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UUK

\MERICAN

ENTURY

Our American Century

Boston Public Library

100 Years of

By

Hollywood

the Editors of Time-Life Books, Alexandria, Virginia

BR BR
YA

PN19g3.5
,U6
A 59 7
1

999

Contents

Cultivating Fantasy:

Movies and Their

20

The

Birth of

American Film

Photographs Spring

56

148

164

188

The Hollywood Director

108

Manufacturing the Dream

to

The Lights

Follow

in

Hollywood's Sky

Celebrating the Stars

to Life

Shaping Worlds on Film

Kids and Animals

Hard Acts

Stars

Acknowledgments
Picture Credits

189

Bibliography

190

Index

Behind-the-Scenes Movie Magic

100

YEARS

Ol-

HOLLYWOOD

Lauren Bacall

Cultivating Fantasy:

Movies and Their


rom

F\

the earliest years to the present, the movies have traded

petite for fantasy.

dreams reached

the 1920s

and

stars

and the

its

late

directors

peak

1940s

and

on

people's ap-

Always a key to the industry's success, the making of

their

in the

when

"golden age" of Hollywood, the era between

the big studios held unchallenged

power over

movies enjoyed an unrivaled hold on the public's

imagination. Moviegoing then was such a


in 1938,

Stars

way of life

that during

an average week

America's population of 120 million bought 80 million movie tickets.

Audiences were drawn to particular films primarily because of the


tured in them.

And

stars fea-

the stars' appeal was fueled by ubiquitous publicity photographs

gazing out from magazine covers and movie posters, the faces entirely familiar but
still

impossibly, irresistibly romantic.


Star portraits were a specialized

like the

renowned George Hurrell adopted

subjects brilliantly aglow against a

already beautiful

some

form of Hollywood

men and women

art.

Studio photographers

dramatic lighting

style that set their

background of shadow. The


into icons. Like the stars

radiated elegance, others had a wise-guy swagger,

still

effect

transformed

shown on

these pages,

others an all-American

appeal.

Sometimes they were simply breathtakingly gorgeous, but always they

seemed

larger than

Lauren

life.

Bacall, at right, represented the very stuff

of such fantasy. At age 20, the

former Betty Joan Perske made her film debut opposite

Have and Have

Not, creating

Humphrey Bogart

in 1944's

an instant sensation with her striking looks, husky

and tough charm. This 1946 publicity

portrait for

the two stars, conveyed the film's hard-boiled

flair

The Big

Sleep,

To

voice,

which again paired

and BacalFs own

distinctive

magnet-

ism while stoking the public's fascination with her recent marriage to Bogart. To the
studio publicity machines, the stars' real lives were additional fodder for fantasy.

made an

For decades the great studios


days of absolute power could not

new crop
careers.

of actors and directors

their

of cultivating star appeal, but their

Television began competing for viewers.

demanded and

got

more

control over their

own

trend toward greater realism sent moviemakers off studio lots and out on

location. Yet

wood

last.

art

through these and

all

the other changes of

has remained the film capital of the world, and

power

to fascinate.

its first

its

100 years, Holly-

movies and

stars retain

iiti^j-^ "liilitoi

^)
%%

Joan Crawford

'

V'J

Gary Cooper

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John Barrym,

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Johnny Weissmuller

Ctiry

Grant

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Veronica Lake

James Cagney

<*LA

The Birth of
American Film
PHOTOGRAPHS SPRING
^

'

i'

TO LIFE

In

1896 a short motion picture of waves crashing onto a beach debuted

music

An

audience

locomotive.

hall

in Paris

in the front

panicked and

The mixture of

came moving
that

and viewers

reality

rows squirmed

illusion

prospect of being drenched.

produced by photographs

pictures contained a potent magic.

New York

with the image of an onrushing

fled as the screen filled

and

at the

at a

that suddenly be-

The pioneers who understood

magic best made movies into an instant industry.

From humble beginnings

in

"peep-show" machines, motion pictures took

only about two decades to evolve into complex, feature-length spectacles shown
in palatial theaters seating thousands. In the eyes of ordinary
critics

this

the cinema rapidly

growth was taking

came

into

place, film

its

fans read
a 1924
as

MGM's

let

dream

form of

factories

(inset),

art.

And

while

run year round.

movie magazines

as quickly as the films themselves,

about Hollywood's emerging nobility:

magazine

Griffith.

all

as a distinct

production migrated fi^om the East Coast to

southern California, where the climate

Appearing almost

own

moviegoers and

stars like lovely

or smoldering Rudolph Valentino

(left,

Mae

let

Murray, adorning

foreground); moguls such

Louis B. Mayer or Paramount's Adolph Zukor; and brilliant directors

By the

early 1920s

movies had become America's

fifth

most

like D.

