FIL 2032 - History of Film II UNIT THREE
The U.S. film industry in the early 1960 - There were more foreign films than American films released in the U.S; They were the worst years for American film production in over 50 years; How to Marry a Millionaire marked the start of the trend to broadcast Hollywood movies on television To combat the dominance of television, major American film companies - began to produce television series; financed and distributed independently produced domestic films; got into the music (record) business Also in the 1960s - Studio-bound "contract" stars and directors were no more; directors from the early days of cinema were either dead or retired; some studios had to sell off their Hollywood back-lots as valuable California real estate Due to various insecurities and financial difficulties the traditional studio era would soon be history; the studios were quickly taken over by multi-national companies In 1966 Gulf+Western put Robert Evans in charge of the floundering Paramount studios. He went on the produce several of the studio's most influential films including, The Godfather
Robert Evans
The 'Father of the Multiplex" movie theater (love or hate him) - Stanley H. Durwood
While The Robe started the “EPIC” movie, Cleopatra signaled the end of this trend in Hollywood (a major dud, no doubt about it)
Because of the exorbitant expense of making a Hollywood “epic,” directors began to film at movie locations in Europe (e.g., “Spaghetti Westerns”)
Sergio Leone - "Spaghetti westerns, the "dollar trilogy", Clint Eastwood (kept the “western genre” alive)
A Hard Day's Night, Tom Jones, and Georgy Girl, are examples of the British cinema invasion
Foreign director's "art-house" films immensely popular with college students and other sophisticated metropolitan audiences included Antonioni (Blow-Up), Kurosawa (The Seven Samurai), Fellini (8 1/2), and Roman Polanski (Knife In The Water)
The film, Spartacus (1960) - Blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo received screenwriting credit for the first time in ten years; the original director (Anthony Mann) was fired; was produced by actor Kirk Douglas (thank you Kirk Douglas!) "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the War Room!" is a memorable quote from the Stanley Kubrick 1960s film, Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Kubrick went on to direct one of the greatest films of the 60s, 2001: A Space Odyssey At the end of the 1960s, Henry Hathaway saluted this great Western film star with True Grit - John Wayne Bullitt (1968) was one of the first films to be shot entirely on location (San Francisco)
Sidney Poitier is an esteemed black actor who was the first African-American to win an Oscar for “Best Actor”
Irwin Allen is credited for this sub-adventure genre - Disaster Films
Gidget, Beach Blanket Bingo, and Fantastic Plastic Machine - clean teen beach movies
Low-budget, exploitative, and quite successful film production company - American International Pictures (AIP) which was run by one of the most influential film-makers of the 1950s-1960s (dubbed the "King of the Drive-In and B-Movies") - Roger Corman
Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Jonathan Demme are all popular film directors who got their start under the tutelage of American International Pictures' Roger Corman
Dementia 13 (1963, directed by Francis Ford Coppola) In 1965, The Sound of Music surpassed Gone With the Wind (1939) as the greatest "box office" success The overwhelming influence of television was evidenced by the fact that Alfred Hitchcock used much of his production crew from his black and white television series to film a full-length feature film (in 1960)
Filmed on a minuscule budget of $114,000.00 Night of the Living Dead became one of the most successful independent features ever made, grossing some $12 million in box office rentals worldwide
"They're young... they're in love... and they kill people" was the catchy advertising slogan for this seminal 1960s anti-establishment film - Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Mike Nichols was the first film director to earn over a million dollars (1968) Easy Rider (1969) is often cited as definitely signaling the rise of the independents (and another nail in the coffin for the "old Hollywood"). It was produced for $375,000 and earned over $50 million at the box office, thus encouraging Hollywood to embrace the youth market
In 1967 the obsolete Hays production code was abolished and a voluntary "guidelines" approach was implemented with a ratings system
Midnight Cowboy (1969) - is an archetypal "New Hollywood" film; contained themes that resonated with the counterculture audience of the time; was the first "X" rated film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture
Young viewers and "New Hollywood" film directors during the early 1970s generally refused to compromise with mediocre film offerings; supported stretching the boundaries and conventional standards of films; wanted subject matter that reflected (in a creative and memorable way) the questioning spirit and truth of the times Films during the 1970s, often reflected hints of conspiracy paranoia, the discontent toward the government, and the lack of U.S. credibility During the 1970s, Hollywood hoped for a renaissance based upon the blockbuster An ancillary market for Hollywood products emerged during the 1970s - cable television, HBO, multi-plex theaters Gone With the Wind aired on network television in 1976 and drew a huge audience over a two night period - 34 million people (demonstrating again to the film industry that television could be an "ally" for profits and not a foe)
In 1976, Paramount became the first to authorize the release of its film library onto videocassettes (Sony Betamax) George Atkinson launched the very first video rental store ("Video Station") in 1977
Videocassette format that eventually became the home standard for watching Hollywood produced movies (during the late 1970s and early 1980s) - JVC's VHS 1/2 inch videotape system The first films on videotape were released by Magnetic Video Corporation X-rated films saw a great rise in popularity with the development of home VCR technology
Walt Disney and Universal were the only two traditional Hollywood studios still directly controlling film production during the 1970s Shaft (1971) falls under the exploitive genre of the 1970s known as Blaxploitation
Pam Grier - Coffy (1973), Quentin Tarentino, "Queen of Blaxpoitation"
The Black Hole was Walt Disney studios most costly film produced during the 1970s, received a "PG" instead of the traditional "G" Disney rating, and did mediocre business at the box office Carnal Knowledge (1971), Fritz the Cat (1972), and Last Tango in Paris (1972), showed that receiving an X-Rating (or "obscene" banning by certain State rulings) could have little effect on how popular and financially successful the film would actually become (after release into theaters)
Hollywood, 1975 - The Creative Artist Agency was founded by Michael Ovitz; conglomerate investment corporations were buying up studio properties (as part of their leisure entertainment divisions); films were being brought together via "packaged" deals Influential Woody Allen film (1977) that actually beat out Star Wars for the Academy Award's Best Picture - Annie Hall Saturday Night Fever and Grease were two teen-oriented films produced by Robert Stigwood. Both kept the "musical" genre alive and well during the 1970s
Star Wars (1977), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), and Alien (1979) are considered by most film critics of the 1970s to simply be "Big-Budget," escapist, 1970s entertainment (e.g., no comment on the political/social scene; aimed at less discriminating and demanding younger audiences) The defunct camera system that George Lucas revived for the special effects in Star Wars and that became an industry standard - VistaVision The first film to be recorded and released in four-channel Dolby stereo was Star Wars Star Wars established the special effects company Industrial Light and Magic The first "slasher" film, which grossed $50 million on a $400,000 investment and started an American cinematic craze was Halloween (1978)
The single largest financial disaster ever to hit a major Hollywood studio was the result of Heaven's Gate (1980) The lack of creativity in the Hollywood film industry in the 1980s can be attributed to the fact that the studios were now being run by lawyers and accountants with no industry backgrounds The effect of cable television and videocassettes on the American film industry in the 1980s was that more independent films began to be released than studio films The launch of consumer DVD was the most successful product debut in the history of consumer electronics CGI was initially used in the motion picture industry for special effects Toy Story (1995) was the first feature film made completely with CGI
