study guide 06

The Hollywood Studio System, 1930 to 1946

CONTENTS
The End of the Silent Era, the Studio Years, and the Talkies 02+03 The Hollywood Studio System 04+05+06 Characteristics of the Major and Minor Studios 07+08+09 The Hollywood Production Code 10+11 The Production Code and Censorship 12 The End of the Studio Era 13 Activity Answer Key 14+15+16

CURRICULUM
This teaching guide has three curriculum objectives: To help students and teachers using films and videos in the context of the following secondary school curriculum English Language Arts, Film and Media Studies, Social Studies, and Visual Arts To assist educators who are planning to teach films studies for the first time To suggest ways in which traditional literary concepts may be taught using a medium other than printed text Note: Classroom activities are provided after each section along with an answer key at the end of the guide. Answers are not provided for all activities as some questions depend on teachers to choose films they are already working with in their classrooms. Some films noted in this guide may not be appropriate for all students. Please use your discretion when choosing films for your classroom.

THE STRUCTURE OF THIS STUDY GUIDE

This guide refers in some detail to a number of films, and so plot descriptions of each have been provided. Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939) One of Hollywoods first great blockbusters, Gone With the Wind is probably the best-loved movie of all time. Its also one of the greatest examples of the studio craftsmanship that produced a library of lavish, grand, and epic films throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Based on Margaret Mitchells popular novel, the story centres on Scarlett OHara (played by Vivien Leigh), a Southern Belle who is both despicable and incredibly resilient, pragmatic, and heroic in the age of the American Civil War. As Rhett Butler, Clark Gable is arrogant, charming, decisive, and everything one could hope for in a leading man. The story is set in the South, and so it is no surprise that it includes a number of scenes that are blatantly racist and sexist by contemporary standards. This said, it is possibly the best example of a collaborative artistic achievement, which Hollywoods Golden Age was famous for. The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) A fairy tale that continues to warm the hearts of children and adults alike long after its release, The Wizard of Oz is the story of Dorothy, her little dog Toto, and her three friends: the scarecrow, the tinman, and the lion, all of who are in search of a dream. When they arrive at the end of the rainbow, ultimately they discover themselves, which is fine as a message, but what really stands out in the movie is the trip there. As Dorothy follows the Yellow Brick Road, she and her friends make their way through a remarkable journey filled with brilliant colours, strange and wonderful characters, buoyant songs, and charming sets. Still a masterpiece to this day, and even better if you can watch it with a child for their first time.
THE HISTORY OF FILM - STUDY GUIDE 06

Singin in the Rain (Stanley Donen/Gene Kelly, 1952) Besides being an incredible musical all on its own, Singin in the Rain is also a kind of tour through the history of the musical as a genre. The film begins as an imaginary Hollywood studio is forced to adjust to the coming of sound to motion pictures in the 1920s. Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamount (Jean Hagen) are stars of the silent cinema but when The Jazz Singer (1927) hits the screen, the death knell for the silent film is announced as audiences reject all but new talking pictures. With the help of Cosmo Brown (Donald OConnor) and Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), Don Lockwood convinces his producer to create a fully developed sound musical. Lina Lamounts voice is a disaster and while she tries to hold onto her career, her squeaky, crass tongue betrays her otherwise striking appearance. In the end, it becomes clear that Kathy Selden is the voice behind Lamounts new found success. As the film closes, a title card for Don Lockwoods and Kathy Seldens new picture appears on a bill board somewhere in the hills of Hollywood. It says: Singin in the Rain. The Man With the Golden Arm (Otto Preminger, 1955) Starring Frank Sinatra in the title role, The Man With the Golden Arm was the first major Hollywood film to tackle the subject of heroin addiction. While the film violated a number of proscribed elements in the Production Code that ruled Hollywood throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the films popularity with audiences was a significant factor in derailing the power of the Code. Sinatra plays an ex-con junkie trying to make it as a jazz drummer. Kim Novak stars as his mistress, while Eleanor Parker plays his wife. The film is filled with some excellent scenes and includes a fantastic jazz score. When it comes time to show the world of drug users and dealers, however, the film suffers from a clear lack of first-hand knowledge. This makes for some unrealistic moments in an otherwise powerful and significant movie.
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THE END OF THE SILENT ERA, THE STUDIO YEARS, AND THE TALKIES
The Jazz Singer premiered on October 6, 1927 and changed everything to do with film. As the first fully synchronized sound film, The Jazz Singer announced the end of one era and the beginning of a new period: the age of the talkies.
It took time for the major Hollywood studios to adjust to the coming of sound. New amplification equipment had to be installed in theatres, and new sound recording and sound mixing departments had to be developed within studio complexes. Once these changes were in place however, a new era of Hollywood talkies began, one built on the experiments and innovations of the silent era and dominated by the structures of the Hollywood studio system and the new Production Code under which it operated. The classic Gene Kelly musical, Singin in the Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952) includes a wonderful sequence that suggests what the end of silent filmmaking and the beginning of sound would have meant to Hollywood studios and stars. Besides the title dance sequence, which has to be one of the most familiar numbers ever to be shown on screen, Singin in the Rain also includes a series of scenes that recount how one Hollywood studio adjusts to the coming of sound. Whats remarkable about these scenes is that they highlight the way sound changed the production of movies, made and unmade the careers of any of a number of Hollywood actors and stars, and essentially helped to reinvent the power of moving images with audiences. Just to get a sense of what the coming of sound meant to filmmaking at the end of the 1920s, Singin in the Rain is worth watching, and thats on top of all the magical, buoyant song and dance numbers sprinkled throughout the rest of the picture. When sound did come to the movies, among many other things, it allowed for the development of whole new genres of film, as well as major changes in older types of movies. The musical, for instance, came of age with the development of sound. In particular, three entertainers and one company helped to turn the musical into a wholly new kind of popular entertainment. Busby Berkeley, whose movies (42nd Street [Lloyd Bacon, 1933], Gold Diggers of 1933 [Mervyn LeRoy, 1933], Footlight Parade [Lloyd Bacon, 1933], Gold Diggers of 1935 [Busby Berkeley, 1935], and Gold Diggers of 1937 [Lloyd Bacon, 1937], etc.) include some of the most outrageous and flamboyant musical numbers in the history of Hollywood, had been a dance director on the New York stage before coming west to work with Samuel Goldwyn in 1930. Working either as a dance director for film, or as the director, Berkeleys movies showed how simple dance numbers could become magical fantasies on screen. In the end, the storylines in Berkeleys movies were often far-fetched, but his musical numbers were a feast for the eyes and the ears of an audience still becoming accustomed to synchronized sound in movies. Fred Astaire and dance partner Ginger Rogers were better able than Berkeley to link together the power of song and dance numbers with a developed film storyline. More importantly, in a number of films (The Gay Divorcee [Mark Sandrich, 1934], Roberta [William Seiter, 1935], Swing Time [George Stevens, 1936], and Shall We Dance? [Mark Sandrich, 1937], etc.) Astaire worked with his directors to develop camera and editing techniques most suited to the phenomenal physical movement of song and dance numbers. Beyond these entertainers, however, Walt Disney and the Disney animated studios would expand the possibilities of sound and film in remarkable productions like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Walt Disney, 1937), Pinocchio (Ben Sharpsteen and Hamilton Luske, 1940), and Fantasia (Ben Sharpsteen, 1940). All of these movies suffer from Walt Disneys traditional sense of morality and overt patriotism, but they are still magic to the eyes and the ears. Unlike live-action movies, what made the Disney cartoons all the more striking and effective was that animated musicals could completely link together sound and image to create an expressive wonderland. Today these movies are still a joy to see, particularly Fantasia, which, as writer David Cook describes, attempted a total fusion of animated visuals and classical orchestral scores. Besides musicals, the development of sound also helped to create a sense of hard, cold realism that would find a place in the new gangster films of the 1930s. Prior to 1930, a few silent gangster pic-

