Universal in the '70s: Part One

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"Starting with executive Ned Tanen’s storied “youth division”, responsible for financing work like Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie, Peter Fonda’s The Hired Hand, and Monte Hellman’s Two-Lane Blacktop, all released in 1971, and continuing through the decade, no studio so completely embraced New Hollywood’s anything-goes spirit of upheaval and high-wire experiment as did Universal. In this visionary decade, Universal fostered young upstarts like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, imported Miloš Forman for his U.S. debut, and gave a free hand to old pros like Hitchcock and Don Siegel (and his understudy Clint Eastwood). In these more tepid times, Universal’s track record provides a shining, necessary example of what a studio with conviction can do."-Metrograph