THE
STUDIO ERA
The Majors ("big five" and "little
three"): between 1930 and 1948, the 8 majors controlled 95% of films
exhibited in US: a true oligopoly
Big Five
1. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
- established in 1924, by merger of Loew's, Inc. theater
chain with three production companies (Metro Pictures/Goldwyn
Pictures/Louis B. Mayer Productions)
- leader in stars, glamour, spectacle: consider Gone with the Wind and Wizard of Oz, both 1939
- high pre-production investment (i.e., numerous writers
and editors), and Irving Thalberg's tight rein
on production through 1936
- a "galaxy of stars": Joan Crawford, Greta
Garbo, Judy Garland, Greer Garson, Jean Harlow, Norma Shearer; Mickey
Rooney, Spencer Tracey, Clark Gable
- effects of Depression: $15m
profit in 1930, $4.3m in 1933. Never lost money.
- purchased by Kirk Kerkorian, 1969; later MGM-UA; then
briefly belonged to Turner, who kept the pre-1986 film library when he
sold it back (hence Turner Classic Movies, which also owns UA and pre-1950
Warners films); owned by French bank Credit Lyonnias 1991-92;back to Kerkorian; Sony in 2004;
bankruptcy in 2010; now part of MGM Holdings Inc.
2. Paramount Picture Corp
- established as a distribution company in 1914, it was
acquired by Adolph Zukor in 1917, who merged it
with his production company, Famous Players-Lasky
Corp., and then started buying theatres, making it the first fully
vertically-integrated company
- silent era stars: Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks,
Gloria Swanson, William S. Hart, Fatty Arbuckle
- directors: Cecil B. DeMille, Erich von Stroheim, Mack Sennet, D.W. Griffith, Dorothy Arzner
(from 1927--one of few women directors in era)
- comedy, light entertainment, occasional epics (like
DeMille's Ten Commandments)
- later stars: Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Hedy Lamarr, Barbara Stanwyck,
Marx Bros., Bing Crosby, Bob Hope
- produced 40-50 films annually in studio heyday
- effects of Depression:
$18.4m profit in 1930, $6.3m in 1931, -$21m in 1932: receivership in 1933,
bankruptcy in 1935
- heavily involved in television in 1960s
- sold off 1929-49 films to MCA in 1958; acquired by Gulf
and Western, 1966; acquired by Viacom in 1990s; now part of Viacom/CBS
3. Fox Film Corporation/20th
Century Fox
- established for exhibition in 1913
by William Fox; producing fims by 1915.
- "20th C" after 1935 merger with production
company headed in part by Darryl F. Zanuck, former Warners
production head who had just left United Artists
- known for musicals; westerns and crime films after
1948; The Robe (1953), 1st
Cinemascope feature film
- directors: John Ford, Elia Kazan, Joseph Mankiewicz
- stars: Shirley Temple, Will Rodgers, Tyrone Power,
Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, Sonja Henie; in 1940s/50s Henry Fonda,
Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Gregory Peck
- effects of Depression: $10m
profit in 1930, -$4m in 1931, -$7m in 1932; founder Fox forced out in
1931.
- owned by Rupert Murdoch/News Corp since 1985
4. Warner Brothers established in 1924 by Harry, Jack and Albert
Warner
- 1st sound film: The Jazz Singer (1927)
- fully integrated only by 1928-30, with acquisition of
First National Pictures theatre chain (which had come into being in 1917
to resist Adolph Zukor)
- effects of Depression: $14.5m profit in 1929, $7m in
1930, -$8m in 1931; thanks to “bloodletting” and assembly-line, rationalized,
low-budget productions WB did not go bankrupt or become beholden to Wall
Street
- 60 films per year in depression, 1930s: gangster films,
backstage musicals, social realism
- no "stable" but contact directors and stars:
Raoul Walsh, Howard Hawks; Paul Muni, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney,
Edward G. Robinson, Errol Flynn, James Dean, Bette Davis, Ingrid Bergman,
Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck, Lauren Bacall
- also heavily into TV in 1960s; later Warner-Seven Arts,
then Warner Communications, now part of Time-Warner
5. RKO Radio Pictures
Incorporated
- an immediate major, born of the 1928 merger of Radio
Corporation of America with Keith and Orpheum theatres to exploit its
"Photophone" movie sound system
- "unit production" introduced by David O.
