Article September 1, 2013

Films

Melvin Maddocks

Originally published in the March 8, 1963 issue of The Christian Science Monitor

In the last 30 years the United States ﬁlm has followed two general directions. Hollywood's older tradition is that of "escapist" entertainment; it has expertly manufactured daydreams: lacy musicals, formula adventures, supremely inconsequential comedies.

Since World War II—and particularly in the last 10 years—the second tendency has become apparent. When television usurped the movies as the mass dispenser of popular entertainment, the ﬁlm industry's reaction was to widen its screens and its range of permissible subject matter. It has been the boast that movies have grown "frank" and "bold." The so-called family trade has been abandoned to Walt Disney.

Following the tastes established by European ﬁlms, which used the medium for "realistic" forays into unglamorized areas of experience, American producers have, with considerable faltering, sailed into the deep waters of what are sometimes called "problem" ﬁlms.

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