1967's Oscar Nominees (inspired by "Pictures at a Revolution")

Production Code abandoned in '68.

And the result was some of the dullest nominees in the history of the Oscars, I guess.

Rex Harrison is pretty super in Major Barbara and Unfaithfully yours, and even the by-the-numbers film of My Fair Lady.

The single scene that led Beatty to cast Hackman in B&C, his only one in Lilith, is a real stunner.

And the result was some of the dullest nominees in the history of the Oscars, I guess.

As opposed to the years before '68? I dunno, man.

Or after, yeah yeah yeah.

bonnie & clyde, though in the heat of the night is not to be sniffled at. i know i'm supposed to like the graduate... but i hate it.

'68 was The Lion in Winter, though. Only one of my top films of all time and probably one of the bitchiest films since All About Eve. <3

Yeah, TLIW has by far the best Hepburn Oscar-valiadted performance.

it's middlebrow fake-classy history sitcom stuff, but she's funny.

It's the ancestor of Peter Morgan's film/stage career.

so IOW, goddamn it to hell!

This book sort of keeps getting better and better. Loved the tidbit about how excited everyone on Heat's crew was about shooting in the south for authenticity. How excited everyone was, that is, except for Sidney Poitier.

And this video contains two of my three favorite Parsons moments in B&C:

This is when Hollywood cinema starts to become a problem for me. I find the pomposity of The New Hollywood unearned. And in general, 1967-1980 reeks of two steps forward-six steps back, esp. re: the dismantling of the Production Code. Still, I'd like to read Harris' book even though the word "Revolution" immediately makes me skeptical. And like Eric, I love stories about doomed and/or clueless productions (although my fave example is the unwatchable Song of Norway).

If we're merely voting for our favorite film here, then Bonnie & Clyde for me please.

^Oh, interesting. Tell us what you like about the Production Code.

It's not about liking the Production Code. It's about the absurdity of the idea that with its dismantling we could finally talk about this, that, or the other taboo subject in film.

But after reading Patricia White on the Production Code restrictions of These Three (1936) and how it differs from the supposedly more progressive remake The Children's Hour, I could easily say I love the Production Code (in this particular instance).

See also Molly Haskell's From Reverence to Rape. And This Film Is Not Yet Rated.

The Children's Hour (1961)

Yeah, the quality of Hollywood filmmaking really picked up in 1980.

It's about the absurdity of the idea that with its dismantling we could finally talk about this, that, or the other taboo subject in film.

oh yes how absurd.

...

What Compromises, on HOTN, did SidPoit have to make, like?

Still, voting that.

Yeah, the quality of Hollywood filmmaking really picked up in 1980.

Um, 1967-1980 isn't my periodization. That's the story the New Hollywood and its acolytes want everyone to believe, that from Bonnie & Clyde to Heaven's Gate (or Jaws in other estimations) we had some sort of cinematic paradise and that Hollywood films were soooo much more demonstrably worse or regressive after that. If you buy that reasoning, more power to ya, sweet cheeks.

And Scorsese, for one, really DID pick up after 1980.

oh yes how absurd.

Glad that's cleared up.

Um, 1967-1980 isn't my periodization. That's the story the New Hollywood and its acolytes want everyone to believe, that from Bonnie & Clyde to Heaven's Gate (or Jaws in other estimations) we had some sort of cinematic paradise and that Hollywood films were soooo much more demonstrably worse or regressive after that.

jesus, i think people overate the new hollywood cinema but you've strawmanned the shit out of this. leave it to the pros.

Look, it's enough to say that Hollywood produced more crap than good films before and after the Production Code, m'kay?

I don't buy that they were markedly worse after 1980 (I like Spielberg, after all), but I don't buy that they were so great in the period immediately leading up to 1967 either -- the auteurist heyday of the '50s had pretty much run out of gas.

I don't blame the Production Code for crappy, toothless Hollywood movies. I blame the fact that most of what topped the box-office charts during that time were crappy, toothless Hollywood movies.

hollywood has always, always produced more crap than good. you can argue about percentages if you want to. but this question is not about 'was hollywood in 1971 better than in 1946?'; it's about 'was hollywood in 1971 better than in 1965?'

yes, i reckon.

and it's also about, were 'taboo' subjects discussed more after the end of the code. unquestionably that's a yes, however flawed things were in practice.

people vastly overrate classic hollywood 'auteurs' imo -- very marginal differences in approach with most of 'em -- but the system functioned better than now in terms of acceptable minimums. shame about the racism etc.

In any case, I don't love Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? because it is said to have directly ended the influence of the Production Code. I love it because it's a fucking fantastic movie that couldn't have been made as it was made even two or three years earlier.

