Ken Anakkin (1914-2009) was the journeyman director of 1965's Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines and Monte Carlo Or Bust! (1969), known inevitably in America as Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies. Annakin's solid, professional, characterless output was utterly without distinguishing themes or viewpoint. Such thin entertainments were a success solely because Annakin allowed his star turns to perform effectively. The only characterization permitted was casting accordingly to a type : a Germanic villain, played by Gert Frobe, brought certain overtones of every other villain Frobe had ever portrayed; a lothario played by Terry-Thomas was precisely as his earlier incarnations of the cad. Nonetheless, enthusiastically backed by Darryl F. Zanuck, Annakin's films weren't exactly box-office failures.
Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) was infinitely less successful,. Kramer had assembled stars from the silent age and later, all for the purposes of denouncing human greed. The result made much less money than anticipated.
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These mega-movies would leave a legacy. Although the financial logic of the early specimens had involved the availability of subsidies in select countries and varied sources of backing, encouraging co-productions on a grand scale, one of the most successful was Airport (1970), made by a full-time studio employee, Jennings Lang, one time head of the talent agency MCA's television film company and subsequently a major figure at the MCA-owned Universal studios. When it appeared, Airport seemed heavy-handed, literal, and old-hat. With Airport, Lang resurrected the old-style narrative movie, creating a hoax drama of easily recognizable, cardboard characters.