Boxoffice Pro - August 2020

started. The National Legion of Decency,
supposedly influenced by Jacqueline
Kennedy, gave the film an endorsement of
“acceptable for adults with reservations.”
Jack Warner released it in 1966 with a
warning that the film was for adults only
and provided individual contracts for
theaters to sign, pledging that they would
not admit any minors. Valenti was forced
to approve the film with a “Suggested for
mature audiences” label.
This became the first step toward
the establishment of the new MPAA
voluntary classification system, enacted
in 1968. Movies were rated G (Suggested
for general audiences), M (Suggested for
mature audiences), R (Persons under 16
not admitted unless accompanied by an
adult), or X (Persons under 16 not admitted).
Valenti declared in Boxoffice Pro
that “the creative filmmaker ought to be
free to make movies for a variety of tastes
and audiences, with a sensitive concern
for children. That’s what this voluntary
film rating plan does—assures freedom of
the screen and at the same time gives full
information to parents so that children
are restricted from certain movies whose
theme, content and treatment might be
beyond their understanding.”
The MPAA and the International Film
Importers and Distributors of America
(IFIDA) were to monitor the ratings
system with the newly formed National
Association of Theatre Owners (NATO).
After calling for a united exhibitor front
for decades, Ben Shlyen’s wishes became
reality with the birth of NATO on January
1, 1966. Boxoffice Pro followed its inception
closely. In April 1964, the Allied States
Association of Motion Picture Exhibitors
and the Theatre Owners of America agreed
on a merger, talks for which had begun
over a decade before. The challenges
and changes of the 1960s brought an end
to the ideological differences that had
divided the two major exhibitor groups. In
addition to enforcing ratings, in its early
days NATO organized defenses against the
industry’s greatest threats. It campaigned
against the FCC for the regulation of
pay TV, instituted a “movie month” with
discounted prices, and pushed for more
research on patron behavior.
The final nail in the coffin of the studio
system came in 1967. That year, the
Academy Award nominees were four films
representing the new standard of antiestablishment,
more inclusive filmmaking—Bonnie
& Clyde, The Graduate, Guess
Who’s Coming to Dinner, and In the Heat
of the Night—as well as Fox flop Doctor
Dolittle, a film that epitomized the studios’
disconnect from the current culture. The
success of these new types of films was
indisputable. Influenced by European
New Wave cinema, young directors who
had trained in theater and TV like Sidney
Lumet, Arthur Penn, Mike Nichols, Sam
Peckinpah, and John Frankenheimer were
not afraid to take on taboo subjects and
resist the status quo.
While indies like Easy Rider and The
Wild Angels were thriving, the Big Five
were collapsing. Walt Disney had died
suddenly at 55 in 1965, Paramount was
sold to Gulf and Western Industries in
1966, and Warner Bros. sold a third of
its shares to Seven Arts in 1967. MGM
was sold to a Nevada casino millionaire,
Kirk Kerkorian, in 1969. Even United
Artists and Columbia, which had been
taking more risks with independent films,
were shaken. United Artists became a
subsidiary of an insurance company,
Transamerica Corporation, and there were
rumors about a French bank taking over
Columbia. The only Old Hollywood mogul
left was Darryl Zanuck, who remained at
the head of Twentieth-Century-Fox. By
the close of the decade, the golden age of
studios had ended and New Hollywood
was ascendant.
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