Introduction, Part 2: What's Going on?
So, now that that long-winded ramble is over, why don’t we go into a long-winded ramble of something else? Specifically, the players in this, and the context of the world at the time. For despite being far different entities in media and background, each share a common background of golden ages and sad declines (For which some would argue it was only karma); Remembered more as a famous name from a long ago past than whatever they are now. So let's get into them, shall we?
Motown
Motown, named for the Motor City of Detroit in which it was famously located, was founded in 1959 as Tamla, by Berry Gordy, Jr. (Or III). This was certainly not the first black-owned label, nor the first one to have artists that hit somewhere in the mainstream. However, it was perhaps the first label that became an actual entertainment force by itself. Gordy's talent for picking artists and producing let him truly live up to the studio name "Hitsville, USA", as some of the best black artists and music of the decade emerged from the studio. His partnership with the songwriting team Holland-Dozier-Holland, or H-D-H, combined with his heavy insistence on quality, saw the creation of the "Motown sound"; A more poppy form of R&B that saw the music cross over to white audiences.
With a strong business acumen as well, Gordy was able to assemble his own distribution network, making Motown into a record label on par with the other major labels of the time. In its '60s heyday, Motown became the platform for talent like Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, the Miracles, the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, and numerous other acclaimed acts and music stars who may never have struck it otherwise. It was especially remarkable in an era of civil rights, where such a business rose up without the assistance of a large white label.
Motown was not without its flaws, however. Gordy maintained heavy control on what its artists could put out quality and content-wise, forbidding politics for a while to prevent alienating white audiences. And while his label would help launch the careers of its artists, it would also frequently screw them over with regards to contracts. And in between all this, a set of close connections and marriages between him, his family, and artists, as well as some jockeying between different executives, woulf create a set of dramas that could affect these processes and leave many bitter in the aftermath.
1968 was a crucial year in this respect. These aforementioned issues would culminate in H-D-H leaving the label and suing it in the process for royalties, seeing the end of the partnership that launched the studio. At the same time, Gordy began to look beyond Motown and towards Hollywood, as he bought a home in L.A. and began to adore the place. Yet despite these, Motown remained very strong through this year, even discovering the Jackson 5 and its prodigious Michael Jackson. Motown was clearly still in its prime, and it looked to only be getting bigger.
MGM
The hallowed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at this time, by contrast, was far past its prime, and was cruising towards disaster.
Years before, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, they were the undisputed king of Hollywood, creating glamorous musical features like
The Wizard of Oz or
Singin’ in the Rain, or tentpole epics like
Gone with the Wind, that are all considered some of the greatest or most essential films of the American canon. Some of this, unfortunately, came at the expense of many of its stars just as with Motown, often more so (As famously seen with Judy Garland or the famous troubled production of
Oz), yet once could not deny that what the studio put out during this time were, are, and perhaps forever will remain enshrined in the American and cinematic consciousness.
Yet after the early '50s, the studio began to fall into a slump. Part of this came from the collapse of the studio system, in which studios and theater chains were co-owned and made exclusive. After its owner, the theater chain Loew’s, had to divest itself from control of its theaters. The other part came with the advent of TV, which MGM infamously dismissed and refused to make content for, and with Mayer himself stating the “black little box” would just be a fad. While it would make some excursions later on, such as famously being the first studio to air a full film of theirs on television with
The Wizard of Oz (Which helped it become the classic it is today and would become an annual tradition to air), their refusal to create any other content for a while, and the fact of them coming in so late, symied them in the long run. Other issues, like poor leadership in the years after Mayer, changing audience tastes (Particularly with a turn away from musicals that were MGM's brad and butter), etc., would contribute to this decline.
These were problems for all major studios at the time as well, but being the biggest, MGM arguably had the hardest fall of them all. Entering the 1960s, they did manage a few successes:
Ben-Hur (1959) became a successful epic for them, and they would have a few successes within the decade with
Doctor Zhivago (1965),
The Dirty Dozen (1967), and
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). But outside of these, many of their films, especially their humongous tentpole spectacles, would only flounder at the box office, feeling bloated or out of touch with modern audiences.
By 1968, MGM had undergone several shakeups, with different owners and leaders attempting to figure out where to take the studio. Its majority stakeholders at the time were Edgar Bronfman Sr., of the beverage company Seagram, and Time, and both looked to find an eager buyer to sell their shares to that could hopefully return the lion to good form.
Their Fate in Our Timeline
Unfortunately for the two, both would see a serious decline by the time of the ‘80s, one more so than the other. While both are still around in one form or another, their names evoke more of what they were during their golden ages, rather than what they are now.
For MGM the next year, they would unfortunately find their eager buyer in Armenian-American businessman Kirk Kerkorian. After a battle between the Kerkorian and the studio and stakeholders, he would eventually win, acquiring a major stake in the company and effectively taking control
Such an expensive purchase effectively crippled the studio from the outset. Kerkorian, more interested and knowledgable in the hotel business than the film business, sought to fix these debts as soon as possible, damn the long-term consequences. Former CBS executive James Aubrey was appointed to the position of president. And despite claims of trying to return the studio to its former glory, he seemed to do everything in his power to remove said glory. Its historied backlot was sold off, many of its famous props were auctioned, frequently undervalued. And compared to the grand ambition of its logo "Ars Gratia Artis" ("Art for art's sake"), the studio seemed to fall instead into cheap, largely unambitious films.
