Analysis of the Hollywood Studio System
During the 1920s, and 1930s the Hollywood film studios undertook a major evolutionary period. The inception of the Hollywood ‘studio system’ was to change the film making process radically. The following essay will examine how these changes took place, and what impact it had on the film making industry in America. We shall also examine how the system relates to the current production methods used in film making. The main issues raised within the text will be summarised concisely within the conclusion. Before a film reaches the cinema screen, and its audience it must go through a three stage process. Firstly and most obviously it has to be produced, following this it must then be distributed, and finally exhibited. Before the introduction of the studio system in the 1920s all of these processes were controlled separately. Although this gave the makers of films, such as directors and producers, room to express their creativity it placed a heavy constraint upon the amount of movies that could be made, and financial profits. However, despite Hollywood’s uneasy birth, by the 1920s it had become one of the worlds leading film producers (Dirks, 2002). This was largely due to the introduction of the producer, or studio syste
Finally, it would be a good idea to go over some basic film vocabulary, or you can make this part of the research assignment.
Auteur (auteur theory): according to auteur theory, the director of a film is its author, because the director creates and executes a unique vision, marking the film with a signature style. Others disagree with this theory, because films are complex to produce and could not be made without the collaboration of a large team. In the Hollywood studio system, the director was considered to be just part of the team, while the producer was supposed to provide the unique signature.
Capsule review: a short movie review.
Continuity editing (or continuity cutting): part of the basics of "film language", continuity cutting was developed early in the 20th century. A system of editing movies that provides clear and continuous movement.
Filmography: a complete list of films by a particular actor or director, usually organized by year.
Genre: a way of categorizing films according to styles and themes (westerns, sci-fi, etc.)
Independent film: films not produced by a major movie studio. An independent film has to find funding and distribution that would otherwise be provide by the studio.
CINEMA HISTORY, Chapter 2, Classic Films from the Hollywood Studios, 1934-1946
Compiled by
Professor, General College,
Univ. of Minnesota
Stars powered the American Studio System from 1934-1946. Various studios, such as 20th-Century Fox (1935), Paramount Pictures (1912), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1924), Columbia Pictures (1920), and Warner Brothers (1923) held long-term contracts both on directors and stars. A listing of some of the stars under contract to the studios gives some idea of the Studio System's power during these years.
20th Century Fox: Directors--Ernst Lubitsch, Otto Preminger, Henry Hathaway, and Elia Kazan. Actors--Shirley Temple, Loretta Young, Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe, Tyrone Power, Don Ameche, Henry Fonda, and Gregory Peck.
Paramount: Actors--Mary Pickford, Mae West, W. C. Fields, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Gary Cooper, Claudette Colbert, Alan Ladd, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas.
Metro-Goldwyn Mayer (MGM): Directors--Eric Von Stroheim, Fritz Lang, George Cukor, Victor Fleming. Actors--Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Spencer Tracy, James Stewart, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor.
Warner Brothers: Actors--Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Jimmy Cagney, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Peter Lorre.
Commentary:
Stars weren't free to seek their own contracts during these years. Often stars would be "loaned" by one studio to another for a particular project with the expectation that such offers would be reimbursed in kind. Stars also worked on more than one picture at a time and often were expected to churn out four or five pictures a year. For instance, Humphrey Bogart starred in 36 films between 1934 and 1942. Casablanca was one of four pictures he completed in 1943.
A major source of revenue for the studios was their ownership of large theater chains. But in 1949 the studios were forced to divest themselves of these theater empires because of their monopolistic practices. The advent of television in the 1950s, the rise of the director as auteur, and the ability of actors to become "free agents" led to the demise of the old Studio System.
The four films directed by Frank Capra, noted on the list above, represented a major source of income for Columbia Pictures, the studio who had him under contract. He worked for Columbia for more than ten years, and his films appealed to a broad audience hungry for sentimental stories about the underlying goodness of the common man and woman. Gary Cooper, who starred in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and Meet John Doe (1941) was the embodiment of this theme. His tall, awkward, and humble persona created an instant empathy with his audience. He was the quintessential American--a bit naive, inarticulate, and stumbling. But push him too hard and he became determined, focused, and unbeatable. Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1945) has become a holiday classic on American television for similar reasons. Jimmy Stewart plays a halting, bumbling family man who has never set foot outside his small town American setting. But by the end of the film the good deeds he has done for his townspeople are repaid a hundred fold by his neighbors.
When the English director Alfred Hitchcock made his first American film in 1940 (Rebecca), he joined the pantheon of famous directors under contract by the American studios. His 1941 film, Suspicion, was made for RKO Pictures (Radio-Keith-Orpheum); and the same studio took a gigantic risk by refusing to back down under the campaign waged by William Randolph Hearst to prevent Citizen Kane (1941), directed by Orson Welles, from ever seeing the light of day.
But the list of films above is gleaned from thousands of films that were made by the studios between 1934-1946. Most of the films were little more than popular entertainments. These films have become classics partly because they represent some of the best work done by the following actors: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, Judy Garland, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Ray Milland. They also are classics because their directors maintained a consistent style and achieved a vision of their genre--Capra of the sentimental comedy, Hitchcock of suspense, John Ford of the American Western, Howard Hawks of the fast-paced comedy of dialogue.
For the next chapter in this Cinema History
See Chapter 3
, 1934-1960
Only contact the web manager (see below) if there are technical defects in the site.
The Classic Hollywood Studio System
1. Overview: these companies produced an average of 500 films per year from 1930 to 1950:
The Big Five
Warner Bros.
Paramount
Loews/MGM
20th Century-Fox
RKO
The Little Three
Universal
Columbia
United Artists
2. Growth:
1938: 80 million admissions/wk.
1946: 90 million admissions/wk.
3. System of production:
production units (Curtiz: 44 films ’30-’39; Leroy: 36 films; Ford: 26 films)
classic film style
genre
studio style
1939 Hollywood’s best ever year?
The year 1939 is regarded by most film historians as the pinnacle of success and legitimacy in the short history of Hollywood. That year gave us the likes of “Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and many more. The manifest quality of these great classics is evident and needs no further elaboration here. There are a number of reasons for the achievements of 1939, chief of which was the great Hollywood studio system, and the moguls who ran it.
If 1939 was a watershed year for Hollywood, then the next great shift came in 1946, Hollywood’s most successful year ever, in terms of attendance. The motion picture had grown up in the seven years since the release of Gone With the Wind. The great change of course came about with World War II, and its aftermath. Prior to 1946 the American film industry was a separate component in cinema annals—different by its sheer size, structure, and its success in world film domination. What happened after World War II was part of a worldwide transformation of both movies and society as a whole. Within half a decade however, that same American Film industry was beleaguered, defensive, and trembling for its mere survival.
