1. Hollywood’s Golden Age

2. Key Features From silent to sound production
Consolidation of the studio system
Establish official regulatory organization (MPAA)
Changes in the look/technique of movies
… and movies & America

3. From Silent to Sound The Jazz Singer (1927)
“You ain’t heard nothin’ yet” (* clip)
But…
Blackface:
entertainment based on racist Black stereotypes
history via movies stereotypes

4. Sound conversion complete by 1930
box office up 50%
proving again:
$ = giving people what they want
1938: ~80 million going to the movies every week
today’s numbers

6. The Studio System Vertical integration (top-down)
Major studios maximized profits by controlling each stage of a film's life
Pre-production, production, distribution, and exhibition

7. The Studio System… "The Big Five"
owned vast real estate for elaborate sets
set the exact terms of films' release dates, locations…
Owned/operated the best movie palaces
decided things like: which sound/tech systems
actors and actresses

8. “The Big Five” "The Little Three“ Warner Bros. Paramount
20th Century Fox
Loew's (MGM)
RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum)
"The Little Three“
Universal, Columbia and United Artists

9. Theaters not owned by the Big/Little studios:
Controlled which/when films were seen
A-level films:
“it” stars and lavish productions
only seen in studio-owned, first-run theaters
Theaters not owned by the Big/Little studios:
forced to buy A-pictures in combination with B-pictures
B-pictures: no stars, bargain-basement genre pictures, and shorts

10. The Rating System 1922, producers formed a regulatory agency
at first just for public-relations
1930, adopted the Motion Picture Production Code
guidelines on acceptable/unacceptable subject matter
Because: art can influence the morality of those that consume it (assumed for the worse)
1934, became mandatory
(1968 replaced in by the MPAA rating system)
This Film Is Not Yet Rated *

11. The Look of the Hollywood Movie
period of conformity, not innovation
giving people what they wanted
movies stressed the values of the time
Pre-WWII: heroism, family, citizenship, etc. with some comic relief
Est. new film genres
The musical, screwball comedies, horror, social problem films, gangster films, war films

12. Citizen Kane (1941) changes it all
Orson Welles’s film revolutionized film
storytelling success: a complex plot told by 7 narrators (not all reliable)
historical success: 7 months before Pearl Harbor – antifascist message
cinematic success: innovative techniques and will influence the structure and pace of nearly all movies that came after