The 1970s saw MGM's film output decline, and though it managed a few hits, such as
Westworld and
Logan's Run, few would recall it as anything more than a hotel business at the time. Such was the case that, when an anti-trust lawsuitcame up against Kerkorian for his owning a stake in Columbia, he would famously declare MGM to be primarily a hotel business, which for better or worse, it really was.
Some things seemed set to turn around in the '80s, with the split of the hotel and film businesses from each other and the purchase of United Artists and subsequent merger as MGM/UA. And a few rising successes, even with the debt loaded onto them by the purchase, would see the potential for it to finally make a name for itself.
And then, it all came crashing down in 1986 when MGM was bought by Turner. A purchase whose debt he couldn't handle, and whose subesequent return sale back to Kerkorian saw it return without its original studio, and perhaps worse, without its pre-1986 library. 62 years of history taken away, with only the United Artists library to fill in for it, with it instead going to air on Turner Classic Movies.[1]
This started a pattern of sales, guttings, and returns of MGM that continued up to this day. A financier or studio would come in, buy the lion, often screw it up, and then Kerkorian would buy it back. This went all the way to today, following Kerkorian's death and with Amazon becoming the latest owner of the studio. Nowadays, MGM is hardly as much of a studio as a vaguely popular name, with a legacy of no legacy. It has produced many great films during its existence, even post-Kerkorian with
Fargo and
A Christmas Story, yet it can hardly be said to truly exist at all either, as new owners come in to do whatever they wish with the studio, and its biggest franchises and legacy films all come from studios that weren't even MGM itself.[2]
Motown, by comparison, faced a comparably better fate, although it too would come to be more known for what it was rather than what it is now.
Into the 1970s, though, Motown still seemed to be strong. In 1972, Motown officially moved its headquarters to Los Angeles after some preparing, hoping to move into motion pictures and become a part of the center of entertainment. Many bemoan this as part of their decline, leaving many acts in the dust and parts of their talent like the session musician band, the Funk Brothers, broken.
While in some ways this is true, and at least symptomatic of what would lead into their decline, the company remained successful for a decent part of the decade. The same year they moved to L.A., Motown Productions debuted its first feature, with the Billie Holiday biopic
Lady Sings the Blues. This era would also see what many considered to be the imperial era for artists like Marvin Gaye, with his seminal album, “What’s Going On”, and Stevie Wonder, with albums from “Music Mind” to “Songs in the Key of Life” coming out during this time. Motown could also rely on the success of its newer acts in the Jackson 5 and The Commodores.
But by the end of the decade, Motown was falling on hard times. Initially, this started with the films: After
Lady, Motown made
Mahogany, where Berry Gordy fired its director mid-production and directed the rest himself. The film had a great opening weekend, but struggled in the weeks after following mixed-to-poor reviews. Motown would then create another production with the pure disco kitsch
Thank God It’s Friday, which was somewhat successful despite critical lashing, before it all came tumbling down with
The Wiz: An adaptation of the R&B Broadway musical that, for several reasons, bombed critically and commercially. From then on, Motown Productions would only focus on its television specials for its artists, never really touching film again.
While that would be bad enough, it was also clear that the label itself was failing. The Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, and even artists like Diana Ross and Smokey Robinson would leave for other labels by the ‘80s, and there were very few notable artists coming aboard to replace them, or any good quality control. Pinpointing any exact moment or issue for this decline is difficult, even in hindsight. Part of it was those aforementioned poor contracts—Forged back when Motown was small and familial, but which appeared meager and below industry standards as the company grew. This, alongside heavy creative control from Gordy, almost certainly pushed some of its stable artists away and may have discouraged new ones from coming on. Arguably the other factor (And rather ironically for what I’m trying to conceive in this timeline) was Gordy’s push into Hollywood itself. The drama that came around this period, mostly between him and his lover Ross as he attempted to turn her into a film star, had exhausted the once bold and all-controlling Gordy. The diversion of his time towards Hollywood and away from the label itself also meant less quality control or intervention from himself, and few who would have been in charge at the time were rather ineffective when taking his place. As music tastes changed and artists arose, Motown just couldn't maintain its quality or keep up with others.
[3]
By the 1980s, the only notable new artists on the label were Rick James and Lionel Richie, the latter coming from the Commodores. Even with events like the famous
Motown 25 and a couple of decent hits, Motown was simply unable to compete with other labels. Thus, Gordy had little choice other than to sell Motown to MCA/Universal in 1988 (With Motown Productions being sold to de Passe), later selling off the music rights to his songs as well.