The end of the great studios
In 1938 the government filed a suit with the supreme court—“The United States vs. Paramount Pictures Inc.”, known as The Paramount Case. The suit contented that the major studios held an unfair advantage in that they controlled production, distribution, and exhibition of films through the ownership of their theater chains. The suit was postponed during the war and post-war years until 1948, when the high court ruled that the major studios must divest themselves of all theater ownership. This process lasted into the mid-1950s, and was a major factor in the demise of the Hollywood studio system.
I have always had great difficulty with the out-of-hand rejection by most with the Hollywood studio method of producing motion pictures. The studio system developed in the 1920s, had always attracted competent writers, directors and technical people. The Auteur theory, had not yet been developed—the so-called authors of the films produced by the great studios were the collective deliberations of the studio bosses. The film director was just another pinion in the great wheel that moved the movie industry. Though one would be hard pressed to classify John Ford, Frank Capra, William Wellman, Henry Hathaway or, Howard Hawks as sprockets, in a great wheel. Nevertheless the studio system was a key ingredient in the evolution of the great Classic era.
William Wyler, Best Years
produced by Samuel Goldwyn, it was the last great film to come out of the studio system. It was director William Wyler’s first post-war film. Wyler had served in Europe during the war and made several documentaries about the conflict including the award winning “Memphis Belle”, which chronicled the strain of a B-17 crew on its final mission over Germany.
The screenplay by Robert Sherwood tells of three men returning from war to the same hometown. They represent three different branches of service and three distinct social classes. The film is perhaps the most complete expression in Hollywood filmmaking of cinematic “realism”. Photographed by Gregg Toland, the cinematographer on “Citizen Kane” it strongly favors the style of French filmmaker Jean Renoir, in its use of the long take, of the moving camera, and of placing people relative to each other in different planes within the frame. It’s an epic statement with a running time of almost three hours. However, in terms of sheer popularity, The Best Years of Our Lives has fared less well than Frank Capra’s released the same year. Perhaps the reason might be that it is overly composed and much to carefully planned. Moreover, in the wake of the Vietnam experience, post-combat rehabilitation has become a cottage industry. Wyler’s masterpiece will however remain the complete post-World War II Hollywood film.
1946 and the rise of Film Noir
1946 saw the flourishing of America’s most famous original style-. Distinctive in a dark and oppressive visual style, and in its narrative of desperation and entrapment that defied Hollywood’s conventions of the happy ending, and of good triumphing over evil. With its themes of paranoia and betrayal, of suspicious innocence and attractive guilt, of greed and desires in a world whose moral signposts have disappeared. Film Noir was a natural outgrowth of Hollywood’s post-war troubles. It drew its historical context from the hard-boiled crime and detective novels of the 1930s. The new style was able to thrive as the Production Code Administration grew more lenient during the war and immediate post-war years.
The great Noir directors; Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger, , Jacques Tourneur, et al, brought not only expressionist cinematography, odd angles, and dark shadows, but also a pessimism drawn from witnessing the rise of fascism in modern mass societies. Film Noir was shaped by the experience of war’s horrors, by the deep-rooted anxieties touched off by the dawn of the nuclear age, and by the difficult post-war adjustments faced by thousands of returning veterans.
Other films of 1946
in this classic western John Ford employs many of the styles used in Film Noir. His sterling adaptation about the relationship between Doc Holliday, and Wyatt Earp, and the OK Corral is still the best film on the notorious Tombstone Arizona gun battle.
Orson Welles’, is about an ex-Nazi living in the sleepy town of Harper Connecticut. Welles’ superb portrayal of the psychotic Fritz Kindler, with a fascination for clocks is an amazing study in mendacity and evil deception. Edward G. Robinson is outstanding as Wilson an assiduous Nazi hunter who is at once aware of Welles’ charade. The use of the clock motif to thread together the hunter and hunted is pure Wellesion.
another in a long list of outstanding films produced by Columbia Pictures during the 1940s, and 1950s, directed by Alfred E. Green and starring the tragic Larry Parks. Writers Stephen Longstreet, and Sidney Buchman took great liberties with facts while nevertheless providing solid entertainment. The actual singing was performed by the great Jolie himself, who had much to with the entire production Jolson’s choice of Parks for the title role was indeed a stroke of genius.
is a personal favorite of mine. Here director Tay Garnett remained as true as the “system” would allow to the James Cain novel. The protagonist, a drifter named Frank Chambers narrates the story in flashback much as Walter Neff did in . The real tragedy of Postman is that by the end of the film we are convinced that Frank and Cora genuinely care for one another. As the fateful couple emerge from the courtroom, we are sympathetic. Would they survive?
The Hollywood of today bares little resemblance to the Hollywood of 1946. Much skepticism has been written about the studio system; the standard seven year contract actors were forced to sign, the accesses of the studio heads, the assembly line method of production, and the scheme of vertical integration, through the studio ownership of theater chains throughout America. It must however be noted that the great Hollywood motion picture industry did produce a culture that is forever American, and will forever be part of the remarkable “Classic Period” in motion picture history.
A complete list of films produced in 1946 may be sampled courtesy of the Internet Movie Database.
Michael Mills, 1997
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Copyright © 1998
The Hollywood Model
Overview: We turn to the next module of our survey. Having dissected cinematic, televisual, news & advertising types of media texts and examined the passive and active models of audience response, we now turn to an examination of the production side and look at the history and structures of producing media texts. What are the structures of production? How are texts produced, disributed and exhibited? What are the underlying ideologies governing these modes of production?
KeyWords : Oligopoly, Vertical Integration, The Big Five, The Little Three, Block Booking, Blind Bidding, Runs, Zones & Clearance, Star System, "A" & "B" Movies.
Prelude
Brought to you by the
- As we have discussed in relation to cinematic texts, one of the goals in constructing a film image is to efface the traces of how the product was made.
- Why does the MPAA go to such great lengths to flaunt its workers as suffering from piracy?
- Examing Modes of Production entails paying attention to the frame of a film: opening and closing credits.
Some Social Background of the Turn of the Century America
- Urbanization: Migration to urban centers as economy shifts from agrarian base to an industrial one
- Immigration: Flood of immigrants to America. espcially urban centers like New York and Boston
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Factories and Fordism: Most often associated with assembly line production of Ford cars. The blooming of industrialization in America capitalized on the flood of laborers to the city due to migration and imigration. The fordist or assembly line model of production divides the total production process into a series of specialized tasks which do not necessarily call for specialized labor.
But is Hollywood a Fordist Economy? --OR-- How is a Film like a Sausage?
- Why Film and not the other new entertainments like Amusement Parks, Magazines, Phonographs, or Radio?
