Film Studios During The Golden Age Of Cinema

The youngest films of the movie industry were not sheer matter of creative worth, but moderately scientific creations. At the time of the early 20th century era of making films, a cluster of scriptwriters, producers, and directors gradually transformed films into an intermediate tool for expression. A key player to the American film industry was Cecil B. Demille, an American film director and producer, known for both his renowned films in both the silent era and post silent era. DeMille is credited as being a visionary of the film industry, venturing into uncharted territories of film and pushing social norms. Prior to his career as a filmmaker, the film industry was on the verge of arriving at a new period of modernism. The old attitude among citizens that was brought on by Victorianism in the 19th century was progressively fading. The Victorian era had been comprised of, “virtues’ of sexual repression and restriction…. a code of positive morals that include[d] perseverance and an aversion to idleness; a sense of moral uniformity…self control, discipline, self-confidence, [and] self-sufficiency” (Belton 96). In other words, the era bred close-minded individuals, rigid to change and new ideas. As DeMille started his path into the movie business, he highlighted an upcoming subset of individuals and showcased the expanding diversity in the populace of America. Cecil B. DeMille influenced American film cinema to take on more diverse scripts in which the public had never seen before, through the implementation of both foreign actors and characters in his films and interwove them into his theatrical storylines.

The Golden age of Hollywood marked a time in American films history in which films were produced and distributed at rate never seen before or since. During this period, the film market in America was basically entirely run by 8 major companies. This period would also be known as the American studio years. Within these 8 companies there were two categories of power that each major studio system fell into. The big 5 consisted of studios that functioned as vertical integrated which meant that they produce film, distribute films, and they own theater chains. The 5 studios in this category were Paramount, MGM, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros, and RKO. Then we have the big little 3, which was composed of Columbia, Universal, and United Artist. They were called the big little 3 because these companies either distributed or made films but they did not on movie theaters, so they had a lot less power. The studio era was not only largely controlled big studio companies, but also by various amounts of expectations and assumptions about hoe movies should be made, what kinds of stars should be on different kinds of films, and a need to acknowledge the ordinary conventions of society

The Evolution of Hollywood and Filmmaking The director yells “cut,” signaling that the scene has been finished. In an instant, the lights go dim as the actors and actresses disperse among the set to get their makeup and hair redone. Presumably, no other world could embrace the lights, camera, and action as well as Hollywood. One of the most well known places in California, Hollywoodland, was founded by Harvey Henderson Wilcox and his wife in 1853.

A cultural influence that has withstood the test of time was the cinema. Hollywood dominated not only took over America, but Europe as well. Millions of people around the world “Hollywood was American civilization” (201) the reason why movies became so popular is because they had pictures, but no sound the opposite of the radio. That changed in 1927 Al Jolson spoke and sang in “the Jazz Singer” during the year of 1927 an astonishing seventeen thousand movie theaters in the United states. The cinema brought Broadway to a weekly audience of almost ninety-five million “inculcating them with a cheerful myth of the Roaring Twenties” (201).

In the early 1940’s the Studio System was in full swing, what this was was a term coined to describe how things were done in regards to Hollywood movie making, in those days. A very structured format to produce multiple films of varying quality in a relatively short period of time. In these times everything was controlled by the studio, actors, what they looked like, settings, lighting, directors, and set design was all controlled by one executive. This may or may not have been the best way to produce the best movies but it was what they knew.

...n its heyday (1930-49) was managed by a number of omnipotent studios, including Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Brothers, RKO, Paramount, Twentieth Century-Fox, and Universal. They produced endless cycles of films in imitation of a few successful original types. The range of themes included the criminal underworld, behind-the-scenes newspaper dramas, westerns, musicals, costume romances, and character series such as the Charlie Chan films, prison stories, mysteries, comedies, and Broadway shows. Because of their enormous investments and gargantuan rewards (the film industry’s gross income for 1946, its best year, was nearly $2 billion); the studios were encouraged to repeat conventionalized formula pictures.

Thomas Schatz cites the 1950’s as the inevitable end of the Hollywood film studio system, with the signs appearing as early as the height of the second World War (472). However, the seeds of discontent and disintegration within the system were apparent as soon as the late 1930’s, exemplified in such films as Destry Rides Again (1939, George Marshall) and Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939, Frank Capra). The production of these two films and the paths down which they led their star (James Stewart), directors (at least Frank Capra), and studios (Universal and Columbia, respectively) are evidence of the decline of the studio system. The haphazard production of Destry Rides Again and its subsequent success (financially, but not as an enduring classic film) are indicative of a system eating itself alive: so intent on the production of film after film made with almost the same crews and casts that lasting meaning had been all but completely forgotten in favor of financial success and power within the system. This also demonstrates the decline of the fascist executive order of the studios in favor of the hard work and devotion of those directly involved on the film set as well as the increasingly important role of the talent agent as the intermediary between the talent and the studios. Frank Capra’s eventually freelance auteurship, in the wake of David O. Selznick and his “independent” film productions, particularly evident in the production of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, was a notable indicator of the studios’ impending loss of power (Schatz 407). These and other independent and freelance artists (such as Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang)...

Hollywood in the 30’s and 40’s was the golden-age of a new era of filmmaking. The films of that period went beyond the silent films being produced in the past. Diagetic sounds like dialogue and more advanced filmic techniques would push cinema to a new mode of filmmaking, that being classicism. The classical Hollywood structure was being developed in the past with silent films but it came to full fruition in the 30’s, where many filmmakers would produce feature-length films with fully developed storylines and the use of glamorous lighting and larger-than life characterizations to give audiences a more cinematic experience. Genre films like: the gangster, comedy, western, horror, and other various genres of the era, provided large revenue for studios and the creative means for filmmakers to manipulate the mise-en-scene to make each genre films slightly different from the rest. Classicism would provide audiences with clear-cut characterizations, simple storylines, non-intrusive directing, and simple but entertaining conclusions that neatly wrap up the story.

The 1950’s were a bad time for the movie industry. Not only was television growing in popularity, but suburbia was on the rise, and with it came a wide variety of leisure activities. Also, the baby boom was happening, so families had to stay home and look after their kids. With all of that in mind, the movie industry was in quite a pickle. The only crumb of comfort they may have had would be the Drive-in Theater. Even with these places going strong, the film industry was still hurting, so they brought in a wide variety of technologies to help boost box office revenues.

Film and its success during the period of 1910-1945 was heavily determined by the audience’s reception of the work. During this time, there was an influx of films being produced and stars rising within the system. Although the stars were seen as the role models and are portrayed larger than life, it is ultimately the audience that determines the fate of the success of the stars. Audiences would go see a film if a certain actor was in it; or an actor, and the name of the star alone can determine that a film will be somewhat successful. Within the film, however, it is the authenticity of the celebrity that the audience were looking for in the stars; the directors of film would need to cast people who were representative of their characters. Because