Episode Seven: Fade Out, Fade In (1960-1969)
Monday Dec. 13 at 8 pm & 11 pm ET
Wednesday Dec. 15 at 10 pm ET

In the 1960s America was in the midst of the most jarring political and social upheaval in decades. Without the old Hollywood structure, as studios were bought, sold and reconfigured, moviemakers searched for new ways to survive and prosper. The grand movie palaces were being replaced by multiplexes, and television was here to stay. In this shifting landscape, the power of the moguls was usurped by super-agent Lew Wasserman, whose aggressive business strategies turned MCA into a powerhouse that absorbed Universal Pictures in 1962. Old-style entertainments such as The Sound of Music (1965) and the James Bond adventures still prospered, but low-budget productions for a younger audience -- such as the works of Roger Corman -- gained importance. As a renaissance of foreign-language films from such directors as Kurosawa, Truffaut and Godard captivated audiences, American movies held their own thanks to revolutionary works like Stanley Kubrick's mordantly funny Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Arthur Penn's violently beautiful Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Mike Nichols' darkly humorous The Graduate (1967) and Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper's drug-hazed Easy Rider (1969). Movies would never again be quite the same.