Juan Monroy
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  1. Home
  2. Courses
  3. Early Film to World War II
  4. Early Film: Fall of the Studio System

Early Film: Fall of the Studio System

  • 1 The Best of Times
    • 1.1 prosperous time for country
    • 1.2 US took on role of world superpower
    • 1.3 assisting other countries in rebuilding after World War II (Marshall Plan)
    • 1.4 highest box office attendance in 1946
      • 80 to 90 million a week
      • record of $1.5 billion box office
      • today, only 25 million a week go with box office at $10 billion
  • 2 Hollywood Oligopoly
    • 2.1 Production
      • produced 75% of all US feature films
      • generated 90% of all US box office revenues
      • 65% of all films exhibited worldwide
      • One-third of studio revenues came from overseas
    • 2.2 Distribution
      • controlled 95% of all domestic receipts
      • blind bidding
      • block booking
      • run-zone-clearance
      • favored A-class studio pictures in first-run market
    • 2.3 Exhibition
      • 17,500 movie theaters in 1941
      • first-run
        • 1,360 theaters in 400 largest cities
        • generated half of industry’s domestic total revenue
      • 16,000 subsequent runs after first run dates
    • 2.4 Vertical integration
      • Big Five
        • MGM
        • Paramount
        • Warner Brothers
        • 20th Century Fox
        • RKO
      • owned or controlled 2,600 theaters
    • 2.5 Independent Theaters
      • desperate shape by end of 1930s
        • declining attendance
        • Great Depression
      • smallest houses in less lucrative locations
      • Justice Department took action in the 1930s
        • block booking
        • blind bidding
        • arbitrary designation of play dates
        • forcing shorts & newsreels & features on exhibitors
        • double features of 2 A films
      • More action would follow
  • 3 The Worst of Times
    • 3.1 Box office decline
      • 80–90 million a week in 1946
      • 47 million in 1957
    • 3.2 4,000 theaters closed
    • 3.3 RKO ceased operations in 1957
  • 4 Hollywood and the Red Scare
    • 4.1 Early investigations
      • House Committee formed in 1937
      • investigating subversive
      • Martin Dees, Texas
      • Samuel Dickstein, New York
      • Led to Senate investigations in 1941 and 1943
    • 4.2 Chamber of Commerce
      • publishes report on COMMUNIST INFILTRATION IN THE US in 1945
      • alleges Communists trying to control entertainment and information media
      • Communists already infiltrated Screen Writers Guild
      • Chamber’s president, Eric Johnston, succeeds Will Hays as head of MPAA
    • 4.3 HUAC
      • aided by Motion Picture Alliance for Preservation of American Ideals
        • right-wing personal from Hollywood
        • testify publicly against their colleagues
      • pressured Eric Johnson
        • to dismiss all Communists in Hollywood
        • but he refused, challenged public to boycott
        • wanted Hollywood to set up blacklist
      • Witnesses
        • 23 friendly testified for a variety of reasons
        • Jack Warner saying “he had never seen a Communist and wouldn’t know if I saw one”
        • Louis B. Mayer vowing MGM would never hire a communist
        • anger directed against unfriendly witnesses so that industry could survive
      • J. Parnell Thomas
        • head of HUAC in September 1947
        • subponead 43 witnesses
        • trying to prove that WGA was dominated by communists
      • Oct 1947 they called 19 unfriendly witnesses
        • Ten were asked “are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?”
        • all refused to answer and charged with contempt and sent to jail
        • 2 served prison terms for 6 months
        • 8 served for a full year
        • upon release, blacklisted, by virtue of Nov 1947 “Waldorf Peace Pact”
      • Effect
        • Blacklist would persist until late 1950s
        • Crusade destroyed Hollywood’s iconoclastic perspective, developed as an attempt to attract working-class audiences
        • Hollywood abandoned risque, violent, comic and fantastic films
        • Hollywood played it safe
  • 5 Anti trust action
    • 5.1 US vs. Paramount Pictures
      • charged Big 5 plus Little 3 of violating anti-trust laws
      • keeping indies out of market
    • 5.2 Consent Decree of 1940
      • studios had agreed to eliminate blind bidding
      • limit block-booking
      • curtail new theater acquisition
    • 5.3 Supreme Court Decision
      • Issued 1948