A Brief History of the Hollywood Studio System: 1908-1948
Forerunners to the Studios
- Film as part of Vaudeville
- The Nickolodeon
1908- 1930: From MPPC Trust to the Studio System
The Trust" and the Motion Pictures Patent Company
- The MPPC was the result of a peace settlement between two hostile factions -- the Edison Manufacturing Company and the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company -- that had been fighting each other to establish the hegemony of their respective patents.
- Use of cameras, film stock was contigent on licenses bought from The Trust. Distribution and Exhibition were likewise contigent on exchanges that had purchased licensed films.
- The trust was busted under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1918 although it had laregly become ineffectual by this time due to independent producers.
Many of those "independent' producers, like Carl Laemmle and Adolph Zukor, who fought the Trust were the same men who engineered the oligopoly which would follow.
What is an Oligopoly?
A Small Number of companies within one industry who conspire together to dominate that industry, effectively driving out potential competitors.
OPEC VS. Hollywood : Issues of Price Fixing, Control of Distribution
What is Vertical Integration?
Merging companies operating at different stages in the production process, for instance, a theatre chain merging with a production studio. A vertically integrated film company will own and control all levels of one industry.
What are the Three Keys to Hollywood's Oligopoly?
1930-1948: A Mature Oligopoly
§§The Five Majors or "The Big Five" : Companies integrating their control of production, distribution, and exhibition§§
- Paramount (Adolph Zukor, Ernst Lubitsch)
- First of the Majors to integrate.
- Stars famous for their wit (Marx Brothers) and sexual allure (Clara Bow, Mae West, and Marlene Dietrich)
- Directors given more creative control
- Historical Sidepoint: Before Adolph Zukor took control of Paramount at the behest of the Board, the sitting president Hodkinson spoke out against vertical integration saying it would be harmful to independent production to have production, distribution, and exhibition housed under one roof.
- Throughout the 30s and 40s, no studio held as strong a ties to the world of theatre exhibition. Through a merger with Balaban and Katz and Zukor's Famous Players-Lasky, the Paramount Publix grew to control more than one-thousand theatres with a strong base in the South and Midwest.
- Loew's/ MGM (Louis Mayer and Irving Thalberg)
-
MGM was the largest of 124 subsidiaries of Loew's Inc. According to an article in Fortune in 1932, MGM employed 62 writers, 18 directors, and a legion of stars not to mention holdings including: about 2 million dollars worth of antique furniture, 22 sound stages, 22 projection rooms, and a greenhouse devoted to the growing of ferns.
- Boasting "More Stars than Are in Heaven," MGM assembled a stable of stars with an emphasis on finesse and glamor
- Similarly, the look of MGM films were polished and glossy. Throughout the 30s, it was considered the most successful of the Big Five.
- Maintained a somewhat rosy financial picture due to the spending of its star producer Thalberg and the sizable pay cut to studio employees while keeping a lock on first-run theatres in New York City.
- 20th Century Fox (William Fox until 1930)
- Although Fox's products aimed at an urban audience, it often made pictures that espoused agrarian and midwestern values.
- Stars included Will Rogers, Shirley Temple and later Betty Grable and Tyrone Power
- Its theatres ran from Denver to L.A., as far north as San Francisco and the Pacific Northwest, with holdings throughout the midwest states. In it's heyday, Fox owned and operated a series of ornate, massive, four thousand-seat theatres in major mid /western cities as well the famed Roxy in New York.
- Warner Brothers (Jack Warner)
- Emphasized "gritty realism" in the look of its films, especially in gangster films. According to Belton, middlebrow in style and content.
- Stars included such "ethnic tough guys" as James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Bogart and Errol Flynn.
- The core of its theatre space was throughout the mid-Atlantic.
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Known for its musicals featuring fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers, RKO produced an unlikely range of movis from proto-blockbusters like King Kong to the seminal Citizen Kane
- The smallest ownership of theatre space among the Big Five, the spotty holdings of RKO always kept it a second cousin to the other Majors although it reached a brief apex during the Second World War.
"The Little Three"
- Columbia -- Production and Distribution. Known for its great romantic comedies and as the launching pad for Frank Capra's populist dramas.
- United Artists -- Distribution. A group of stars (Chaplin, Mary Pickford) band together to battle major studio control. Like RKO, distributed many of the films of independent producers.
- Universal -- Production and Distribution. Engineered by Carl Laemmle, Universal concentrated on Prod. and Dist. and chose not to follow the leads of the majors as they integrated exhibtion spaces into their vast holdings. Known for its Horror Movies
Paramount Decree of 1948: U. S. v. Paramount
- The National Recovery Act (NRA) of 1933 openly sanctioned the monopolistic behavior of the Big Five. Heretofore, the collusion had been informal cooperation. The Big Five immediately codified the run-zone-clearance system.
- With the depression waning in 1938, the Roosevelt administration via the Justice Department filed an anti-trust accusing the Big Five of conspiring to fix distribution contract terms.
- In 1940, the Big Five signed a consent decree which set-up a broad system of rules for bargaining and settling disputes that much resembled the self-governance practiced by the Big Five prior to the NRA. This agreement limited the practice of block booking as well as eliminated the practice of blind boking in favor of trade showing. In exchange, the studios kept their ownership of exhibition spaces. At this point, the government mothballs the case until August 1944. With wartime affluence, the studios enjoy their most profitable run during this four year lull.
- On July 25, 1949, the US Supreme Court issued the Paramount Decree signaling the the end of the studio era.
- Highlights vertical integration of production, distribution, and exhibition of films. Specific practices: blind bidding, block booking, runs, zones, and clearances
- The Big Five owned theatre chains, block-booked films and were engaged in other unfair practices. The Little Three were also accused of unfair practice and of cooperating to exclude other firms from the market, even though they did not own theatres. To prevent these monopolistic practices of the majors, the Paramount Decree prohibited the Big Five their ownership of theatre chains. For the Big Five, exhibition had actually contributed more to profits than either production or distribution
The Limits of the Studio System
- A Place for Independent Production
- Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) and the Production Code Administration (PCA). Headed by studio executives, the MPPDA defended the industry against censorship and safeguarded the producers against demands of labor groups. The PCA oversaw all stages of production and regulated the content of studio productions. Any film released without the PCA's seal of approval was subject to a $25,000 fine.
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From the Don't and be Careful's to the
- Blacklisting
Questions for Discussion: What were the benefits of the Studio System for both workers and the studios themselves? What is lost and gained by vertical integration?
Next Up:
The rise of the studio era is rooted in the fact that the power-brokers of the industry realised that with sufficient financial resources could organise themselves so that they’d be vertically integrated - such a degree of independence would place them in such a powerful and dominant position in the industry, so that they could obliterate most competition.
Following the demise of the Trust after it lost the anti-trust case of 1915, vertically integrated companies began to form through mergers and acquisitions.
