Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood

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Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood

by Mark Harris (Goodreads Author)

4.2 of 5 stars 4.20 · rating details · 1,097 ratings · 227 reviews

The epic human drama behind the making of the five movies nominated for Best Picture in 1967-Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, Doctor Doolittle, and Bonnie and Clyde-and through them, the larger story of the cultural revolution that transformed Hollywood, and America, forever

It's the mid-1960s, and westerns, war movies and blockbuster m...more

Hardcover, 490 pages

Published February 14th 2008 by Penguin Press HC, The

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Feb 25, 2013 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to David by: Mike

Shelves: le-cahiers-du-cinema

Last night's demoralizing Oscar ceremony—like many stillborn ceremonies before it—makes me wonder why people continue to give a damn at all. Yes, I know there are a bunch of you cranks out there who (loudly) disavow an interest in showbiz spectacle, and you're only too anxious to take a steaming piss on the red carpet to assert some kind of hazy moral superiority. We thank you very kindly for your tsk-tsking, but everybody already knows full well that the frivolous ostentation and shameful self-...more Last night's demoralizing Oscar ceremony—like many stillborn ceremonies before it—makes me wonder why people continue to give a damn at all. Yes, I know there are a bunch of you cranks out there who (loudly) disavow an interest in showbiz spectacle, and you're only too anxious to take a steaming piss on the red carpet to assert some kind of hazy moral superiority. We thank you very kindly for your tsk-tsking, but everybody already knows full well that the frivolous ostentation and shameful self-love that these award shows entail don't look so good juxtaposed next to starving kids in Africa or the victims of drone strikes in Iraq. We get it. But I could say something roughly similar for Super Bowls, World Cups, amusement parks, and sprawling shopping malls. In short, there are all varieties of poisons—and if you're pious enough never to have tasted any of them, then please go scale the self-actualization triangle and leave us to wallow in the muck and the mire.

I bring up the Oscars because the book Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris culminates at the 1968 Oscar ceremony. Admittedly there isn't much suspense. Anyone with a modicum of curiosity and energy can google the particulars and quickly discover that Norman Jewison's high-minded film In the Heat of the Night won the Best Picture award that year. Harris suggests that the film was a sort of compromise victory—splitting the difference between the nascent adventurism of New Hollywood, exemplified by co-nominees Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate, and the musty traditionalism of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and Doctor Doolitte. (The latter film, which was both critically and commercially unsuccessful, is alleged to have 'bought' its nomination. Its creators were the unscrupulous forebears of Harvey Weinstein, whose handjobs are proverbial but apparently still pleasurable in Hollywood today.)

Harris has selected 1967—the year in film—as emblematic of the fundamental change Hollywood was forced to undergo to remain culturally and artistically relevant. He does an admirable job of weaving together the backstories of all five Best Picture nominees in a surprisingly coherent (and fascinating) narrative; he probably overstates the significance of this particular moment in cinematic history to add a little drama and consequence, but we can forgive him his indulgences in the interest of a more succinct overview.

Harris doesn't scrimp on the dish either. If you're a Rex Harrison detractor (as I am) and you've just been jonesing for some fuel for your fire, this is the book for you. What an insufferable jackass he was. He lorded it over the production of Doctor Doolittle as if he were god's gift, motivated by professional jealousy and an inflated sense of his own importance. Occasionally, however, Harris touches on rumors better left on Page Six. (Were Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn bisexual? He brings it up but fails to really address it, so you'll end up remembering the rumor without any idea if it's plausible or even where it originated.)

Despite its minor failings—the author worked for Entertainment Weekly (sniff) so what can you expect?—I can't recommend Pictures at a Revolution strongly enough for readers interested in film history. Even if you aren't interested in these specific films, the book is valuable as an excavation of the shrine to New Hollywood. And it's also a surfeit of riches with its tangential anecdotes, like the story of the death throes of the Hollywood Production Code.

