Wednesday, October 17, 2007

A CAGE TO CATCH OUR DREAMS: The movies became "Hollywood" in the 1920s, as a small group of "movie moguls" headed out to California and established the so-called "Big Eight" studios (Columbia, Warner Bros., Universal, RKO, MGM, United Artists, Paramount, and 20th Century Fox). Recognizing that the movies were an industry like any other, the studio heads organized their business operations with ruthless, brilliant efficiency. Thomas Schatz's authoritative study, The Genius of the System, describes how the studios came to control every aspect of the movie biz, from production to distribution to exhibition. This "vertical integration" stifled any hope of independent competition, but it also turned Hollywood into an extraordinary dream factory, pouring out hundreds of films a year to an eager and enormous public. During Hollywood's "Golden Age" of the 1930s and early 1940s, average weekly movie attendance in the U.S. [warning: PDF] typically ran between 75 and 100 million people -- or nearly two-thirds of the overall population. (By comparison, today's weekly movie audience usually amounts to just ten percent of the national population.)

Beyond the rigid contract system and manipulative booking practices, the major studios also controlled their product through an elaborate system of self-censorship. Throughout the 1920s, critics had complained about offensive material in the movies, from sexual innuendo and vulgar language to disrespect for authority and the glorification of criminals. Fearing a wave of local and state censor boards, the studios -- led by their chief lobbyist, Will Hays -- promulgated a list of "Don'ts and Be Carefuls" in 1927, which was superseded by the more substantial Production Code in 1930. The Code laid out strict moral guidelines for moviemakers to follow in their treatment of potentially sensitive subjects, and after a few years of indifferent enforcement, by 1934 the Production Code Administration under Joseph Breen was exercising "final cut" authority over every studio film.

Yet despite (or perhaps because of) these rigid controls over business and content, Hollywood of the 'thirties and early 'forties produced a staggering number of classic films. Romantic comedies like It Happened One Night (1934) and His Girl Friday (1940); musical extravaganzas like Swing Time (1936) and The Wizard of Oz (1939); "prestige pictures" like Gone with the Wind (1939) and The Grapes of Wrath (1940) -- in many respects, these films could not have been made outside of the powerful studio system, with its savvy marketing, its starmaking machines, and its massive financial resources.

Ironically, even though DVDs and niche cable networks have made it easier than ever to watch "classic" Hollywood films, many younger viewers have seen almost nothing from the "Golden Age." (In my class today, for instance, only four or five students said they'd seen either His Girl Friday or Gone with the Wind.) So here's your assignment: Pick three movies from Hollywood's "Golden Age" that you think would best introduce today's uninitiated audiences to the wonders of "classic" film. And ... action!

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