An example of this is the merger between the distribution company Paramount and the production companies Jesse L. Lasky and Famous Players. The new company was called Famous-Players Lasky, and by 1920 it had established itself as one of Hollywood’s leading companies.
Exhibition During The Studio Era
This was the most powerful branch of the industry during the studio era because it was where the money was made.
The major companies channelled their efforts into i and exhibition accounted for about 90% of their asset valuesfrom 1930-49.
This was in spite of the fact that they only owned 15% of movie theatres in the U.S.A. where they could account for an amazing 75% of exhibition revenues during the period. The reason for this was the fact that they owned the majority of ‘first-run’ movie houses at the time - A ‘first-run’ movie theatre is one which would screen the latest films on theatrical release while the smaller local theatres would screen second or even third run films.
In essence the fact that the majors controlled the production of films as well as exhibition within their own theatres ensured their profits. Added to this was the fact that following the Wall Street Crash & The Great Depression the theatres became less elaborate, and double bills were introduced, the vaudeville acts disappeared etc. -> These were just some of the measures taken to reduce admission fees in order to maintain audiences. This cutback was offset with the innovative concept of introducing food|drink stalls where soft drinks and popcorn were soldto movie-goers and this significantly boosted revenue.
Distribution in the studio era was again dominated by the Big companies -> Because they dominated exhibition, they gave precedence to their own products when booking them into their theatres, then to the other majors, followed by the Little 3 and finally to independent ventures.
The theatres were zoned into ‘first run’, ‘second run’ and so on... the period between a film being classed as ‘first run’ and ‘second’ run generally lasted for the thirty days following its completion of its time in ‘first run’ theatres.
Production In The Studio Era
By the onset of the studio era - movie factories were producing an average of 50 films per year. As I’ve said before the area of production had evolved into a stuctured hierarchal system of authority. As early as 1931 new organised frameworks came into place where a company would appoint a head of production to oversee the running of the studio, while several associate producers had the job of supervising a group of films and delivering these films to the head producer. There were two reasons for adopting such a system:
1. Firstly, it was accepted that the system made sound financial sense in that each associate producer could keep closer control of individual budgets.
2. Secondly, they believed that the system fostered better quality films as it encouraged units to specialise in certain genres. } think of Jerry Wauld’s unit at W.B. which focussed upon noir melodramas such as Mildred Pierce.
Another aspect of production during the studio era was that of contracted workers. Those involved in the creation of films (actors, production crew etc.) were contracted to studios on long-term and permanent contracts.
The actors or stars were without doubt one of the most important financial ssets to studios - they were normally contracted to studios for periods of 7 years. Stars with their acting talent or lookshelped audiences to differentiate between films that would otherwise would be very standard in content or format.
They became the icons or idols of the industry that were pivotal in the marketing of films. An example of a star’s influence is Rudolph Valentino who was a heart-throb in the silent movie era - when he died his country went into a state of national mourning and his funeral was one of the largest public funerals ever.
Focus on Warner Bros. In The Studio Era
From its origins as a small production company in the mid-20s, WB rose to become one of the five major vertically integrated film companies by the end of the decade. This was largely achieved through debt financing - which means expanding through the use of loans. Central to the firms growth were the following deals:
1. The takeover of the Vitagraph Corporation(with its production and distributio facilities) in 1925
2. The extensive licensing of Western Electric Sound equipment for ‘talking pictures’ -> In 1926 The Warners created a corporate subsidiary called Vitaphone Corp. That year it was used in the first acknowledged sound film ‘Don Juan’ which had music accompanying it. The following year saw the release of the first ‘talking film’ ‘The Jazz Singer’.
3. It bought the Stanley cinema chain with the associated film company First National in 1928.
Because the Warner Company was built on loans - The Great Depression seriously weakened its financial base, but it could carry this huge debt load because the profits generated at the box office were so high.
This isn’t to say that the Warners didn’t feel the pinch:- its response to the situation was to sell assets and to introduce stringent budget controls on tis productions. This gave rise to cheap, fast-paced topical films in the early 30’s.
But by 1935 Warner once again began to make money and budgets increased, leading to the production of biopics, melodramas and film-noir genres in the late 30’s and early 40’s.
The Style Of WB Films In The Studio Era
The standardisation of production during the studio era led to a great level of consistency in Hollywood films of the period. Because of this, companies needed to to establish something that would differentiate heir product if they were to inspire brand loyalty in their customers.
Senior management had control over the final cut of films made by Warner Bros. -> This degree of control meant that the style of these films was dictated by the company - this didn’t appeal to the actors,
*to be completed*
- THE HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
- 1915-25: transition from dominance of Trust to STUDIO SYSTEM
- "Studio Era" typified by:
- Picture palaces
- Movie audience that included all classes
- Standardized production of feature-length films (1½ hrs)
- Concentration of production in Hollywood
- OLIGOPOLY & VERTICAL INTEGRATION
- OLIGOPOLY & VERTICAL INTEGRATION
- OLIGOPOLY: a few large firms control an entire industry
- Due to high cost of film production
- Feature-length films were expensive
- Salaries increased, esp. for stars
- Production values increased
- Sound added to costs of equipment & production
- Costs of distribution, picture palaces & converting to sound
- Small companies began to merge in order to compete
- By late 1920s, 8 companies controlled 91% of box-office
- These companies were known as the 8 Majors
- VERTICAL INTEGRATION: company controls product from production to retail sale
- BIG 5 (MGM, PARAMOUNT, FOX, WARNER BROS., & RKO) vertically integrated: production, distribution & exhibition
- LITTLE 3 (COLUMBIA, UNIVERSAL, & UNITED ARTISTS) not totally vertically integrated
- Columbia & Universal in production & distribution, but owned no theaters
- United Artists only distributed films
- “THE DREAM FACTORY”
- Some aspects of studio system resembled factory operation
- DIVISION OF LABOR
- Labor highly specialized & efficient, becoming highly unionized
- THE CONTRACT SYSTEM
- Most workers under contract for 5-7 years
- Renewable by studio every 6 months
- Studios maintained prop & costume depts, filmed on own lots
- THE “STUDIO LOOK”
- Consistent labor, props, settings resulted in "Studio Look"
- Studios tended to build their films around their stars
- THE STUDIOS
- THE BIG 5
- PARAMOUNT
- Largest chain of theaters, esp. in South & Midwest
- During Depression, mortgages disadvantage
- After WW2, source of profits
- 1940s-50s, most profitable & powerful
- Ernst Lubitsch, Marlene Dietrich, Marx Bros., Mae West
- Bing Crosby & Bob Hope biggest draws, director Cecil B. DeMille’s films extremely popular
- Paramount offered theaters:
- High-quality newsreels
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Fleischer Bros. cartoons (Superman, Betty Boop & Popeye)
- LOEW'S/MGM
- MGM production branch of Loew's, Inc.