Sure, none of this is very important in an absolute way, but I pity the poor souls who are immune to thrills of celebrity tattle. A life that's purely necessary is anything but a life, if you ask me. (Yes, that's my rationalization.)(less)

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Nov 16, 2011 Tangoswithtext rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Harris' Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood chronicles five films nominated for best picture for the Oscars in 1968: Bonnie and Clyde, Guess Who's Coming For Dinner, The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, and Dr. Dolittle. Harris gives in-depth research about the backgrounds of the films and by comparing them, explores the social and philosophical changes in the Zeitgeist of the time. The book illustrated the generation gap between parents and their children...more

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Mar 05, 2008 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Movie fans, especially those who think Adorno & Horkheimer were a little too mechanistic

One of the best books about films I've ever read, and a masterfully-crafted, thrilling read at that.

Harris untangles how we got to the Best Picture slate of 1967, a fine representative case study of a shift in Hollywood conventions. And also, obviously, situated in a time of significant cultural change. But unlike many other such film histories, which tend to center on readings of the films (technique and thematics) to make the cultural argument, Harris masterfully traces the complexities of ho...more

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Nov 14, 2007 Spiros rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc, vacationreads, cinerelated, california

As a rule, I tend to fight shy of "watershed" books, books that purport to show you how "this changed everything"; to his credit (and despite the marketing blurbs on the back), Harris attempts to do no such thing. Instead, what he has written is a diligently constructed book, chronicling the making of the five films which received Best Picture nominations at the 1968 Academy Awards. Two of the films (IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT and GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER) were directed by old time Hollywood l...more As a rule, I tend to fight shy of "watershed" books, books that purport to show you how "this changed everything"; to his credit (and despite the marketing blurbs on the back), Harris attempts to do no such thing. Instead, what he has written is a diligently constructed book, chronicling the making of the five films which received Best Picture nominations at the 1968 Academy Awards. Two of the films (IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT and GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER) were directed by old time Hollywood liberals (Norman Jewison and Stanley Kramer, respectively), two (BONNIE AND CLYDE, THE GRADUATE) were directed by young outsiders who viewed themselves primarily as Broadway directors (Arthur Penn and Mike Nichols, respectively), and one, DOCTOR DOLITTLE, was a heavily backed studio effort which was attempting to catch onto a perceived wave of popular support for bloated musicals, fueled by the success of THE SOUND OF MUSIC and MY FAIR LADY.
The five narrative threads interconnect in surprising, and yet inevitable, ways. The two liberal films were conceived as serious attempts to address the civil rights issues of the day; unfortunately, by the time they reached theaters, they emitted a musty odor of quaintness and condescension. Sidney Poitier, the charismatic star of both movies, became a victim of his own success, straightjacketed into roles which required him to play the emasculated, noble negro that white America would not be too uncomfortable viewing on screen.
DOLITTLE, conceived in reaction to the artiness of Nouvelle Vague Cinema as a good, old fashioned, bread and circuses Hollywood extravaganza, foundered miserably under the weight of its egomaniacal leading man (Rex Harrison), bloated production values, and a cast of recalcitrant (animal) extras. Needless to say, the accounts of its making are the most outrageously entertaining parts of the book.
THE GRADUATE and BONNIE AND CLYDE are really what this book is about; these were the revolutionary films which did, in fact, change everything: BONNIE AND CLYDE by assimilating the lessons of the New European Cinema; THE GRADUATE, by assimilating the Zeitgeist of '60's Youth Culture. Both films would prove to have an enormous impact on future Hollywood movies, and both were made almost in spite of the studios which were producing them. (less)

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Jun 30, 2011 Kris rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is your book if you appreciate thoroughness, historical accuracy and narrative momentum with your cinema journalism. Mark Harris captures the essence of mid-60s filmmaking in a bottle, exhaustively documenting the making and promotion of the five films nominated for the best picture Oscar in 1967: Bonnie & Clyde, The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and (seriously) Dr. Doolittle. Harris masterfully weaves the story of each film's creation into a united t...more

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Feb 11, 2011 Josh rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: film, history, favorites

Immediately the best, most fascinating and rigorously researched book on film I've ever read; but of course, it isn't JUST about movies, but about entire cultural paradigm shift, and so much more. It took me, oh, maybe twenty pages or so to get a feel for Harris' rhythm-- initially, I wondered if it might be just a bit dry-- but once I got the hang of it I was never anything less than totally captivated by it, and the kinds of historical anecdotes he digs up are s utterly bizarre, they couldn't...more

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May 26, 2010 James rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I started reading this book this morning, and despite my rather hectic Monday schedule (on a truck I haven't driven in toto since forever ago), I am now roughly halfway through it, and if I don't finish it tonight, I certainly will tomorrow. This is one hell of a read, and deftly written.