W.

lucrative industry.

pith-hehneted production crew shoots a scene for the 1921 desert epic The Sheik. In costume for the

title role,

silent-era heartthrob

Rudolph Valentino awaits

his turn in front

of the camera.

Til

I.

II

()

AM

l;

C A N

III.

East Coast Origins


1888 the

InThomas
W.

Jersey laboratory of America's leading inventor,

Alva Edison (below,

the world's
credit, the

New

right),

developed the kinetograph,

motion-picture camera.

first

Though Edison

work of one of

invention was primarily the

got the

his assistants,

K. Laurie Dickson.
Six years later the Edison

kinetoscope

(left),

the

first

Company

introduced another marvel

commercial system

for

To use the boxlike contraption, a customer put


a viewer,

showing motion

in a

the

pictures.

penny, gazed through

and watched some postage stamp-size action play out

as a 50-foot

loop of film unrolled over a period of a few seconds.

The content of the


chine

itself:

Pretty

films

women

and contortionists twisted

*lf

we make

are asking

was

as

rudimentary as the peep-show ma-

danced, terriers worried

by,

into knots. Viewers, however, were stunned

it

and

machine that you

this screen
for,

rushed

rats, trains

will spoil

everything."

In

an 1896 Edison

film,

May

Irwin and John

Rice reenact a scene from a stage play, creating a

cinematic

Thomas

projector

-.r

delighted at the experience of seeing

still

photographs erupt into motion.

Kinetoscopes quickly began operating in arcades, bars, and stores through-

out North America and Europe.

The obvious next


existence in the

step

was

to liberate

box and project them

motion pictures from

large

on a

in

their tiny

screen. Edison at first did

not approve, believing that one-at-a-time viewing meant bigger

profits.

But

1896 he introduced a projector called the vitascope. (He had acquired

from

its

creator,

cepted praise for

Thomas Armat, who went unnoticed


someone

else's

work.)

The

and soon audiences were gathering before screens

it

as Edison, again, ac-

vitascope was an instant

hit,

in makeshift theaters

all

these devices, Edison

hoped

to control the world

of cinema. But some filmmakers and exhibitors defied


eras

^H
ii
^^^

Thomas Edison

him by

and projectors imported from Europe, where he had not

using cam-

registered his

indignation.

^^^

across the land.

Having patented

and sparking moral

first

Edison, arguing against the development of a motion-picture

in business as

ing big

money

(above, in 1669)

wus as feiudous

he was ingenious in the

lab,

spend-

to enforce his patents.

23

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103

191

105

109

patents.

Meanwhile, a

patents were based


film,

rival

II

I.

II

I)

1,

C A N

II

1.

system emerged. Since Edison's

on the sprocket holes

in

motion-picture

an outfit called the American Mutoscope and Biograph

Company

devised a camera that used imperforated film.

Edison

filed suit,

but the courts sided with Biograph,

which then suggested a partnership. In 1908 Edison, Bio-

and

graph,

several other

companies joined

Company (MPPC).

be monopoly, the Motion Picture Patents

They attempted

to close

exhibitor that refused to

censing and other

fees.

down

every studio, distributor, and

honor

They

would-

forces as a

their patents

by paying

li-

also sent thugs to steal the

negatives or destroy the cameras of maverick studios.

But the independents proved more resourceful. They


fought the Edison trust in court. They also headed for

southern California, which got them away from the

and offered

patent enforcers back east

end, the independents won:

The

U.S.

successful antitrust suit against the

trust's

better weather. In the

government

MPPC

filed a

in 1912.

Even before most studios relocated to the obscure Los


Angeles

community

was taking place

called

Hollywood, another big change

the

in the industry

studios,

to the public only as the

Biograph

Biograph was leery of giving

the financial leverage that

praised her acting but lamented,

"We do

not

know

Girl, a

review

the lady's name.'

birth of the star

system. Biograph's top attraction was a comely

known

Wlien Florence Lawrence (above) was the Biograph

its

young

Girl. Like

actors

would come with

and

woman
other

actresses

celebrity. In

1910 newspapers reported that the Biograph Girl had died


in a streetcar accident. In fact, she

the rival Independent

had been lured away by

Motion Picture Company, run by

budding mogul Carl Laemmle, who most

up and

possi-

circulated the story of her death himself

bly filmdom's

first

instance of a planted publicity item.