Motown Productions would be renamed to de Passe Entertainment, and then de Passe Jones Entertainment in 2008. In its post-Motown years, the company has managed to eke out a few successes, producing “Sister, Sister”, a few Motown biopics, and the
Zenon TV movies for Disney, and there are apparently a few plans in future with a Marvin Gaye biopic, a miniseries about Earth, Wind, and Fire, and a show based on
Mahogany for Netflix. It’s doubtful, though, that it may ever have a chance to return to whatever Gordy may have hoped for it.
As for the label of Motown itself, it remains active under Universal to this day. Although it has a number of decently notable artists under it, few would really care or recognize it as anything like the Motown of half a century ago, with its soul and R&B recordings that defined an era. While the Motown sound lives forever, its creator, and the hopes for it to be a major black-owned entertainment hub, is long gone. It is, as soul scholar Nelson George bluntly put it, “just another record label.”
…But of course, these are from a different timeline.
Setting the Stage
So, let’s go back to the magical year of 1968: When all hell was breaking loose.
The height of the hippie movement from the previous year’s “Summer of Love” had soured into a year with assassinations of figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, and with the Democratic National Convention becoming the location for a protest turned violent with clashes with the police. The chaos of the year, and of the Democratic convention, would pave the way for former Republican Vice President Richard Nixon to enter the White House by the end of the year. Of course, the U.S. wasn’t alone in this chaos, with France’s “May 68” student protests and strikes that coincided with others throughout the western world, while behind the Iron Curtain, the Prague Spring was brutally put down by Soviet forces.
[4]
The top records of the year, according to Billboard
On the music front, things aren’t quite as peaceful either, but it would undeniably remain one remembered and beloved by any fan of any genre. In rock,
Jimi Hendrix,
The Kinks,
The Rolling Stones, and numerous others would have some of their seminal albums in the year. Elvis, after years of film schlock and falling behind other innovators, would reclaim his “King of Rock” title with his
comeback special, while the Beatles would return from a trip to India with an album that seemed
far out even from the psychedelia of the time, in between
some big singles. Artists like
Fleetwood Mac,
Steppenwolf,
Blood, Sweat & Tears, and
Creedence Clearwater Revival, among numerous others I’m sure I’m missing, made their album debut or were formed this year.
Other genres weren’t slouching either, though: Bubblegum and soft rock was still going with
the Archies and
Harry Nilsson; Country saw releases with Johnny Cash’s
“At Folsom Prison” and Glen Campbell’s single
“Wichita Lineman”; And folk had releases from
The Mamas and the Papas to
Simon & Garfunkel. And, of course, R&B was kingly in this year with releases or popular tunes of this year from
Marvin Gaye, to
Stevie Wonder, to
Otis Redding (Posthumously, tragically),
Diana Ross,
Aretha Franklin, etc. You also had
plain weird stuff like this. And naturally, your mileage for protest songs
may vary.
An "Odd Couple" of films, indeed.
Film, by comparison, is in the midst of transitioning between Old and New Hollywood. Following the success of the previous year’s
Bonnie & Clyde, studios would seek desperately to appeal to a new generation of filmgoers by bringing in a new generation of filmmakers. In the year’s top grossing films, one could find
Funny Girl—Arguably one of the last great classic-style musical films, and a star vehicle for Barbara Streisand—sitting at the top spot just above
2001: A Space Odyssey—A sci-fi epic unlike the campier or more adventure-filled serials or B-movies or such of previous decades, or really most other films of its time, with its monoliths, cold yet aggressive AI, and an ending that would be relentlessly analyzed, berated, and parodied alongside other elements of the film. Even other mediums of film would see this, as the most successful animated film from the last year, Disney’s
The Jungle Book, would be followed by the psychedelic wonderland of
Yellow Submarine[5].
The old studioheads of the golden age, the Mayers, Zanucks, or Disneys, were either dead or retired, soon to be replaced by a new spate of heads and talent under them, either internally or externally, as companies like MCA, Gulf+Western, Seven Arts, etc. swoop in while Hollywood is down.
Soon enough, yet another buyout will change things.
(I promise that next time, I'll get into the actual timeline again)
[1] Although many would argue that he effectively helped save many of those films, which were largely being wasted away with only a few being kept well.
[2] This was rewritten from the original, which was far more bitterly written against Kerkorian. I did so partly just because I wanted it to read nicer, but also because I don't want to just dump completely on Kerkorian or the post-Kerkorian studio. Much as Kerkorian was incompetetent, I believe part of his failures were out of unfortunate circumstances that were compounded by Kerkorian's foolishness. And for what it's worth, MGM has made some great film releases in that time. Yet quite often, these successes came in spite of studio failures rather than because of studio successes. And in all, these issues have seen the studio turn from a strong name in entertainment and Hollywood history, to merely a name, recalling some vague bygon glory and never getting it.
[3] An arguably more realistic version of a still successful Motown would probably see Gordy somehow stay in Detroit, or at the least keep his focus on music while appointing someone else to manage the film side of things. Given what I’m trying to accomplish here, however, it’s more likely that Gordy will need to find a genuine “successor” to manage Motown here. But that's speculation to come soon.
[4] No changes here, or to most politics in general at least until the 1970s really begin.
[5] My favorite film of all time, so that automatically makes this an essential year for me.
