Film History

1. FILM HISTORY
HOLLYWOOD IN THE TWENTIES

2. 1920S
• After WWI, the American film industry became a national industry:
❖ mass production/great factories – assumed a structure it would retain for the next 40 years.
❖ Wall Street began to invest heavily economically and politically (later radio) – “New money, new power, and the
“new morality” of the post-war Jazz Age all combined to make Hollywood in the twenties the modern Babylon
of popular lore” (David A. Cook, 1990).
❖ vertically integrated monopolies, controlling theatre chains and distributorships.
• Budgets rose 10 times their pre-war level.
• Big Three:
1. Paramount
2. Metro Pictures
3. First National (after 1921, Associated First National)
4. United Artist formed in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks – major
force in the industry until advent of sound; and became powerful again in the 1970s.

3. 1920S
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer merged to a powerful studio in 1924 of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures
and Louis B. Mayer Productions.
• Hollywood’s second string, the “Little Five”:
1. Fox Film Corporation
2. Producers Distributing Corporation (PDC)
3. Film Booking Office (FBO)
4. Carl Laemmle’s Universal Pictures
5. Warner Bros. Pictures – forced industry to convert to sound and absorb First National.
• 30 smaller companies, out of which only Columbia, Republic and Monogram survived the coming
of sound.

4. CHARLIE CHAPLIN (1889-1977)
• Son of impoverished British music hall entertainer.
• Progressively refining the character of the sad little clown in over-sized shoes, baggy pants and an
undersized coat and derby.
• Internationally famous for social satire – poor and rich/weak and powerful.
• By 1915, was so popular that he was commanding a star salary of $10,000/week plus signatory bonus of
$15,000; 1917 offer $1 million contract.
• Established his own studio in 1918 and made films till he left the US in 1952.
• The Kid (1921), autobiographical comedy/drama became an international hit, earning $2.5 million in the
year of its release and making its child lead, 5 year old Jackie Coogan a star.
• First Academy Awards in 1929 recognised for “versatility and genius in writing, acting, directing and
producing.”

5. CHAPLIN’S FILMS
• Modern Times (1936)
❖dehumamisation of the common working man in a world run by the wealthy through machines.
❖satire on industrialisation and inequity in modern times of the Great Depression.
❖banned in Germany and Italy.
❖enormously successful in rest of Europe.
❖one of his funniest, best structured and socially committed works.
• The Great Dictator (1940)
❖ his first talkie.
❖ first anti-Nazi film to come out of Hollywood – satire of European dictatorship.
❖ not well received – too serious/not serious enough.
❖ still a commercial hit because of his continuing popularity.

6. CHARLIE CHAPLIN (1889-1977)
• Monsieur Verdoux (1947) - marrying and murdering the rich to support invalid wife and young son.
❖ bitterly attacked in US and withdrawn; but successful in France.
❖ relationship with American audience strain since disappearance of the little tramp.
• 1952 – highest paid and most popular star in the history of American film charged with political and
moral turpitude (deprave/wicked) and exiled; went back to Britain and later Switzerland.
• A King in New York (1957) – political parable of European head of state ruin by malicious charges
❖ withdrawn and couldn’t be distributed in US; re-released in 1972 and won Academy Awards for Best Original
Score and “incalculable effect he has on making motion pictures, the art form of the century”.
• His genius was as an actor and a mime – masterworks of comedy and pathos. The little tramp became a
worldwide symbol. As a filmmaker, he was a competent, conventional director with some
unconventional ideas.

7. BUSTER KEATON (1895-1966)
• Overshadowed by Chaplin – equal as an actor but superior director, has stronger sense of
narrative structure and mise-en-scène; formally beautiful.
• 1917, he was already a star – amazing physicality/acrobatics, very little he could not express
with his body.
• Believed comedy must be funny but not ridiculous.
• Our Hospitality (1923) – one of his greatest film.
• Location shooting.
• Integrates dramatic action and comedy.
• Fired by MGM – couldn’t adapt to studio system.

8. MOTION PICTURE PRODUCERS AND
DISTRIBUTORS OF AMERICA (MPPDA)
• Earliest days of nickelodeon, moralists and reformers concerned about corrupting effects of films.
• After WWI, films became more sophisticated and risqué – “new morality”/Jazz Era; materialism,
cynicism, sexual license. Films began to depict, even glorify adultery, divorce, drinking and drug-taking.
• Hollywood of Babylon – extravagance, baronial mansions, orgiastic parties, sexual promiscuity, multiple
divorce fascinated the American tabloid. Stars were worshipped like a kind of new American royalty, a
race of beautiful demi-gods.
• Fatty Arbuckle – tried for rape and murder of Virginia Rappe. Acquitted in 1923 for lack of evidence.
Sensational stories in the press/tabloids. Paramount fired Arbuckle and permanently barred from
working in the industry. Many other scandals.
• Hollywood formed a self-regulated organisation. MPPDA, Will Hays (1879-1954) headed it. “Purity
Code”; “Don’t and Be Carefuls”. As long as virtue triumph at the end – Cecil B Demille “exploited”
this.

9. SOUND
• Vitaphone sound-on-disk system - $800,000 secured exclusive rights to sublease to other
studios. 500,000 people came who nearly paid $800,000 – only 8 weeks in NY; then Chicago,
LA, Boston Detroit, St. Louis and many European cities.
• Response: “uncanny in its excellence”, “impossible to imagine” and “8th wonder of the
world”.
• But conversion to sound threatened the entire economic structure of America.
• The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927) – basically singing; but only 1 spoken dialogue, yet the
impact was sensational.
❖ “talkies” were born with The Jazz Singer.
❖ international success – earned over $3 million.
❖ recouped its massive investment.
❖ Convinced Hollywood sound was here to stay – by 1928, American public had clearly chosen
sound.

10. • Cost of conversion to sound staggering – Hollywood invested more than $50 million.
• Hollywood had to borrow for changeover. But the prodigious borrowing of 1928-29 was offset by the
prodigious profits of the same year.
• Weekly attendance shot up – 1927: 60 million to 1930: 90 million; increased box office receipts by 50%.
• Warner Bros – 1928: profits over $2 million; 1929: over $17 million!
• Conversion to sound enabled Hollywood to survive the Great Depression (rest of the world suffered more
with the Great Depression; many countries did not recover until after WWII).
• King Vodor (1894-1982) with Hallelujah! (1929) made a brilliant technical achievement with post-
synchronization.
• Rouben Mamoulian (1897-1987) used 2 separate microphones to record overlapping dialogue in Applause
(1920).
• Lewis Milestone (1895-1980) used postdubbing for the battlefield sequences of All Quiet on the Western
Front (1930).

11. QUESTIONS
1. How and why did the Hollywood studios come about? Explain the significance of the
Hollywood studio system. How, when and why did the classical Hollywood studio system
decline?
2. Who was Charlie Chaplin? What films did he make? What and how did he contribute to
the history of film? Explain the significance of Charlie Chaplin to film history.
3. Who was Buster Keaton? What films did he make? What and how did he contribute to the
history of film? Explain the significance of Buster Keaton to film history.
4. Explain the advent of sound technology and what was its significance to the film industry?