- Loew's theater chain concentrated in NYC
- Not a large chain; survived Depression well
- After WW2, the lack of theaters hurt Loew's
- Prestige productions: Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, & Spencer Tracy, Technicolor musicals
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Also less sophisticated films: Tarzan, Andy Hardy
- Loew's distributed:
-
Hal Roach comedies (Laurel & Hardy, Our Gang)
- Hearst Newsreels
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MGM cartoons (Tom & Jerry, Tex Avery)
- 20TH CENTURY-FOX
- In 1935, Fox merged with 20th Century Pictures
- Films starred Shirley Temple, Sonja Henie, Tyrone Power, & Betty Grable
- Technicolor musicals & "socially-conscious" films
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Also B films (Charlie Chan series) & newsreels
- WARNER BROS.
- Bought First National in 1928
- Social expose, gangster films, backstage musicals
- Profits from mainstream comedies & biographies
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Distributed Vitagraph musical shorts & WB cartoons (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck)
- RKO
- RKO result of RCA's purchase of Film Booking Office studio, Keith & Orpheum chains
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Output erratic: Good films (King Kong, Citizen Kane), really bad films, few successful at box office
- Pathe newsreels & Disney animation
- THE LITTLE 3
- UNIVERSAL
- Important in silent era, hard times in 1930s-40s
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It specialized in cheap serials (Jungle Jim, Flash Gordon); cheap newsreels; cheap cartoons (Woody Woodpecker)
- Also made Abbott & Costello features, horror films
- COLUMBIA
- Small cut-rate studio, remembered for Frank Capra films
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B films – Westerns, series based on comic strip & comic book characters (Blondie, Batman) - & 3 Stooges shorts
- UNITED ARTISTS
- Created by Mary Pickford, D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, & Douglas Fairbanks to distribute their films
- Later, couldn’t distribute enough product
- Until 1950s, operated on the margins of the industry
- POVERTY ROW
- MONOGRAM: cheap versions of standard films (Bowery Boys)
- REPUBLIC specialized in singing cowboy movies
- THE FILMS
- New technologies increased possibilities, but concentration led to increased standardization
- SOUND
- Used to define space (offscreen & onscreen sound)
- DIALOGUE used to develop characters & define character traits
- MUSIC
- Nondiegetic music added to reinforce emotional response
- Music used to define & identify characters
- SOUND DEVICES FOR CONTINUITY: SOUND BRIDGE & DIALOGUE HOOK
- DEEP FOCUS
- By late 1930s, trend toward deep focus; new film stocks & lenses made it more feasible
- CHC adapted it to CHC narrative
- Used to establish relationships among characters
- Used to support the narrative
- With deep focus, takes became longer
- COLOR
- HAND-COLOURING (1896-1910) & TINTING & TONING (1910-27)
- TECHNICOLOR (founded in 1915)
- All studios rented equipment from Technicolor, & were obligated to employ an "advisor" from the company
- 2-COLOR TECHNICOLOR
- Late 1920s, 2-color system (red & blue)
- Expensive & unrealistic-looking, limited range
- 3-COLOR TECHNICOLOR
- 1932, 3-color system (red, green, & blue)
- Involved 3 rolls of film
- Expensive, limited range, used for spectaculars, musicals, & animation
- THE HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
- 1915-25: transition from dominance of Trust to STUDIO SYSTEM
- "Studio Era" typified by:
- Picture palaces
- Movie audience that included all classes
- Standardized production of feature-length films (1½ hrs)
- Concentration of production in Hollywood
- OLIGOPOLY & VERTICAL INTEGRATION
- OLIGOPOLY & VERTICAL INTEGRATION
- OLIGOPOLY: a few large firms control an entire industry
- Due to high cost of film production
- Feature-length films were expensive
- Salaries increased, esp. for stars
- Production values increased
- Sound added to costs of equipment & production
- Costs of distribution, picture palaces & converting to sound
- Small companies began to merge in order to compete
- By late 1920s, 8 companies controlled 91% of box-office
- These companies were known as the 8 Majors
- VERTICAL INTEGRATION: company controls product from production to retail sale
- BIG 5 (MGM, PARAMOUNT, FOX, WARNER BROS., & RKO) vertically integrated: production, distribution & exhibition
- LITTLE 3 (COLUMBIA, UNIVERSAL, & UNITED ARTISTS) not totally vertically integrated
- Columbia & Universal in production & distribution, but owned no theaters
- United Artists only distributed films
- “THE DREAM FACTORY”
- Some aspects of studio system resembled factory operation
- DIVISION OF LABOR
- Labor highly specialized & efficient, becoming highly unionized
- THE CONTRACT SYSTEM
- Most workers under contract for 5-7 years
- Renewable by studio every 6 months
- Studios maintained prop & costume depts, filmed on own lots
- THE “STUDIO LOOK”
- Consistent labor, props, settings resulted in "Studio Look"
- Studios tended to build their films around their stars
- THE STUDIOS
- THE BIG 5
- PARAMOUNT
- Largest chain of theaters, esp. in South & Midwest
- During Depression, mortgages disadvantage
- After WW2, source of profits
- 1940s-50s, most profitable & powerful
- Ernst Lubitsch, Marlene Dietrich, Marx Bros., Mae West
- Bing Crosby & Bob Hope biggest draws, director Cecil B. DeMille’s films extremely popular
- Paramount offered theaters:
- High-quality newsreels
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Fleischer Bros. cartoons (Superman, Betty Boop & Popeye)
- LOEW'S/MGM
- MGM production branch of Loew's, Inc.
- Loew's theater chain concentrated in NYC
- Not a large chain; survived Depression well
- After WW2, the lack of theaters hurt Loew's
- Prestige productions: Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, & Spencer Tracy, Technicolor musicals
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Also less sophisticated films: Tarzan, Andy Hardy
- Loew's distributed:
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Hal Roach comedies (Laurel & Hardy, Our Gang)
- Hearst Newsreels
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MGM cartoons (Tom & Jerry, Tex Avery)
- 20TH CENTURY-FOX
- In 1935, Fox merged with 20th Century Pictures
- Films starred Shirley Temple, Sonja Henie, Tyrone Power, & Betty Grable
- Technicolor musicals & "socially-conscious" films
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Also B films (Charlie Chan series) & newsreels
- WARNER BROS.