Laemmle then ran advertisements

blasting the

by enemies" of his company, revealed


tity as

dreamed

likely

his

new

lie

player's iden-

Florence Lawrence, and reaped enough publicity to

make her

a household name.

The

era of

anonymous

was ending; from now on there would be movie

Biograph crew

ers

Jim

"circulated

Jeffries

(left)

actors

stars.

prepares to film an 1899 match between box-

and Tom

Sharkey. Fights were a popular film subject.

Billy Bitzer (above),

a Biograph camera

one of the first masters of cinematography, uses


to take

footage from a moving train in 1898.

25

100

YEARS Of HOLLYWOOD

Nickel Madness
A
/

s late

1908 the average movie was just one

as

long.

reel

contained about a thousand

jL film that was good for

-X.

time, cost a few


in a single day.

more

hundred

But

if

sophisticated in both plot

The
potential

Robbery

first

clear sign of the

still

the Edison

in 1903,

drama

film, a suspenseful

that

up

escape. At the

in the tale that

first

titled

urban

it

fled.

storytelling

The Great Train

New lersey. Made

offered something

was played out

new

in

of

in a series

dance

for

hall episode,

showing, viewers were so caught

some of them

'em!" as the thieves

grown

they had

brief,

tightly knit scenes: the holdup, a chase, a

and an

and was shot

new medium's

a western shot in

Company

of

and technique.

was a 10-minute microepic


(left),

feet

10 to 12 minutes' running

dollars to produce,

films were

reel

yelled,

"Catch 'em! Catch

Afterward the audience demanded

that the projectionist run

it

again.

Within

the film

five years

brought in a staggering two million dollars

in profits.

With such rewards beckoning, the movie business drew


entrepreneurs of every stripe. In Kansas City, former
chief George Hale created a

new

fire

type of theater in 1904.

audience, seated in a replica of a railroad car (near

The

right,

watched travelogues that had been shot from an actual

top),
train.

The concept of illusory

Tours,

became franchised

Movie

mostly working

named because admission

ini-

Nickelodeons occupied every sort of

from cramped shops

Hale's

exhibitors soon struck pay dirt with other varia-

tially cost five cents.

bought

dubbed

internationally (far right, top).

tions of the nickelodeon, so

space,

railway journeys,

class,

to ballrooms.

Customers were

and they loved what

their nickel

a few short films with piano accompaniment,

often interspersed with vaudeville acts, songs, or lectures.

Nickelodeons quickly became a national mania


Scenes from The Great Train Robbery, directed by
Porter, include (from top)

Edwin

S.

"nickel madness,"

the robbers fleeing with their loot; and, in a thrilling if inexplicable


final note, a character firing his pistol at the audience.

ences

26

saw the film

in

one observer

called

it.

By 1907 there

two bandits threatening the depot agent;

a version

hand

Some

audi-

tinted with bright colors.

were more than 3,000 of the rough-and-ready theaters


across the country,

and average

soared to the two million mark.

daily attendance

had

1 1

BIRTH OF AMERICAN FILM

Hale S Tours

TERMINAL STATION

18S,

of the

World

OXFORD STREET, LONDON,

W,

Seated in a Hale's Tours theater built to resemble a Pull-

man

car

(left),

an audience

takes a virtual trip by watch-

ing a film that replicates the view from a train. Such

make-believe journeys were popular as far afield as Lon-

don (above). To add

to the illusion, the theaters

were

sometimes equipped with machinery that mimicked the


noise

and swayuig motions

of a real train ride.

magistrate assailed nickelodeons as "dens of iniquity," but the baby carriages outside this theater suggest that some upstanding ladies disagreed.

27

100

YKARS OF HOLLYWOOD

The

Moguls

First

During the second decade of the 20th

century, a handful of entre-

preneurs pushed aside Edison and his aUies to conquer the

motion-picture industry. They were ambitious, hard-charging

who

Jewish immigrants or sons of immigrants

deons, then followed the golden vein to

men

These were street-smart


class

Americans who made up

medium's

possibilities before

open

its

started

source

the movies themselves.

attuned to the dreams of the working-

their first audiences.

anyone

to

by running nickelo-

them

else did.

in part

The

They saw the new

film industry

because

it

was considered a

slightly disreputable novelty business.

now wanted was


They perceived

had been

What

they

to achieve culture as well as profit.

that this

meant moving away from

the kinds of cheap one-reelers the Edison trust

Key figures

in building

Paramount

Pictures

turned out. Paramount chief Adolph Zukor said of

Corporation were Adolph Zukor, seen

above as a 23-year-old furrier;

who perfornied

in vaudeville

the trust,

Jesse Lasky,

with his

sister

and Samuel

into their

mechani-

into their sales department, but never

by any chance into

their films."