Selznick (contracting with individual directors for a certain number of
films, free of studio interference)
- hence Citizen
Kane (Welles), King Kong,
Bringing Up Baby (Hawks),
Notorious (Hitchcock)
- associated with horror films and film noir in its
B-movies; after 1940-42, B-movies became the chief product
- effects of Depression: $3.4m profit in 1930, -$5.7m in
1931; forced into receivership
- bought by Howard Hughes (1948), then General Tyre and Rubber Company (1955) then Desilu Productions (1957), which was later acquired by
Gulf & Western, which merged it with Paramount, now owned by Viacom
Little Three
1. Universal Pictures
- formed 1912 by Carl Laemmle
Sr.
- production facility in Universal City in San Fernando
Valley, not Hollywood, 1915
- Irving Thalberg among first
chiefs of production (before joining MGM)
- stars: Rudolph Valentino, Lon Chaney; later, after
mid-40s reorganization, attracted James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Orson Welles, Marlene Deitrich,
Janet Leigh by offering percentages of profits in contracts
- Frankenstein, Dracula (both 1931), All
Quiet on the Western Front (1930, 1st sound movie on WWI)
- after 1948, thrillers, melodramas, westerns
- effects of Depression: lost its theatres; Laemmle
forced out in 1936 after the studio went into receivership
- blockbusters : Jaws
(1975), E.T. (1982), Jurassic Park (1993), all
directed by Spielberg
- taken over by Decca Records, 1952; part of MCA after
1962; bought by Matsushita in 1990 for $6.6 billion; sold to Seagram
(1995); sold to Vivendi (France, 2000); sold to GE/NBC, 2004; now part of
NBC Universal
2. United Artists (est. 1919)
- breakaway company founded by Mary Pickford, Douglas
Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, distributing their films (most
successful with Chaplin's)
- only Chaplin still producing in 1930s; UA turned to
distributing features of independent producers like Samuel Goldwyn and
David O. Selznick
- only a major after 1948 Paramount case: High Noon (1951), Marty (1955), 1960s James Bond
films; three Oscars in a row in 1975-77 (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Rocky; Annie Hall)
- effects of Depression: lost money in 1932, but largely
OK after that
- overextended in late 1970s; part of Transamerica since
1967, sold
to MGM in 1981(along with pre-1950 Warner film library)
3. Columbia (1924)
- 1930, produced and sold B-movies to "big
five"
- 1932, Harry Cohn, one of the original founders, becomes
president, with a tight rein
- 1934, It
Happened One Night's
great success led it to experiment with "A" pictures too; often
these were adaptations of novels and stage plays
- no stable, but associations with Frank Capra, Rita
Hayworth; after 1948 William Holden, Broderick Crawford, Judy Holliday
- effects of Depression: survived OK in part because it
owned no theatres
- first to get into television (Screen Gems, 1950--Dragnet); also backed foreign
productions, e.g., Lawrence of
Arabia, 1962)
- sold studios, 1972; bought by Coca-Cola, 1982; bought by
Sony, 1989
"Poverty Row"
studios
1. Essanay (1907)
- bought by Vitagraph, 1917,
and then Warners, 1927
- westerns (incl. 360 Bronco Billy films)
- comedies--Chaplin, Keystone Cops in 'teens
2. Monogram Pictures (1930)/Allied Artists Picture Corp.(after
1953)
- Charlie Chan series (40+!)
- filed for bankruptcy, 1980
3. Republic Pictures (1935)
- fast production practices
- westerns: John Wayne, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers
- decline of Bs doomed it in 1950s; folded in 1958
- The Quiet
Man
(1952, won Oscar); Johnny Guitar
(1954)
Theater Seating Capacity, 1945 Weekly Theater Attendance, 1925-1990 Schatz’s
Rules for Conglomerate-era Blockbusters
US Movie Theaters, 1925-2000 Theaters by
Population, 1945 Highest-Grossing
Animated Films
Features Released by the Majors, 1925-1985 Production
costs, 1920-1990 The Economist on
Hollywood, 2013
The Unit Production
System Clearance and Zoning Netflix Conquers the World
How Advances in
Technology Help You Stay in the Same Place Art vs. Business, c. 1950