      • declared Top 8 guilty of monopolistic practices in terms of first-run exhibition
      • Big 5 had to get rid of theater chains
      • all 8 had to stop block booking
    • 5.4 Immediate Effects
      • independent theaters had better selections
      • studios could now make bigger films since they had greater exhibition access
      • studios now had to concentrate on fewer but more expensive films
  • 6 Changing US demography
    • 6.1 people moved away into suburbs
      • away from downtown theaters
      • families became more selective about entertainment
      • initially they listened to radio
    • 6.2 profits of film industry plunged 74% from 1947–57
      • people more selective about what films they saw
      • 47 million in 1957
      • 4000 theaters closed
  • 7 Rise of television
    • 7.1 Introduced at World’s Fair in 1939
      • RCA Project
      • Used radio waves to transmit pictures and sound over remote distances
      • How does it work? RCA explains
    • 7.2 New dominant visual medium
      • by 1954 there were 32 million
      • 1960 90% of homes had TV
      • TV would radically alter many media industries
        • movies
        • newspapers
        • magazines
        • radio
  • 8 Individual Film and Roadshow
    • 8.1 Hollywood scaled down production
    • 8.2 with fewer films, Hollywood would market a single film
    • 8.3 film would open in a limited number of large cities
    • 8.4 designed to lure audiences from television
    • 8.5 used for new spectacle films
  • 9 Widescreen, color, stereo
    • 9.1 Color
      • Technicolor
        • Dye-Transfer
        • 3 Strip System
        • 1924–1954
      • Eastman Color
        • Eastman Color
        • Integral “Tri-Pack” Process
        • 1 Strip System (lowest cost)
        • adopted in 1952
    • 9.2 Widescreen
      • Academy Ratio
        • Silent Films
          • 1.375: 1
        • Sound Films
          • 1.33:1
      • Cinerama
        • Mike Todd, 1952
        • Three-Camera Setup
        • Curved screens
        • Aspect Ratio 2.65:1
      • Cinemascope
        • 20th Century-Fox, 1953
        • Anamorphic Lens
        • The Robe
        • Aspect Ratio 2.66 : 1
      • VistaVision
        • Paramount, 1954
        • horizontal film
        • White Christmas (1954)
        • Aspect Ratio 1.66 : 1
      • Todd AO
        • Mike Todd and American Optical, 1953
        • 65–70mm film and variable focal length
        • Oklahoma (1955)
        • Aspect Ratio 2.20: 1
    • 9.3 Peace Between Hollywood and Television
      • Movies on Television
        • Minor Studios
          • British films on US television (late 1940s)
          • Monogram and Republic Pictures (1948–1950)
          • RKO -> General Tire’s Million Dollar Movie (1953)
          • Disney’s Buena Vista (1953)
        • Major studios
          • M-G-M Parade (ABC)
          • The 20th Century-Fox Hour (CBS)
          • Warner Brothers Presents (ABC)
        • Disneyland
          • Deal between ABC and Disney
          • Disney refused to sell animated programs to ABC
          • Agreed to produce a weekly series, using footage from Disney films
          • Timed to promote theme park under construction in California, opening 1955
  • 10 Challenges to Censorship
    • 10.1 Miracle decision
      • Released 1948
      • story an insane peasant, impregnated by a cunning charlatan, who believes her mentally disabled child is the son of God
      • written by Rosselini and Federico Fellini
      • starred Anna Magnani and Fellini
      • part of a two-part anthology called “L’Amore”
      • banned in New York State
        • education law
        • censor could forbid the commercial screening of a film deemed to be “sacrilegious”
        • Joseph Burstyn was the distributor
        • Commissioner of Education rescinded the movie’s license, February 18, 1951
      • Supreme Court
        • heard case April 1952
        • Decided in May 1952
        • declared that denying/revoking a film license was a “restraint on free speech” and a violation of 1st Amendment
        • overturned Mutual v. Ohio (1915)
    • 10.2 Weakening of Production Code
      • lacking a requirement for a film license
      • exhibitors could show films without MPPDA seal
      • films did not have to originate from studio system
    • 10.3 Effects
      • rise of independents
      • growth of foreign films
      • films became more daring throughout the 1950s
      • ultimately would lead to end of the production code
      • introduction of the ratings system in the 1960s

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