Make Light, Not War: “Getting Straight” (1970)

      Imagine the panic in Hollywood studios in the late 1960’s, many already absorbed by corporations who had no more knowledge of the film business than a dairy cow has about producing Dulce de Leche, and those same businessmen following marketing studies and flow charts to indicate which way the audience of the commercial cinema marketplace was leaning; as if there were any alchemic algorithm to predict box-office success, the reality of which is amply demonstrated by the mountains of beleagered and discarded cinematic albatrosses left to twist in the proverbial winds of infamy. So, imagine this same congress of artistically inexperienced businessmen calculating the cultural sway which caused an entire industry to rush to produce films in the short-lived but hopefully lucrative rebellious youth fad, reflecting then-current anti-establishment values which would  be the very antithesis of the the deciding corporate mindset. Compounding studio concerns was that they not be seen to appear to be pandering to the youth audience while not appearing to abandon the traditional adult audience demographic from which they were dependent on for their bottom-line bread and butter. (This would come later.)

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