For those who believe the dumbing down of American movies is a recent and unprecedented phenomenon, a reeducation is in order. During the period 1961 to 1967, the American movie industry largely abandoned serious themes and so-called message pictures, the kinds of prestige films that, while usually not blockbusters, lent a patina of nobility to a business otherwise reputed to be crass.
Examples abound of Hollywood's rejection of the downbeat and the downcast in favor of the inane.
Musicals , whose heyday is generally considered the early 1950s, won three of the five Best Picture awards from 1961 to 1965, if the Oscars are any guide. Elia Kazan, whose thoughtful filmmaking set the standard for the 1950s, entered the '60s with a glorified teen flick, Splendor in the Grass. Fred Zinneman, one of the '50s most serious and prolific craftsmen, saw his output dwindle to one films between 1961 and 1965. Blake Edwards postponed his retooling for a couple of years, doing Breakfast at Tiffany's in 1961 and Days of Wine and Roses in 1963. But by 1964 he was lost in the lucrative wilderness of The Pink Panther and in 1965 circus-mastered The Great Race.