Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood
By: Harris, Mark
Any serious or casual movie buff should read this book. It interweaves the stories of five movies nominated for Best Picture Oscar in 1967: “In the Heat of the Night”, “The Graduate”, “Bonnie and Clyde”, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”, and – most improbably – “Dr. Dolittle”. These disparate films, with their long, tortured development and production histories vividly described, represent a watershed moment in the history of the US film industry. The old Studio System, dominated by moguls and super-producers like Jack Warner, Joe E. Levine, Stanley Kramer, Walter Mirisch, and the like, was tottering on its last legs, consumed with turning out expensive “road-show” musicals and epics like “Cleopatra”, “The Sound of Music,” and “The Bible” – which, if successful, could put a studio in fine financial condition. But if they failed, which they began to do with shocking regularity in the mid-60s, they could break a studio and end careers.
Reviewer: David Flaxbart
