Juan Monroy — American Film Industry: Class 10, Fall of the Production Code

1 Major Studios
- 1.1 MGM
- 1.2 Warner Brothers
- 1.3 United Artists
- 1.4 Paramount
- 1.5 20th Century-Fox
- 1.6 Columbia
- 1.7 Disney
- 1.8 Universal
2 Studios in Crisis
- 2.1 declining attendance
- 2.2 fewer films
- 2.3 mammoth studio facilities
3 Best Picture Nominees 1968
- 3.1 Dr. Doolittle (1967)
- 3.2 In the Heat of the Night
- 3.3 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?
- 3.4 Bonnie and Clyde
- 3.5 The Graduate
4 Roadshow
- 4.1 Sound of Music (1965)
  - March 1965
  - Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein
  - Maria and the von Trapp family in Austria during WWII
  - Financial Success
    - roadshow release at 266 screens
    - ran for as long as 20 months
    - Budget: $8.2 mil
    - Gross: $158 mil
- 4.2 successful
  - West Side Story (1961)
  - El Cid (1961)
  - How the West Was Won (1962)
  - Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
- 4.3 less successful
  - Cleopatra (1963)
  - Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
  - Battle of Britain (1969)
  - Doctor Dolittle (1967)
  - Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)
  - Star! (1968)
  - Paint Your Wagon (1969)
- 4.4 youth audiences largely dismissed these films
  - movies were family friendly
  - similar to French cinema (1958)
5 The Big Changes in the 1960s
- 5.1 Fall of the Production Code
- 5.2 Influence of European New Waves
- 5.3 Violence in American Culture
- 5.4 Baby boomers reach maturity
6 Production Code
- 6.1 Guaranteed movies were “Something for everyone”
- 6.2 weakening
  - American Films
    - The Man with the Golden Arm (Otto Preminger, 1955)
    - Baby Doll (Elia Kazan, 1956)
  - Foreign Films
    - And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956)
  - MPAA
    - Motion Picture Association of America
      - Will Hays (1922–1945)
      - Eric Johnson (1945–1963)
    - Jack Valenti (1966–2004)
      - solve the box-office decline
      - modernize the Production Code
- 6.3 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
  - controversy over the word “screw”
  - labelled for “eMature Audiences”
  - rated “Approved”
  - big box office success, small production
  - prompted released of adult- oriented dramas
- 6.4 Blow Up (1967)
  - scene with female, full-frontal nudity
    - could not be cut
    - successful release in Europe
  - released in US by Premier Films
    - box office success
    - spelled the end of the Production Code
  - studios were largely distributors not producers anymore
7 Motion Picture Ratings System
- 7.1 Instituted 1967
- 7.2 Replaced Production Code
- 7.3 Four Ratings
  - G
  - M
  - R
  - X
- 7.4 Segmentation based on age
8 French New Wave
- 8.1 Came to prominence in 1959
- 8.2 Gave rise to “new wave” cinemas around the world
  - Italian
  - Swedish
  - Polish and Czech
  - Germany “Das Neue Kino”
  - British “Kitchen Sink”
  - Brazilian “Cinema Novo”
9 Rise in Violence
- 9.1 Assassinations
- 9.2 Escalating Vietnam War
- 9.3 Race Riots
10 Anti-Establishment sentiment
- 10.1 youth oriented
- 10.2 Students for a Democratic Society
- 10.3 Black Panthers
- 10.4 Yippies
- 10.5 Rejecting the prior generation’s status quo