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Bob Dylan’s song “The Times They Are a-Changin’’’ was emblematic of the social and political changes happening in the world in the sixties. The Vietnam war was raging on our TV screens and becoming increasingly unpopular, the hippie movement was blossoming, and civil and women’s rights were being fought for. “Make love not war” became a popular slogan. The Me Generation was discovering drugs in a big way. Blue jeans were the new uniform and pop culture was evolving.
Slowly at first, movies started to reflect their era. In 1966 the more mainstream epic drama Hawaii was the top box-office film of the year. In 1967 that distinction went to the Mike Nichols-directed The Graduate, starring a then-unknown and unconventional looking (for a leading man) Dustin Hoffman. The coming-of-age story resonated with audiences with its satire of modern life and the shocking seduction of young Benjamin Braddock by his girlfriend’s mother (a ferocious Anne Bancroft). It also made “plastics” an in-joke. Younger viewers liked its questioning of traditional values while older ones found it vulgar. The use of Simon and Garfunkel songs on the soundtrack added to its cache. The ambiguous ending asked the question of what happens when you get what you want.
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) also made a splash by dealing with an interracial couple (Sidney Poitier and Katharine Houghton) revealing their engagement to their parents with mixed results. Screen legends Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy play her parents and Beah Richards and Roy E Glenn Sr. play his. Back then interracial couples were a rarity, and the film stirred many a conversation. Bonnie and Clyde became a phenomenon with its depiction of bank robbers Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) and Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) and their spree of violence. It influenced fashion, rightfully made Dunaway a star, and inspired a hit song by Georgie Fame. Audiences liked rooting for the bad guys, and the heightened use of sex and violence didn’t hurt. Movies were changing and formula films would soon lose their foothold. Young audiences required fresh takes with no boundaries. The boomer generation wanted to see real people they could relate to on the big screen. “Tell it like it is” was their mantra.
Not to say though, that a well-produced old-fashioned movie couldn’t still be successful. Funny Girl was the number-one film in 1968, proving there was still an audience for pure entertainment. It made Barbra Streisand a movie star and kept the musical genre alive for a few short years. Eventually having characters burst into song in the middle of a conversation was considered silly. Planet of the Apes saw indictment of man and the mistreatment of the earth hitting a nerve. The shocking ending, to use a phrase from that time, “blew our minds.” It became a huge hit and kicked off a successful franchise.
But also in 1968, the Vietnam war was tearing the country apart. Actress/singer Eartha Kitt (one of three actresses to play Catwoman opposite Adam West’s Batman) was invited to the White House. When she spoke out about what the war was doing to the country’s youth, she caused an uproar and embarrassed her hostess, First Lady Lady Bird Johnson. Her career was ruined and the CIA started surveilling her. Her response was “If you tell the truth–in a country that’s says you’re entitled to tell the truth–you get your face slapped and you get put out of work.”
A year later, Midnight Cowboy arrived with a con man (Dustin Hoffman) and a naïve male hustler (Jon Voight) trying to survive in a harsh New York City. It featured sex, drugs, and a sordid look at society, but it was essentially a tender-hearted story about friendship between two broken men. The first X-Rated film to win the Oscar for Best Picture, it would be considered tame in today’s world. Things were changing, but there was still room for a family-friendly film like Disney’s The Love Bug, about a sentient Volkswagen Beetle, to be the second highest grossing film that year. And Easy Rider, the story of two hippie bikers (Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper) traveling across a turbulent America, hit a nerve with young audiences, becoming a big hit. The mystery of the open road was appealing, but the film’s ending was terrifying.
In the 70’s there was still a yin and yang in the movie business in regard to what would succeed. The more traditional Love Story, a romantic 1970 tearjerker with two young attractive leads, Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal, was the top-grossing film of the year. It gave us the famous line “love means never having to say you’re sorry” (married people knew the opposite). The more conventional Airport and Patton were in the top five. Director Robert Altman scored that same year with M*A*S*H, a subversive comedy about a pair of surgeons (Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland) finding laughs in the operating room during the Korean War. Also out was the filmed version of the three-day 1969 Woodstock rock concert, which resonated with the younger generation and was quite successful. The Boomer Generation had hoped that the festival would inspire people to embrace peace and love and help change the world (Spoiler Alert; it didn’t).
