most star vehicles did not yield profit to the studios. brisk competition from Japan and Germany. The 1970s The bulk of the films released by the Majors were ended the postvvar era of prosperity. This penod coin independent productIons, often cofinanced by the stu cided with Hollywood's reinvention of the blockbuster dio. What films did the Majors finance, plan, and pro and the rise to power of the movie bra ts, the most prag d uce on their own? Wlore and more these tended to be matic and infIuential young filmmakers who became the roadshow movies of the sort that had proved enticing new creative leaders of the industry. during the 1950s. During the 1960s, six films were road showed per year, and most proved lucrative. The Sound of Music roadshowed at 266 theatres, running for as THE 1960s: THE FILM long as twenty months on some screens. Only 1 percent INDUSTRY IN RECESSION of films released between 1960 and 1968 grossed over $1 millton, but a third of the roadshow pictures sur Superficially, Hollywood might have seemed healthy in passed that figure. The success of roadshow films like the early 1960s. The Majors-MGM, Warner Bros., West Side Story, El Cid (1961), How the West Was Won United Artists, Paramount, 20th Century-Fox, Colum (1962), and Lawrence of Arabia drove the studios to The 1960s: The Film [ndusrry in Recession 513 risk millions on epic movies. Soon, however, the invest lines of bank credit. But nothll1g seemed to stem tbe flow ments were in peril. In 1962, MGM lost nearly $20 mil of red ink. Between 1969 and 1972, the major film com lion, thanks largely [0 cost overruns on Mutiny on the panies lost $500 million. The studios quickly brought in Bounty (1962), and Cleopatra's protracted production new executives, often with little experience in film pro pushed Fox to a loss of over $40 million. duction. Banks forced companies to trim the number of By the late 1960s, every studio faced a financial cri releases, avoid big-budget films, and partner with other sis. Most releases lost money, and executives proved studios in coproductions (as when Warners and Fox slow to understand that the big picture was no longer a joined forces for The Towering Inferno, 1974). In 1970, sure thing. Despite Cleopatra's high box-office intake, unemployment In Hollywood rose to over 40 percent, its production costs guaranteed that it would lose an al.l.-time high. As recession gripped the industry, the money on theatriGIi release-as did many other expen roadshow era ended. Exhibitors began splitting their sive historical epics, such as The Fall of the Roman Em houses lnro two or three screens and building multi pire (1964) and The Battle of Britain (1969). Nor was plexes (cheaper shopping-mall. theaters). The result was the mUSical film a guaranteed winner. Although The a generation of narrow auditoriums with poor sightlines Sound of Music was a hit, Doct01' Dolittle (1967), and garbled sound. Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), Star! (1968), and Paint Your Wagon (1969) were expensive fiascos. Styles and Genres The only bright spots were a few low-budget films, usually aimed at the college audience, that yielded re With the decline of the studios and the continuing drop markable returns. Bonnie and Clyde (1967) cost $3 mil in attendance, 1960s Hollywood was unsure about what lion and returned $24 million domestic rental income [0 the public wanted. When a performer won a loyal audi Warner Bros., while lVIidnight Cowboy (1969) cost ence, he or she could count on studio support. Perhaps $3 million and yielded $20 million to United Artists. The the most obvious example is Jerry LeWIS. After teaming winner in the low-budget sweepstakes was the indepen with Dean Martin on several hugely successful Para dent release The Graduate (1967).

Load more