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Feb 13, 2009 Don rated it 5 of 5 stars

Excellent!

Other books I have read about the motion picture industry have, for the most part, been full of interesting and fun facts and anecdotes, but not particularly solid histories. This book scores on both accounts.

A fascinating history examining the production of each of the 5 Best Picture nominees for the 1967 Academy Awards (In the Heat of the Night, The Graduate, Dr. Doolittle, Bonnie and Clyde and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner), this book attempts to identify the beginnings of the "New H...more

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Feb 13, 2009 Jonathan rated it 3 of 5 stars

If the 1960s were a time of great social and cultural ferment in the US, reactionary, conservative Hollywood didn't seem to get the memo. Slowly, however, a new crop of filmmakers, influenced by European cinema – and by the French New Wave auteurs in particular – began to break out of the classic Hollywood mould and make movies that were darker, grittier and more morally complex than ever before. But these Young Turks faced an established order that wasn't going to to relinquish its turf so easi...more

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it

Mark Harris, a former editor for Entertainment Weekly, combines his remarkable knowledge of film history with interviews and research that capture the Zeitgeist of the late 1960s, particularly the cloistered, changing world of Hollywood. The films that challenged the industry's expectations were, Harris writes, "game changers, movies that had originated far from Hollywood and had grown into critics' darlings and major popular phenomena." In the manner of Otto Friedrich's City of Nets, Peter Bisk

...more

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Nov 05, 2012 Richard Kramer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Yesterday I went into Book Soup, my favorite LA indie bookstore, somehow thriving after close to forty years.I found on a table a stack of copies of the book PICTURES AT A REVOLUTION, by Mark Harris. Now, there aren’t many necessary books about Hollywood; this is one of them. THE STUDIO, by John Gregory Dunne, is another; Dunne reports on the inner working of 20th Century Fox at the same time Harris writes about in his book; Dunne was there (bad idea; Joan Didion: Writers are always selling some...more Yesterday I went into Book Soup, my favorite LA indie bookstore, somehow thriving after close to forty years.I found on a table a stack of copies of the book PICTURES AT A REVOLUTION, by Mark Harris. Now, there aren’t many necessary books about Hollywood; this is one of them. THE STUDIO, by John Gregory Dunne, is another; Dunne reports on the inner working of 20th Century Fox at the same time Harris writes about in his book; Dunne was there (bad idea; Joan Didion: Writers are always selling somebody out); Harris might as well have been there, as his writing is that vivid, events seeming to happen in front of him as he writes, capturing them with an artful simplicity that seems to let them speak for themselves. And then there’s PICTURE, by Lillian Ross, a long New Yorker piece from the early 50′s about the making of John Huston’s THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE (which I’ve never seen, or read! Hmmm …)

But this book is in a class by itself. Harris picks one year (1967) and picks that year’s product — more specifically, the films upon which it, “Hollywood”, then as now more idea than place — chose to bestow Best Picture nominations — as a lens to examine a seismic shift in American culture, in that extended moment when the fly-infested, rheumatic lions of the past creakily tried to roar away the new pride that approached the gates and said “Let us in.” The films are Doctor Doolittle, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, and Bonnie and Clyde. Old Hollywood began to die, and new Hollywood — that would lead to the golden age of the 70′s — began to blossom.