- Bought First National in 1928
- Social expose, gangster films, backstage musicals
- Profits from mainstream comedies & biographies
-
Distributed Vitagraph musical shorts & WB cartoons (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck)
- RKO
- RKO result of RCA's purchase of Film Booking Office studio, Keith & Orpheum chains
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Output erratic: Good films (King Kong, Citizen Kane), really bad films, few successful at box office
- Pathe newsreels & Disney animation
- THE LITTLE 3
- UNIVERSAL
- Important in silent era, hard times in 1930s-40s
-
It specialized in cheap serials (Jungle Jim, Flash Gordon); cheap newsreels; cheap cartoons (Woody Woodpecker)
- Also made Abbott & Costello features, horror films
- COLUMBIA
- Small cut-rate studio, remembered for Frank Capra films
-
B films – Westerns, series based on comic strip & comic book characters (Blondie, Batman) - & 3 Stooges shorts
- UNITED ARTISTS
- Created by Mary Pickford, D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, & Douglas Fairbanks to distribute their films
- Later, couldn’t distribute enough product
- Until 1950s, operated on the margins of the industry
- POVERTY ROW
- MONOGRAM: cheap versions of standard films (Bowery Boys)
- REPUBLIC specialized in singing cowboy movies
- THE FILMS
- New technologies increased possibilities, but concentration led to increased standardization
- SOUND
- Used to define space (offscreen & onscreen sound)
- DIALOGUE used to develop characters & define character traits
- MUSIC
- Nondiegetic music added to reinforce emotional response
- Music used to define & identify characters
- SOUND DEVICES FOR CONTINUITY: SOUND BRIDGE & DIALOGUE HOOK
- DEEP FOCUS
- By late 1930s, trend toward deep focus; new film stocks & lenses made it more feasible
- CHC adapted it to CHC narrative
- Used to establish relationships among characters
- Used to support the narrative
- With deep focus, takes became longer
- COLOR
- HAND-COLOURING (1896-1910) & TINTING & TONING (1910-27)
- TECHNICOLOR (founded in 1915)
- All studios rented equipment from Technicolor, & were obligated to employ an "advisor" from the company
- 2-COLOR TECHNICOLOR
- Late 1920s, 2-color system (red & blue)
- Expensive & unrealistic-looking, limited range
- 3-COLOR TECHNICOLOR
- 1932, 3-color system (red, green, & blue)
- Involved 3 rolls of film
- Expensive, limited range, used for spectaculars, musicals, & animation
The Studios
Looking back, years later, on the world of the Hollywood studio in 1928, this is how William Haines described the state of chaos that "The Jazz Singer" had created. Al Jolson's little sixty-one word monologue had shaken the movie industry at its very foundation, and every studio was left scrambling to adapt. The introduction of sound to motion pictures wiped the slate of studio power clean. All the successes and failures of the past became inconsequential, everyone returned to ground zero, back to the drawing board, and all of Hollywood began the learning process again together. In early 1928, one could not find a studio executive in Hollywood talking about anything but the advent of "the talkies." How would this newborn technology change the industry? Was it just a passing fad, as some suspected, or did "The Jazz Singer" toll the death of the silent era?
Everybody was a virgin in the infant world of the film musical, so Hollywood was making the rules as it went along. Nonetheless, given the excitement that the prospect of talkies generated in the American people, the studios felt the pressure to generate a product quickly. The studios were in such a crisis mentality, struggling with corporate and marketing questions, that considerations about production quality were often placed on the back burner. It was not so important, in the eyes of executives, that their studio make a great picture, but that they make one posthaste. Sound was enough; package it and sell. In the earliest Hollywood talkies, "novelty was the drawing card, creativity took a vacation" (Barrios, 41). "The Jazz Singer" and "The Singing Fool" being merely part-talkies, virtual silents with a few especial moments of dialogue, the dash between the studios to release a true talking motion picture was not unlike the Space Race of the 1960s. Everybody wanted t! o know what the other guy was up to, and everything depended on who had the technology when.
In order to understand the state of haste and uncertainty of late 1928, one must first consider the technological foundation from which the talkies sprang. In 1923, the four Warner brothers, Harry, Sam, Albert, and Jack incorporated their movie studio, relative latecomers to the game. Ironically, this belated arrival aided the Warners in getting ahead quickly. The more well established of the Hollywood studios were complacent with the status quo, and did not really consider the consequent rise of radio in American culture, but the Warner Bros. Studio were sensitive to their coming of age alongside radio. Without any significant box office success or any prospect of landing exhibition in the premiere halls, the Warners decided to try combining radio, the all-audio experience, and film, the all-visual experience.
Sam Warner, regarded as the "father of the talking motion-picture," despite passing away before the premiere of "The Jazz Singer," purchased the exclusive rights to Vitaphone, a process developed by Bell Telephone that recorded sound onto discs in synchronization with pictures and played the discs simultaneously with the film. The Warners implemented the process on their swashbuckling romance "Don Juan," starring John Barrymore and Mary Astor, making it the first motion picture with sound. Previously an afterthought, Warner Bros. was now a prime time player, and they followed "The Jazz Singer" with "The Lights of New York," the first all-talking picture, on July 28, 1928. Meanwhile William Fox of Fox Studios, developed Movietone, which recorded the sound straight to the celluloid. The technology was in low supply and high demand. Universal did not have a fully functional sound stage until 1929 and borrowed Fox's processing equiptment for the making of "Show Boat," origina! lly a silent with a few scenes reshot with sound. Meanwhile, MGM still langored in complete silence. For a medium still unsure of its method, the musical genre seemed the most adaptable to the sound stage, since music is what America thought of when they thought of sound as performance and the sound came to film in the form of song.
Every studio had at least one musical in the work if not more, and it was anybody's guess who would make it to release first. Warner, being the genius behind the Vitaphone and producer of "The Jazz Singer" had the obvious advantage, but Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), the last studio to sound, ironically struck first with "The Broadway Melody," which premiered February 1, 1929. Not only was "The Broadway Melody" the first full musical, it was MGM's first sound feature, period. "The Broadway Melody" was by no means perfect, or even that ambitious, it was complete. Seemingly an afterthought a year earlier, MGM now held the trump card, as "The Broadway Musical," produced for a total cost of $280,000, grossed over $4 million and became the first talkie-and second film ever-to win the Best Picture Oscar in 1930. The film's production quality was very simple and much of it's dialogue jejune, but this simplicity is what allowed MGM to get it out there first, despite the fact that vir! tually every other studio had a headstart: "Those responsible for "The Broadway Melody" were aware that a straight line was the shortest distance between two points" (Barrios, 78). Warner Brothers had purchased the screen rights to the Broadway sensation "The Desert Song" in 1926 and, with experience on their side, gone into production months before MGM. By December 1928, everything was complete, but the reels sat on the shelf for over six months and the opportunity was lost forever. In the quest to be creative, many studios had fallen behind. In the quest to catch up, MGM had remained incredibly predictable. Still, the years to come would bring more and more similarity, as every studio shifted toward the dominant paradigms of proven success.
