Moviemaking remained in a slump at the start of the 1960s. Moviemakers struggled to come up with successful strategies to combat the rising popularity of television, which kept former movie viewers at home. One strategy was to make big-budget spectacles that TV producers simply could not make. Cleopatra, released in 1963, starring Elizabeth Taylor (1932–) and Richard Burton (1925–1984), was just such a film. It cost $37 million to make and included lavish sets and exotic filming locations. Filmgoers loved such movies, but there were only so many that could be made each year.

Moviemakers also attracted audiences by making another kind of movie that could not air on TV—movies that contained sex, violence, or unconventional behavior. Comedies like The Apartment (1960) and Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), dramas like The Graduate (1967) or Bonnie and Clyde (1967), and adventure pictures like the James Bond films Dr. No and Goldfinger (1964)— all had...