Harris approaches this with the fervor of an investigative journalist, tirelessly trying to get to the bottom of things. And he has a sense of humor; there are hilarious tales of Hollywood here I’ve never heard, and I’ve heard a lot of them, including some I’ve made up. Someone recently quoted to me an insight of the late director Alan Pakula, who said actors are all the same person, in different bodies; PICTURES AT A REVOLUTION casts its net wider than the actor pool, but the truth behind Pakula’s remark applies to those drawn to work and live in Hollywood in general. The book is set in 1967, but the dreams and dreamers and bloviated red-faced vanity Harris writes about is somehow timeless, and I suspect always will be.(less)

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May 30, 2012 Alan rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Cineastes

Recommended to Alan by: Abby Weintraub, jacket designer

Its simple and eye-catching jacket, designed by one Abby Weintraub, adeptly announces the contents within—a sober history of a watershed year for American film, seen through the lens (heh... see what I did there?) of the five movies that were the Academy Award® Best Picture nominees for 1967. Each film took years to make it to the screen, turbulent years during which both American society, and that society's pale and flickering reflection on theater and television screens, changed tremendously....more Its simple and eye-catching jacket, designed by one Abby Weintraub, adeptly announces the contents within—a sober history of a watershed year for American film, seen through the lens (heh... see what I did there?) of the five movies that were the Academy Award® Best Picture nominees for 1967. Each film took years to make it to the screen, turbulent years during which both American society, and that society's pale and flickering reflection on theater and television screens, changed tremendously. From the violence of Bonnie and Clyde and the sexuality of The Graduate, to the issues of race in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner and In The Heat of the Night, to the state of the big-budget musical in Doctor Dolittle, each of the films Harris examines shows a different facet of those changes.

Harris interviewed an astounding number of the actors, producers and directors, friends, spouses, industry insiders and hangers-on who were involved in these films, both on and off the record. And he lets them speak for themselves much of the time, which helps the book stay lively despite a rather stolid and occasionally even clumsy style (Harris is given to redundancy, as for example when the phrase "a sense of what" shows up twice during one long, not-quite-parallel sentence on p.286). And of course box office figures and what they'd mean in current dollars, the inescapable glue that binds together (and slows down) just about any film history, show up often. But even at its most awkward and accounting-obsessed, the subject matter and Harris' meticulous, extensive primary research carry this narrative forward.

I also think Harris did himself an excellent service by limiting so strictly the time period and movies he examines in Pictures at a Revolution. He discusses other films, of course—both the prior and subsequent work of their casts and crew make frequent appearances, for example—but the focus on the 1967 Oscar® nominees provides both structure and a logical point of convergence for the book as a whole.

While I didn't like this book quite as much as I did David Thomson's The Whole Equation, I did enjoy it more than J. Hoberman's An Army of Phantoms. It's a solid slice of American film history.

The terms Oscar® and Academy Awards® should of course be recognized as trademarks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; this review is neither endorsed by nor affiliated with the Academy.(less)

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Sep 21, 2011 Sue rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, investigative

If you're a big movie and movie history buff like me, this book is a must-read! It's a wonderful glimpse into what it was like right at the cusp of "old" and "new" Hollywood, full of direct quotes from many of the actors, directors, screenwriters, and producers who weathered the changes. It mainly focuses on 5 movies that, in their own ways, heralded the change: Look Who's Coming to Dinner; In the Heat of the Night; Bonny & Clyde; The Graduate; and Doctor Dolittle. It was quite fascinating!

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Nov 19, 2010 Kenneth rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is the finest work of film history I have ever read, or more precisely listened to on audiobook.

It is a fascinating look at 1967, a pivotal time in Hollywood film when a new generation rose to challenge the old with challenging new work like the European influenced storytelling of Bonnie and Clyde or the irreverent comedy of The Graduate, starring Dustin Hoffman, a brilliant young actor who would redefine star appeal ever since. Meanwhile the old guard was falling on its face with emb...more

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Jul 28, 2010 Shawn Roberts rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is beautifully written and well researched. It's a great example of how a highly researched book can be compelling and complete without feeling the need to exhaustively go through every single piece of information the author unearthed on the subject matter.

Harris does a fantastic job of depicting what working in film was like in the 60s: the commercial pressures, the mechanics of how projects were put together, the cultural milieu and the personalities driving the industry. The book is at...more

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Dec 06, 2009 Charles Matthews rated it 5 of 5 stars

Oscar plays it safe. You can trust the Academy to pick a “Forrest Gump” over a “Pulp Fiction,” an “Ordinary People” over a “Raging Bull,” or a “Kramer vs. Kramer” over an “Apocalypse Now.”