In the middle of 1929, every studio was coming to grips with the advent of sound, and box office sells were at an all-time high throughout the nation. Then came the Crash, and Hollywood suffered like everyone else. The glamour and schmaltz that were so integral to the musical, and Hollywood in general for that matter, seemed somewhat inappropriate all of a sudden. Box office numbers virtually dropped in half from 1930 to the next year, prompting Variety to label 1931 "the worst year financially in the history of pictures [and] also, virtually, the worst annum in the existence of almost every other industry." Just as the studios had been forced to adapt to sound, they now faced the challenge of suiting America of the Depression. Subsequently, the 1930's witnessed each studio developing its own unique identity, each forming a very different character, but the fear of failure in this time of economic slump drove all of Hollywood deeper and deeper into established conv! ention.
When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president on November 8, 1932, the studio system-and the nation as a whole for that matter-began to hope, to believe that there was a light at the end of the dark tunnel. By the time Roosevelt assumed office, a strange optimism began to surface in Hollywood. The economy was not necessarily any better, and unemployment was still at a devastatingly high percent, but people were, for some reason, more upbeat. As it always had, the film industry followed the collective sentiment of the nation. Whether they addressed the Depression or turned their backs on it completely, the studios began to mold the formula to make fantasy plausible, to once again inspire hope, and provide American audiences with an outlet for escape.
Warner Bros, having invested more into sound technology, was consequently the in the worst shape at the beginning of the year, but by the end, Warner's troubles would seem like ancient history. As 1933 was the year of Hollywood's revival and perhaps the apex of the musical's heyday, it is only appropriate that the studio which started it all back in the twenties should be the one to set the trends again. On March 9, 1933, Warner Brothers released "42nd Street," produced by Hal B. Wallis and Darryl F. Zanuck. The film, packed with star power and exploring the rather hackneyed world of stage shows, almost singlehandedly salvaged the Hollywood musical.
"42nd Street" was so powerful that 1933 basically saw two kinds of films: those that sought to copy "42nd Street" and those who had gone into production before its release. It set all the rules for what a film musical should be, proving that the genre was still worthwhile, but severely limiting it as well. In fact, MGM scrapped several fantasy projects it was working on halfway through production to begin their own version of the show musical, falling victim to a condition which Barrios labels "The '42nd Street' Virus" (387). Warner Bros., always conscious of the nation's political state, intentionally corresponded the release of the film with the week of F.D.R.'s taking office, declaring the film "The Inauguration of a New Deal in Entertainment." Warner followed this landmark smash with another show musical packed with talent, that had actually begun production before "42nd Street." "The Gold Diggers of 1933" cost the same to produce as "42nd Street" and grossed over a million dollars more, while boldly recognizing the nation's economic troubles. More realism than escapism, this comedy is often upbeat and contains many very playful moments, but the show, and indeed the film itself, ends with a very solemn tribute to the veterans of the Great War now suffering economic crisis. Soon, this sort of material became the trademark of all Warners projects, stories about the working class, boxing, organized crime, societal ills, and brutality; naturally, their musicals felt these influences too.
Despite the extreme success of the Warner projects, other studios found their own unique identities and found success as well. Paramount was basically everything that Warner was not, offering to the public the nearly absolute escapism. Paramount relied on a broad spectrum of designs and a wide array of star power, contracting everyone from Mae West to Nancy Carroll, from Bing Crosby to Maurice Chevalier. Paramount trumped Warner in pizzazz, only to be trumped itself by MGM. MGM was truly the gala studio, often spending more money on its minor projects than most studios did on their A films. Soon, Darryl Zanuck, the uncredited producer and true mastermind behind "42nd Street" left Warner to form Twentieth Century Pictures, which soon merged witht Willaim Fox's struggling studio. More than any studio, Twentieth Century Fox stubbornly adhered to formula and paradigm, focusing on the talents of Shirley Temple and Alice Faye. Universal slowly fell out of the musical race and what few musicals RKO produced virtually all focused on the romantic combo of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. As one can surmise, so much of a studio's character depended on the stars they had under contract, and, likewise, the public perception of so many Hollywood stars resulted from the worlds to which their studios adapted them. As Mordden writes, "Astaire and Rogers never mention the Depression; they're too busy dancing. The Warners characters are obsessed with the Depression: that's why they dance" (81).
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Last Updated December 16, 2000
The Golden Age of Hollywood: From 1930 to 1948
The 1930s decade (and most of the 1940s as well) has been nostalgically labeled "The Golden Age of Hollywood" (although most of the output of the decade was black-and-white). The 30s was also the decade of the sound and color revolutions and the advance of the 'talkies', and the further development of film genres (gangster films, musicals, newspaper-reporting films, historical biopics, social-realism films, lighthearted screwball comedies, westerns and horror to name a few). It was the era in which the silent period ended, with many silent film stars not making the transition to sound (e.g., Vilmy Banky, John Gilbert, and Norma Talmadge). By 1933, the economic effects of the Depression were being strongly felt, especially in decreased movie theatre attendance.
As the 1930s began, there were a number of unique firsts:
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young 'platinum blonde' star Jean Harlow appeared in her first major role in Howard Hughes' World War I aviation epic, ; the "Blonde Bombshell" was signed by MGM in 1932 and soon became a major star
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enigmatic silent star Greta Garbo (originally named Greta Lovisa Gustafsson), part of MGM's galaxy of stars and nicknamed "The Divine Garbo" and "The Swedish sphinx," spoke her first immortal, husky, Swedish-accented words in director Clarence Brown's MGM film . (As a floozy, she spoke: "Gimme a vhiskey, ginger ale on the side. And don't be stingy, baby") - it was Garbo's first talkie (advertised as "GARBO TALKS!")