1971’s Shaft, a “blaxploitation” crime thriller about Harlem private detective John Shaft (Richard Roundtree), brought in the crowds and had a killer theme song by Isaac Hayes. It won the Oscar for Best Song, the first given to a black man. The French Connection, another 1971 actioner, starred Gene Hackman. It garnered five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, with its frenetic car chase and gritty realism. Homosexuality was explored in the 1970 film version of Mart Crowley’s hit off-Broadway play The Boys in the Band, delivering many laughs until its maudlin ending. In movies for a long, long time, gay usually equaled unhappy. Previously the heartbreaking The Children’s Hour (1961) and the nasty-in-a-good-way The Killing of Sister George (1968) also perpetuated this theme.
The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 Mafia masterpiece of filmmaking became a cultural phenomenon. The story of the Corleone Family headed by patriarch Don (Marlon Brando) and his sons Sonny (James Caan), Fredo (John Cazale), and Michael (Al Pacino) captured America with its in-your-face violence and compelling story. It’s a perfect movie.
Further evidence the times were changing (and I’m saying this with tongue firmly planted in cheek) was That Girl star Marlo Thomas ditched her trademark bangs and started parting her hair in the middle. She released the 1974 children’s album Free to Be…You and Me which challenged gender stereotypes and became a hit TV special too. And Amy Vanderbilt, purveyor of proper etiquette with her popular syndicated column, either jumped or fell out of the second story window of her NYC apartment in 1974. It was a new world, and the old rules were either being ignored or tossed out.
The mid-’70s brought more socially conscious films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), showcasing mental patients fighting a system of oppression in the form of a sadistic nurse. Also out that year Jaws, about a man-eating great white shark, made swimming in the ocean a questionable pursuit. Steven Spielberg’s aquatic shocker had lines around the block for weeks and kicked off the “summer blockbuster” genre. Shampoo, a ’75 comedy about politics and sex, had Warren Beatty playing a womanizing hairstylist in 1968 California with an uncontrollable libido and plenty of “customers” poised to fill his needs. Those women included Julie Christie and mother-daughter combo Lee Grant and Carrie Fisher (In her film debut).
The bicentennial year of 1976 offered four diverse hits. Sylvester Stallone introduced us to underdog Philly boxer Rocky and captured the country’s heart (not to mention a Best Picture Oscar). Taxi Driver was the extremely violent story of an alienated Vietnam War vet Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) descending into paranoia and vigilantism. All The President’s Men chronicled the story of investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovering the Watergate scandal that forced President Nixon to resign (This was back in the day when journalists had integrity and didn’t just accept the party line). And if I quote “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!,” most Baby Boomers would know where the line came from. Network, Paddy Chayefsky’s brilliant satire of the running of a TV network struggling for better ratings, foretold what the medium would turn into as it matured. It uncannily predicted shock TV with no consequences and no shame. Bingo!
Not to say that a fun escapist film couldn’t find success at the cinema. Mel Brooks’ comedy Blazing Saddles (1974) brought laughs with its satire of the western and is now considered a classic. Grease (1978), based on the popular Broadway musical, was a mega-hit starring John Travolta and songstress Olivia Newton-John. Evoking a simpler time, older boomers loved the nostalgia of it. It is still extremely popular today, probably for the same reason. It’s a film that crosses all generations. Grease is still the word.
Another nostalgic excursion was taken in George Lucas’ American Graffiti (1973). Taking place in 1962 Southern California, it focuses on a group of teenagers cruising in their cars on one summer night and wondering where their lives might take them. It also boasted a killer soundtrack of songs and spotlighted young people’s obsession with cars. And it took place before the counterculture revolution. Lucas would tap into the zeitgeist four years later with his space opera adventure Star Wars and create a franchise that is still going strong. When I first saw the print ad for it back then all I could think was “cheesy”. But I was certainly proved wrong. Animal House (1978) also struck a strong nerve. Starring SNL breakout star John Belushi and directed by John Landis, this subversive college comedy charmed the critics and the audience even when the action was crude, because it was just funny.
There were so many great films that were influenced by the turbulent times of the Sixties and early Seventies. A long-standing quote about movies (attributed to both Samuel Goldwyn and Jack Warner) goes as follows: “If you want to send a message, call Western Union,” meaning films should be just pure entertainment and not preach or moralize. Thankfully, in the Baby Boomer era many filmmakers ignored the suggestion.
In the coming weeks we’ll take a look at the Millennial generation and what films captured their attention.