Or a well-made, socially conscious melodrama like “In the Heat of the Night” over groundbreaking movies like “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Graduate.” That’s part of the story that Mark Harris tells in his richly fascinating book, “Pictures at a Revolution,” which focuses on the five nominees for best picture in 1...more Oscar plays it safe. You can trust the Academy to pick a “Forrest Gump” over a “Pulp Fiction,” an “Ordinary People” over a “Raging Bull,” or a “Kramer vs. Kramer” over an “Apocalypse Now.”

Or a well-made, socially conscious melodrama like “In the Heat of the Night” over groundbreaking movies like “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Graduate.” That’s part of the story that Mark Harris tells in his richly fascinating book, “Pictures at a Revolution,” which focuses on the five nominees for best picture in 1968 – the other two were “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and “Doctor Dolittle.”

The conventional way of writing about five movies would be to devote a section of the book to each. But Harris does something more difficult and far more illuminating: He weaves together the stories of how each movie was conceived, crafted, released, critiqued and received. He writes about the five or six years in which the filmmakers, some of them old pros and some of them rank novices, struggled with a studio system in collapse, an audience whose tastes and enthusiasms seemed wildly unpredictable, and a culture being transformed by volatile social and political forces.

A few figures dominate Harris’ narrative – writers Robert Benton, David Newman and Robert Towne; actor-producer Warren Beatty; producers Lawrence Turman, Stanley Kramer and Arthur P. Jacobs; studio heads Jack Warner and Richard Zanuck; directors Mike Nichols, Norman Jewison and Arthur Penn; actors Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Dustin Hoffman, Rod Steiger, Rex Harrison and Sidney Poitier. The book has what Hollywood publicists used to brag about: a cast of thousands.

Poitier figures in the stories of three of the movies – "In the Heat of the Night" and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," in which he acted, and "Doctor Dolittle," in which he was cast in a featured role until its chaotic filming led to his being written out of the script. He had become an unexpected star – in 1967, Harris tells us, “Box Office magazine … rated Poitier as the fifth biggest star in Hollywood, ahead of Sean Connery and Steve McQueen. His drawing power was a shock to an industry that had, until recently, treated his employment in movies as something akin to an act of charity.”

But at the same time, a “rift had grown between Poitier and a younger, more militant black cultural intelligentsia” that mocked him as an Uncle Tom. The author of one of these denunciations, Clifford Mason, now admits that he “jumped all over Sidney because I wanted him to be Humphrey Bogart when he was really Cary Grant,” but he persists in his criticism of the “role that Sidney always played – the black person with dignity who worries about the white people’s problems – you don’t play that part over and over unless you’re comfortable with that kind of suffering.”

Racial tensions and the protest against the war in Vietnam played a large role in shaping these movies. Harris, a writer and former editor for Entertainment Weekly, not only demonstrates how the filmmakers responded to social and political change, but he also has a working knowledge of the film industry that allows him to elaborate on how a colossal flop like “Doctor Dolittle” came about (and how it could be nominated for a best picture Oscar over better-received movies such as “In Cold Blood,” “Cool Hand Luke” and “Two for the Road”). Its producers were inspired by the smash success of “My Fair Lady,” “Mary Poppins” and “The Sound of Music.”

“Historically,” Harris comments, “the only event more disruptive to the industry’s ecosystem than an unexpected flop is an unexpected smash, and, caught off guard by the sudden arrival of more revenue than they thought their movies could ever bring in, the major studios resorted to three old habits: imitation, frenzied speculation, and panic.” Imitation was the first impetus behind “Doctor Dolittle” – Alan Jay Lerner, Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews were the talents the producers sought for the film, but they wound up with only one of them. The panic came later – a good deal, but not all, of it caused by the irascible and demanding Harrison, whom Harris presents as a man filled with "anger and paranoia." Among other things, Harrison was an anti-Semite, which led to confrontations with his co-star Anthony Newley, whom he disparaged "sometimes to his face, as a 'Jewish comic' or a 'cockney Jew.' "