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the first of Hollywood's dramatic prison dramas (a new subgenre) was produced by MGM, The Big House (1930), directed by George Hill
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B-actor John Wayne made his debut in his first major role in a western directed by Raoul Walsh, The Big Trail (1930) - one of the first films shot in Grandeur, Fox's experimental wide-screen 70mm format. Both the film and the new process flopped; it would be nine more years before his star-making appearance in
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Broadway actress Helen Hayes made her screen debut in The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931) and won the Best Actress Academy Award for her first talkie
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MGM stars Clark Gable and Joan Crawford starred together in the risque pre-Code film Dance, Fools, Dance (1931), the first of eight features that teamed them together
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the best-known Charlie Chan actor, Warner Oland, played the detective for the first time in Charlie Chan Carries On (1931)
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RKO won its sole Best Picture Academy Award for the western Cimarron (1931)
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in 1930, the Motion Picture Production Code, administered by Joseph I. Breen (and former Postmaster General Will Hays) set film guidelines regarding sex, violence, religion, and crime (not yet strictly enforced until the Production Code Administration (1934))
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the first daily newspaper for the film industry had its debut in 1930, The Hollywood Reporter
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Katharine Hepburn made her screen debut in A Bill of Divorcement (1932)
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Olympic swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller made his screen debut as the vine-swinging ape-man in
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Curly-topped, dimpled child star Shirley Temple appeared in her first films, an Our Gang type series of shorts titled Baby Burlesks (1933)
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the first appearance of the cartoon character Popeye was in the Betty Boop cartoon from Paramount and Max Fleischer, Popeye the Sailor (1933)
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the world's first drive-in theatre opened in Camden, NJ in June, 1933; the fourth drive-in was located on Pico in Los Angeles, CA and opened in September, 1934
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the first Three Stooges comedy film (the first of their 190 slapstick comedy films that lasted through 1959) with Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Curly Howard, was released by Columbia, the short Woman Haters (1934) (with all the dialogue in rhyme)
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Walt Disney's 8-minute The Wise Little Hen (1934) featured the first appearance of Donald Duck
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the longest Hollywood talkie released up to that time, MGM's The Great Ziegfeld (1936), at 2 hours, 59 minutes
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MGM star Spencer Tracy won consecutive Best Actor Oscars in the late 30s for his appearances in and Boys Town (1938) - this wouldn't happen again until Tom Hanks won back-to-back Oscars in the 90s for Philadelphia (1993) and Forrest Gump (1994)
Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich:
Although Austrian-born director Josef von Sternberg's best works were in his silent films (Underworld (1927), The Last Command (1928), and The Docks of New York (1929)), he acheived greatest notoriety during the 30s. Exotic German actress Marlene Dietrich's stardom was launched by von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (Germany, 1929) with her role as the leggy Lola Lola, a sensual cabaret striptease dancer and the singing of Falling in Love Again. It was Germany's first all-talking picture.
Dietrich would soon go on to star in many other films - usually with characters that were variations on Lola - jaded femme fatales. Dietrich was 'discovered' and appeared in her first Hollywood feature film, Morocco (1930), again as a nightclub singer with co-star Gary Cooper as a French legionnaire. Dietrich was subsequently promoted by Paramount Studios as a 'continental' German rival to MGM's imported star Greta Garbo. A few years later, Dietrich collaborated further with von Sternberg in Dishonored (1931), , Blonde Venus (1932) (with Dietrich as a demure wife who is transformed into a cabaret star), The Scarlet Empress (1934) (with Dietrich as Russia's Catherine the Great), and in The Devil is a Woman (1935) (as a money-hungry, seductive vamp). Dietrich and von Sternberg made a total of seven films together. By 1946, von Sternberg was the uncredited assistant to director King Vidor for .
The Sound Era's Coming-of-Age:
Most of the early talkies were successful at the box-office, but many of them were of poor quality - dialogue-dominated play adaptations, with stilted acting (from inexperienced performers) and an unmoving camera or microphone. Screenwriters were required to place more emphasis on characters in their scripts, and title-card writers became unemployed. The first musicals were only literal transcriptions of Broadway shows taken to the screen. Nonetheless, a tremendous variety of films were produced with a wit, style, skill, and elegance that has never been equalled - before or since.
Rouben Mamoulian, a successful Broadway director, refused to keep the cumbersome sound cameras pinned to the studio floor, and demonstrated a graceful, rhythmic, fluid, choreographed flowing style in his films - first with his directorial debut 1929 film Applause (1929) (and later with Love Me Tonight (1932)), one of the first great American musicals starring Roaring 20s torch singer Helen Morgan in her first film role. Applause also introduced a revolutionary sound technique: a double-channel soundtrack with overlapping dialogue.
Mastery of techniques for the sound era were also demonstrated in the works of director Ernst Lubitsch, who advanced the action of his films with the musical numbers. The first filmic musical was Lubitsch's first talkie, the witty and bubbly The Love Parade (1929) with Jeanette MacDonald (in her debut film) and Maurice Chevalier (in his second picture). After One Hour with You (1932) with the same leads, he filmed his last musical, The Merry Widow (1934), with equally naturalistic musical expressions.
Also, in the first filming of the Ben Hecht-MacArthur play, Lewis Milestone's The Front Page (1931), a mobile camera was combined with inventive, rapid-fire dialogue and quick-editing. Other 1931 films in the emerging 'newspaper' genre included Mervyn LeRoy's social issues film about the tabloid press entitled Five Star Final (1931) (with Edward G. Robinson and Boris Karloff in a rare, non-monster role), Frank Capra's Platinum Blonde (1931) (with Jean Harlow), and John Cromwell's Scandal Sheet (1931).
After 1932, the development of sound-mixing freed films from the limitations of recording on sets and locations. Scripts from writers were becoming more advanced with witty dialogue, realistic characters and plots. Hecht adapted Noel Coward's work for Lubitsch's Design for Living (1933), starring Gary Cooper, Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins, and Dudley Nichols adapted Maxwell Anderson's play for director John Ford's screen version Mary of Scotland (1936).
Two-Color and Three-Color (Full-Color) Technicolor Development:
One of the first 'color' films was Thomas Edison's hand-tinted short Annabell's Butterfly Dance. Two-color (red and green) feature films were the first color films produced, including the first two-color feature film The Toll of the Sea, and then better-known films such as Stage Struck (1925) and The Black Pirate (1926). It would take the development of a new three-color camera, in 1932, to usher in true full-color Technicolor.
The first film (a short) in three-color Technicolor was Walt Disney's animated talkie Flowers and Trees (1932) in the Silly Symphony series. [However, others claim that the first-ever color cartoon was Ted Eschbaugh's bizarre Goofy Goat Antics (1931).] In the next year, Disney also released the colorful animation - The Three Little Pigs (1933). In 1934, the first full-color, live-action short was released - La Cucaracha (1934).
Hollywood's first full-length feature film photographed entirely in three-strip Technicolor was Rouben Mamoulian's Becky Sharp (1935) - an adaptation of English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray's Napoleonic-era novel Vanity Fair. The first musical in full-color Technicolor was Dancing Pirate (1936). And the first outdoor drama filmed in full-color was The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936).
In the late 30s, two beloved films, and , were expensively produced with Technicolor - what would the Wizard of Oz (with ruby slippers and a yellow brick road) be without color? And the trend would continue into the next decade in classic MGM musicals such as and Easter Parade (1948). Special-effects processes were advanced by the late 1930s, making it possible for many more films to be shot on sets rather than on-location (e.g., The Hurricane (1937) and .) In 1937, the Disney-produced was the first feature-length animated film - a milestone. The colorful Grimm fairy tale was premiered by Walt Disney Studios - becoming fast known for pioneering sophisticated animation.