02 | The Hollywood Studio System, 1930 to 1946

THE HISTORY OF FILM - STUDY GUIDE 06

tures (including Lewis Milestones The Racket [1927], and Josef von Sternbergs Underworld [1927]) had been made, but with the invention of sound, the gangster genre was given new life. By including the sounds of armed combat and tough, wise-cracking street slang, movies like Mervyn LeRoys Little Caesar (1930), Howard Hawks Scarface (1932), and Fritz Langs You Only Live Once (1937) could portray a sense of realism and alienation familiar to many Depression-era audiences. Newspaper pictures (Platinum Blonde [Frank Capra, 1931], Front Page Woman [Michael Curtiz, 1935], and His Girl Friday [Howard Hawks, 1940]) that emphasized witty, sharp dialogue, and dramatized historical biographies (Rembrandt [Alexander Korda, 1936], Marie Antoinette [W.S. Van Dyke, 1938], and The Private Life of Elizabeth and Essex [Michael Curtiz, 1939]) that brought famous people to life would also develop with the coming of sound. Beyond these genres, older types of films that had been successful during the silent era would take new shape in the era of the talkies. Slapstick comedies that had been hugely popular in the 1920s, for instance, gave way to screwball comedies (Design for Living [Ernst Lubitsch, 1933], My Man Godfrey [Gregory La Cava, 1936], and The Great McGinty [Preston Sturges, 1940]), and crazy, zany dialogue comedies staring the Marx Brothers (Animal Crackers [Victor Heerman, 1930], Monkey Business [Norman Z. McLeod, 1931], and A Night at the Opera [Sam Wood, 1935]) and W.C. Fields (Million Dollar Legs [Eddie Cline, 1932], and The Man on the Flying Trapeze [Clyde Bruckman, 1935]). Finally, the horror-fantasy genre (i.e., Tod Brownings Dracula [1931] and James Whales Frankenstein [1931]) that had initially developed in the German cinema of the 1920s took advantage of sound to create the kinds of creepy effects that are now part and parcel of the genre. All told, the coming of sound remade Hollywood. The careers of silent stars like Buster Keaton, Mack Sennett, and even to some extent, Charles Chaplin diminished, while new entertainers took to the screen and larger film studios took over the whole industry.

activity 01

The introduction of synchronized sound helped to reinvent the cinema in the 1930s. Using the accompanying chart, in the two left columns detail two major changes the introduction of synchronized sound brought to Hollywood filmmaking. Give examples of films that typify each of these changes. Use the two right-hand columns to think about how filmmaking is changing today, particularly in relation to the use of computers in film production. At least since the 1970s, the development and use of computers has had a similar dramatic impact on motion picture production as the coming of sound did in the 1930s. Think of at least two ways that the use of computers has changed movies today, and provide examples of films to highlight your answers.

Changes brought about by the introduction of synchronized sound in movies

Film Examples

Changes brought about by the use of computers in movies

Film Examples

THE HISTORY OF FILM - STUDY GUIDE 06

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