During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the United States was torn by internal conflict as divisions between young and old, black and white, and left and right became increasingly polarised. As a result, it is hardly surprising that the Hollywood cinema of this period displayed so many tensions and contradictions. While this can be seen as the period of Hollywood modernism, in which a series of films and filmmakers displayed the influence of the international art cinema, it can also been seen as one in which Hollywood cinema incorporated other cinemas, containing their threat by absorbing that which was threatening. In political terms, this can also be seen as both an era of political radicalism in which a whole series of aspects of American culture and society were criticised and as one of conservatism in which there was an attack on the claims and gains made by the left.

In the mid-1960s, the industry was threatened by a series of costly financial failures such as the musicals Dr Doolittle (1967) and Star! (1968). As a reaction to its declining audiences and in the aftermath of some major hits such as The Sound of Music (1965), the industry had invested heavily in a series of big budget productions many of which seriously underperformed and by 1969, the industry as a whole was in serious financial difficulty. In 1968, MGM even saw itself acquired by Kirk Kerkorian who stripped the company and sold off its assets.