Does the average Joe really understand the difference between independent cinema and the studio days of “Sunset Boulevard”?
The studio system started to disintegrate after World War II. A Senate decree separated the studios from the theaters. Then the attendance started to slide. Then the rise of television. The [McCarthy-era] blacklist. It all started to go to hell in the late 1940s and throughout the ’50s. By the 1960s it was a total mess. And then you have the new Hollywood. So the new Hollywood is corporate? What I’m calling “new Hollywood” is the 1970s people. In those days, studios weren’t corporate. The corporatization trend was just starting. TransAmerica bought United Artists. Gulf & Western bought Paramount. But at the same time, in the case of Gulf & Western, Charlie Bludhorn, who ran it, was as crazy and mogul-like, and took as much interest in the studio, as any “Last Tycoon.” He was a real character in his own. I think TransAmerica was similar to what we have today, sort of a faceless corporation. Say I work at Blockbuster Video. If I can get my orthodontist uncle to bankroll me $20,000, can I
