Sweeping revisions were made in the Hays Code regarding the standards of decency for films, suggesting restraint in questionable themes, rather than forbidding them completely. In the new code of the Motion Picture Association of America, virtue and the condemnation of sin were still encouraged. However, it eliminated previous prohibitions of “lustful kissing” and “passion that stimulates the base emotions,” and permitted certain films to be labeled “recommended for mature audiences.”
Director Otto Preminger’s controversial courtroom drama Anatomy of a Murder (1959) was involved in a court case involving whether it should be edited for television and broadcast with commercials. Preminger brought an injunction against Columbia Pictures Corp. and Screen Gems Inc. to prevent them from interrupting the film with commercials when it was televised. Preminger charged that if the film was cut and interrupted by commercials, his reputation would be damaged and its “commercial value challenged.” The court ruled that the producer’s right to final cutting and editing was limited to a film’s theatrical release and not its televised showing.
After an appeal by Warner Bros., Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? became the first film containing profane expletives and frank sexual content (ie., “Hump the Hostess”) to receive the MPAA’s Production Code seal of approval, although the most extreme profanity was removed (i.e., “Screw you” became “God damn you!”). It was the first American film to use the expletive ‘goddamn’ and ‘bugger’. It was also the first film to be released with an M-rating (“Suggested for Mature Audiences”) warning.The second film to receive an MPAA exemption (and seal of approval) shortly afterwards was Alfie despite the use of the forbidden word “abortion.” These exemptions marked the beginning of the breakdown of the existing system of industry self-regulation and censorship, and the relaxing of code standards.
MGM distributed Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up , the director’s first non-Italian feature, in defiance of demands that it make cuts to its nude scenes. The film was released without an MPAA seal of approval. Jane Birkin and Gillian Hills, acting as teenaged groupies in the film, displayed glimpses of full-frontal female nudity, introducing American film audiences to their first view of pubic hair.
American comic actor and director Buster Keaton died at the age of 70, due to lung cancer. He now resides in heaven where he is smiling all the time. Walt Disney died at the age of 65 on December 15, 1966, from lung cancer. He was in the process of producing the studio’s next animated feature film The Jungle Book (1967). Troubled actor Montgomery Clift died at the age of 45, the result of a heart attack. Ever since a major car accident in 1956, he had suffered from substance abuse, and his lifestyle led to his early death. Two years after his final film performance, Ronald Reagan was elected to the first of his two terms as Governor of California.
SSgt Barry Sadler’s “The Ballad of the Green Berets” was the #1 song on Billboard‘s 1966 Year-End Chart of Pop Singles, edging true classics like “The Sound of Silence”, “Good Vibrations”, and “Wild Thing”. Katherine Anne Porter won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature for her Collected Stories. No prize was awarded for drama. The Time Magazine “Person of the Year” was awarded to “The Inheritor”, representing a generation of Americans aged 25 and younger – today we would call them baby boomers.
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I can’t say I’m inspired by most of the films on this list. I plan to power on through though. I have already reviewed Blow-Up, which was one of my first pieces for the 1001 Movies Blog Club and one of the most viewed entries on my blog.
Montage of stills from the Oscar winners
Montage of stills from Oscar nominees