Harris has created what seems likely to be one of the classics of popular film history, useful to dedicated students of film and cultural historians, and also to trivia buffs. (Did you know that Beatty’s original choices to play Bonnie and Clyde were his sister, Shirley MacLaine, and Bob Dylan?) Harris writes with a wit that’s sly, not show-offy. He can encapsulate the woes of shooting “Doctor Dolittle” in four words: “The rhinoceros got pneumonia.” And he can slip in a bit of insider humor with a reference to Newley’s then-wife, Joan Collins, who “reentered the Hollywood social scene she loved with the vigor of an Olympic athlete” – the syntax leaving it up to the reader to decide whether the prepositional phrase modifies “reentered” or “loved.”

Indeed, almost the only complaint about “Pictures at a Revolution” is that, except for an “Epilogue” that briefly sums up the later careers of the major figures, it ends at the Oscar ceremony. You want Harris to go on, to talk about how the success of “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Graduate” also caused the studios to resort to their old habits of “imitation, frenzied speculation, and panic.”

And there were other consequences: “Kramer vs. Kramer” now seems like little more than a well-made domestic drama, while the film that it defeated for the best picture in 1979, Francis Ford Coppola’s audacious mess of a movie, “Apocalypse Now,” is regarded as a classic. “Kramer vs. Kramer” also won Oscars for its writer and director, Robert Benton, one of the writers of “Bonnie and Clyde,” and for Dustin Hoffman, who had become a movie star in “The Graduate.” In eleven years, Benton and Hoffman had gone from being icons of a film revolution to pillars of the establishment. That’s the way things work in Hollywood. If you can’t beat ’em, assimilate ’em.
(less)

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Jan 13, 2013 Matt Lohr rated it 5 of 5 stars

A landmark volume in contemporary film writing. Harris's chronicle of the five Best Picture nominees at the 1967 Academy Awards is trenchant, intelligent, and brilliantly written, a long and densely layered book that seems to fly by in a matter of minutes (I have read this several times now, and the first time through I blew through it in a day). Harris deftly sketches the films, their import and impact, and the men and women who brought these works to life. Unparalleled thumbnail sketches of a...more

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Jun 22, 2011 Megankellie rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: comedy nerds, film nerds

Recommended to Megankellie by: film nerd.

Shelves: showbiz-reality, history

This is pretty film-geekily interesting and just the complete detail you want behind the scenes of the five movies that were nominated for Best Picture in 1967 - In the Heat of the Night, The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and Dr. Dolittle. Great history and context and the detailed battle of getting something produced and marketed. So detailed, you start from the second the screenwriters behind Bonnie and Clyde thought of the script and the million years until they sa...more

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Jul 24, 2009 Kasa Cotugno rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: genre-history, subject-show-biz

The reader doesn't have to had been around in 1968 to find this book interesting, but it enhances the enjoyment. Those who remember movies prior to the formation of the rating system, when the infamous Hays Code was dictating what could and could not be seen, will recognize the advances in maturity nascent in four out of the five movies nominated for the Oscar that are featured here. Harris employs a straight chronological structure, following the development of all five films, managing to make...more

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May 22, 2010 John rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Mark Harris interviewed writers, directors, actors, and other associated people, who worked on the Best Picture nominees for 2007 (Bonnie & Clyde; Doctor Doolittle; The Graduate; Guess Who's Coming To Dinner; In The Heat Of The Night). This is the launchpad for an investigation of the end of the old studio system and the rise of independent film.

What a great read!

Sidney Poitier is one of the main characters of the book and the author spends a lot of time setting the scene of 1960s liberal H...more

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May 26, 2009 Trish rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

My boss passed this on to me, knowing I'd enjoy the behind-the-scenes (or screens) information about the five films competing for the 1968 Academy Awards: Bonnie and Clyde, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, Dr. Doolittle, In the Heat of the Night, and The Graduate. Harris does a wonderful job of weaving together the disparate stories behind each film's (often convoluted) genesis and (frequently fraught) filming. If I had to pick a favorite anecdote, it would be the tipsy squirrel on the set of Dr....more

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Jan 08, 2009 Taylor rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, film

