The Film Industry in the 1960's

David E. James, Allegories of Cinema: American Film in the Sixties, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1989.

'the decentralization of production in the fifties had made the studios more and more the distribution apparatus for independently produced features which by 1967 amounted to 51.1% of all features released.' (p.26)
 

Ethan Mordden, Medium Cool: The Movies of the 1960's, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1960.

B-films begin to turn a profit in the 1960's and begin to become a site for experimentation because their low budgets ensured a profit.  In this way they function as much as cheap independent films as major studio B-films. (pp.18-20)
The growth of metropolitan art house films and the revelation of foreign films combine in this era to subdivide the movie audience. (pp.33-34)

Brian Neve, Film and Politics in America: A Social Tradition, Routledge, London 1992.

'The mass audience had gone by the late 1950's and the object was increasingly to differentiate each film and to appeal to a particular section of the audience...Michael Wood sees Cleopatra (1963) as the film which showed that the myths and assumptions of studio era film-making were out of touch with a new audience.' (p.211)
 

David Parkinson, History of Film, Thames and Hudson, 1995.

Hollywood  'was beset with problems more serious than any it had faced since the Depression.  Despite a drop in box-office receipts to a post-war low of $900 million in 1962, the studios remained reluctant to accept the changing profile of their typical audience and, disregarding the requirements of their younger, better educated patrons persisted with the 'universal appeal' formula that had pertained since the industry's earliest days.  Similarly, they resisted the techniques of the nouvelle vague for fear that the average viewer would have difficulty folloiwng such elliptical narratives...Commercially and aesthetically, therefore, Hollywood was in dire need of rejuvenation.  The process began in 1967 with Bonnie and Clyde.

LINKS


 
 
 
 
Censorship in the 
1920's
 The Film Industry in the 1920's
  The Don'ts and Be Carefuls
 The Movies of the 1920's
 The 1920's
 Censorship in the 1930's
 The Film Industry in the 1930's
 The Motion Picture Production Code
 The Movies of the 1930's
 The 1930's
 Censorship in the 1940's
 The Film Industry in the 1940's
 The Motion Picture Production Code
 The Movies of the 1940's
 The 1940's
 Censorship in the 1950's 
 The Film Industry in the 1950's
 The Motion Picture Production Code
 The Movies of the 1950's
 The 1950's
Censorship in the 1960's
 The Film Industry in the 1960's
   Official Code Objectives of the MPAA
 The Movies of the 1960's
 The 1960's

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