HOLLYWOOD IN TRANSITION

The movie industry has undergone some radical changes in the last decade and everybody known it. What everybody doesn't realize, contends MacCann, is that these are not necessarily changes for the better. There is primarily talk of the new ""adult"" cinema. Children's Hour is back and Shirley Maclaine digs Audrey Hepburn. Have we really come so Car, however? MacCann says we haven't, that though films are no longer made to entertain the 12-year-old many of the alleged superior releases are geared to titilate the 14-year-old. And, on the subject of the new wave of sex and fulfillment, he adds his voice to the call for classification: ""There is nothing in the First Amendment which gives every ten-year old the constitutional right to see Suddenly Last Summer."" What of the new crop of unattached, unfettered ""independent producers""? Are the Brandon, and the Hechts, and the as avant-garde as all that? MacCann again say no. ""The freedom of the independent has not broken down restrictions so much as the temper of the times, competition of TV, the example of foreign films."" While the studio paternalism was often irksome and frustrating, the stability of the system, the security of a fortune gave actors and technicians a training ground, gave producers a chance to make it in 3 out of 4. The author deals finally with the new and influential foreign market. Foreign success is no longer gravy. Half of the total box office now comes from abroad and this means the Egypt had better like it. This is for the most part a description of just why and how the drastic new face of film making has been altered. It is a competent, knowledgeable and highly entertaining examination.