It is not a fantastic movie, it's a very fine film of a fantastic (if arguably misogynist?) theatre piece.

That moany more great Hollywood films were made before '67 than after seems obvious.

And yet, I guess I kinda know where you're coming from in a sense. I don't have the book handy right now, but I remember something in Michael Gebert's "Encyclopedia of Movie Awards" declaring the exact moment when Old Hollywood truly died: Oct. 26, 1962 -- the day Whatever Happened to Baby Jane premiered and Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were depicted as two shrill drag queen wannabes.

In other words, at least Old Hollywood had women's pictures. New Hollywood was for the boys alone.

I mean, if you buy that. Which I don't. But if you do.

xpost and Morbs presages that very point

How can Virginia Woolf be misogynistic if it's about four men?

Because it isnt?

Oops, my mistake. I was thinking about Oleanna.

That many more great Hollywood films were made before '67 than after seems obvious.

Wishful thinking. Michael Bay and Tom Cruise movies just seem louder.

Maria von Trapp right through to the danger zone

no-one has seen even a tiny fraction of hollywood's output, stop fronting with that shit.

It's funny we're arguing this because weren't the '70s also the era of the most rampant Golden Age Hollywood nostalgia?

Eric, you may be confusing Albee w/ Tennessee Wms on that score, tho it's possible neither of them knows much about women.

Even cracks in the Production Code had almost killed the romantic comedy by 1950. Now we have sex comedies, very unfortunate.

ethasn you fucking dipshit, no kidding, we're talking about the good stuff we've seen and making educated guesses on the crap.

ethan is also arguing against people who would rather see a bad movie from a perceived golden era than a good movie from a perceived overpraised/cool era

OK now I'm completely confused about the terms of the conversation here. But part of what I was getting at is that the Production Code was not federal law. It was not mandated that all films/producers adhere to it. So the American film landscape pre-1967 was much more varied that New Hollywooders proclaim (oh and strawman, my ass - do you know how many times that story gets repeated, esp. in film school?). Does that mean that more people flocked to see Maniac instead of Maytime? Of course not. But Hollywood wasn't the only game and that reality allowed a film like Mom and Dad (1945) to become ridiculously successful.

And when it comes to homosexuality, which always falls victim to the tyranny of evidence, to what extent didn't the classical Hollywood cinema "discuss" it?

As for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, oooh doggies! I cannot think of any pre-1967 film with more arch, unnatural, wince-inducing dialogue. That film's rep completely baffles me.

Morbs, FREE DOM AND ETHAN is NRQ, not ethan.

I mean, the extent to which people fetishize the good old days of "sophistication", "wit" and artillery-style "crafstmanship" is usually every bit as arrogant as the mass of cinephile fratboy-fanboys who will never tire of the taste of Scorsese's cock.

If you regard it as a filmed play (as I do), it won't gall as much. I don't mind Long Day's Journey Into Night either.

Morbs, FREE DOM AND ETHAN is NRQ, not ethan.

Oops, I knew that. I was going to bring up Sirk because of it, but refrained.

well, arch and unnatural is what Virginia is all about. xxxxp

But if taboo-breaking was what cinema is all about, Preminger would be recognized as king.

The Production Code ensured subtext (from filmmakers who knew how to supply it, at least).

(yeah it's nrq; same shit, different shitter)

Morbs OTM.

So is Woolf supposed to be like The Bald Soprano then?

ethan is also arguing against people who would rather see a bad movie from a perceived golden era than a good movie from a perceived overpraised/cool era

And that ain't me, babe! I've seen every Joan Crawford film of the 1930s and 95% are godawful. I've seen Maytime (biggest moneymaker of 1937) and, um, Maniac is easier to sit through. I've seen buckets of mind-numbingly bad obscure musicals that should have remained in whatever vault they were rotting in. I'm a Mill Creek Entertainment junkie so I've seen enough Poverty Row crap for a lifetime.

I adore the classical Hollywood cinema, But you won't catch me calling it a Golden Age. Or any other era, for that matter.

And fwiw, my two favorite films are form 1973 and 1970.

Oh and after Sirk, Preminger WAS king.

And that ain't me, babe! I've seen every Joan Crawford film of the 1930s and 95% are godawful. I've seen Maytime (biggest moneymaker of 1937) and, um, Maniac is easier to sit through. I've seen buckets of mind-numbingly bad obscure musicals that should have remained in whatever vault they were rotting in. I'm a Mill Creek Entertainment junkie so I've seen enough Poverty Row crap for a lifetime.

The fact that you've sat through them all doesn't exactly dissuade me from my notion that you get off on the era.

this "subtext" thing is more or less an invention of post-70s academia so far as i can tell. never seen audience studies to back it up, just "enlightened" readings.

And there ya have the tyranny of evidence.