The book is essentially a production history of the 5 films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar in 1968. The strength of the book lies in the way Harris compares and contrasts the production histories, seperating the films into New Hollywood, Old Hollywood and MOR. Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate represent New Hollywood, Doctor Doolittle represents Old Hollywood and In The Heat of the Night and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner represent something in the middle - films that tackled the subject of...more

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Nov 10, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 5 of 5 stars

Loved this book! Learned so much that I didn't yet know about the behind-the-scenes. I now have a greater appreciation for some of these directors and/or actors, screenwriters, and all who are involved in this art. I am so tempted to share some excerpts but will refrain from spoiling your reading pleasure! You've got to read this!

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Jan 06, 2012 James Perkins rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

At the tail end of the 1960s, America was full of social activism, as the young protesters were fed up with the old guard. In Hollywood, mirroring reality in microcosm as its movies mirrored reality on celluloid, the old was also on its way out: the studio system was about to end, the Hays Code was being phased out, and young up-and-coming directors and stars were starting to make their mark. This book tells the story of the five movies nominated for Best Picture at the 1967 Oscars and how, in t...more

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Nov 13, 2010 Steven rated it 5 of 5 stars

Fantastic book about the American film industry, circa 1967. By examining the five Academy Award nominations for Best Picture of 1967, Harris dissects the movies, the people associated with them, and the effects that each film has had since. It was a turning point in American movie making. The old guard (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Doctor Doolittle) were being brushed aside by the new upstarts (Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate). In the Heat of the Night rounded out the five and in many ways repr...more

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Jan 09, 2009 James Loftus rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

This is one of the best books I have read in recent memory and certainly one of my favorite non-fiction reads in a very long time. The book follows the five 1967 Oscar nominated films (The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Bonnie and Clyde and Doctor Dolittle) from inception right up to the awards ceremony. The thesis of the book is that this awards ceremony and these films mark a transition point in Hollywood. The social commentary is interesting the book and the...more

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Mar 19, 2011 Sharmayne rated it 5 of 5 stars

As good a book as exists about one of my favorite subjects...behind scenes Hollywood. This masterpiece succeeds on every level. Following five movies from conception, casting, filming, theatrical release and ending at the Oscars in 1969. Balanced between the emergence of an upstart generation of filmmakers inspired by Europes New Wave and Old Guard Hollywood who just don't 'get it.' Of course, lots of great stories about the Stars! Spencer Tracy and Kathering Hepburn during his last days, their...more

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Dec 04, 2011 Elderberrywine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library

A rare treat for filmoholics like myself. Harris takes the five Oscar nominees for Best Picture in 1967 (a watershed year when the major studios truly lost their firm grip on the industry), and examines their convoluted paths to that point. The movies were Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, In the Heat of the Night, and, believe it or not, Doctor Dolittle, and their histories are far more entwined than one could ever imagine. Hollywood is a very small town, after all....more

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Dec 08, 2011 Jay rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: media, business, audiobook

Wonderful production history of the five movies up for the Best Picture Academy Award in 1967. The movies are a diverse lot, including "The Graduate" and "Bonnie and Clyde" as movies that set new conventions in film. Also included were "Doctor Doolitle", a big budget musical, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "In the Heat of the Night", Sidney Poitier's two entries. The descriptions of these films starts with their source material, and continues with the pitches to get them made and financed, p...more

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Jan 04, 2010 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: movies, non-fiction, 2010

A terrific book. Harris looks at the five Oscar nominees for Best Picture in 1967 and reveals nuanced layers to the seismic changes that were about to occur in 1970's American cinema. Page-turing anecdotes center around some of the more revolutionary movies nominated in '67 like The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde, but I found the stories and interviews surrounding 20th Century Fox's mess of a musical Doctor Dolittle to be the most interesting part of the book. The bloat and excess of Dolittle was...more

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Mark Harris’s first book, Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, was published this year. He writes the “Final Cut” column for Entertainment Weekly and has also written about pop culture for many other publications, most recently The New York Times, Details, GQ, Portfolio, The Washington Post, Slate, The Guardian, and The Observer Film Quarterly. A graduate of Ya...more

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