Goldfish (right), later

Under

Goldwyn, who had been a glove salesman


but, after

and

cal devices

Blanche (below) before becoming a producer;

"They put some brains

producers, directors, writers, and

stars.

moved

to

became longer and

better,

and

marrying Blanche, helped form

the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play

Company.

It

Hungary

Pictures.

for

balmy

California, films

grew bigger and more luxurious.

theaters

risktakers

started small but thought very, very big.

Adolph Zukor was

New York

Production

was a time of rapid evolution, steered by

who

Paramount

these moguls, studios acquired stables of

in 1888.

a 15-year-old

He made

good,

orphan when he

first in furs,

left

then in nick-

elodeons. But despite his success with the movies, he recalled, "These short
films, one-reelers or less, didn't give

that

was going
In 1912

Queen

me

the feeling that this was something

to be permanent."

Zukor bought

distribution rights to a four- reel French film,

Elizabeth, starring stage legend Sarah Bernhardt.

showing that there was a market

Zukor chose

is

independent filmmakers,

tablishing a studio that he called, hopefully, the

28

success,

not ripe for feature pictures,

to join the ranks of

pany. For distribution, he signed

was a

for sophisticated, feature-length movies.

Since the Edison trust insisted the "time


ever will be,"

It

up with an

Famous

Players Film

outfit called

Paramount.

if it

es-

Com-

II

"[His]

li

C)

II

1.

C A N

1.

mind works with

the swiftness and

all

certainty of the

mind of

a Napoleon."
Newspaper description

of

Adolph

Zul<or,

1912

Left:

Sam

Goldfish,

Adolph Zukor, and

confer in 1916. Below:

Squaw Man,

Lasky's first film.

B. DeMille, reported
trust

Gunplay looms

and kept a

The

Jesse

in

Lasky

The

director, Cecil

death threats from the Edison

revolver

and a pet

wolf on location.

29

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

In 1916

Zukor merged

Man

was the

first

his studio with the Jesse L.

whose 1914

Company

Lasky Feature Play

feature-length western

wood and marked

The Squaw

hit

made

in Holly-

the debut of director Cecil B. DeMille.

Zukor soon clashed with and forced out Lasky 's brotherin-law and partner, Samuel Goldfish, winning control

first

of the studio and then of the distributor. Paramount.

Under

the overall

nation's largest

him

(left) slept little

and would

often

work for 24 hours at a

"the shark, the

the office every

built the

movie company. One acquaintance

other early moguls


His attention on business even during meals, mogul William Fox

name Paramount, Zukor

killer."

He dominated almost

called

the

all

and then outlived them, going

morning

until his final years

into

and dying

in

stretch.

1976

Fox.

at 103.

The

brash, overbearing,

and

indefatigable founder of

the Fox Film Corporation was William Fox, the oldest of


children of Hungarian immigrants.

school at age

1 1

He had

to leave

to support the family, since his

when

hard-drinking father did not, and

the elder Fox died, William spat


his coffin. In 1903,

24, he

arcade.

and

It

a friend

on

when he was
bought a penny

proved so lucrative that

thereafter he trained

all

his energies

on

the entertainment business.

Fox went on to buy and build fancy


theaters designed to

expand the appeal of

movies beyond working-class audiences. He

embarked on film production. His studio put

in 1914,

out dozens of westerns starring cowboy


big box-office
nal

also,

draw

for

Tom

Fox was Theda Bara

Mix. Another

(left),

the origi-

vamp, who steamed up the screen with a predatory

icism.

As the

erot-

studio's success grew, so did Fox's ambition.

According to his biographer, the novelist Upton

Sinclair,

Fox, like a latter-day Edison, "planned to get

the

all

moving

picture theaters in the United States under his control

Theda Bara,

costume

1917 film Cleopa-

Fox

star

tra,

played alluring sirens who seduced men, then destroyed them.

in risque

far the

think also that he planned to have the

own

pictures entirely in his

But

its

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

He took

that a

The

in

Justice

Locw s

and

Fox's loans

came

due.

He

established Universal Pictures

already middle-aged before he encountered

Laemmle had come

many

for

to

1:

c:

A N

II

1.

much

was

success in

America from Germany

as

went from one lowly job to

years

finally rose to

lost

Carl Laemmle

He

another.

violate antitrust law,

The man who

and

an auto accident

Universal.

a teenager

II

Inc.,

MGM as well as control of his own company.

Carl

out colossal

his shot at

life.

Department decided

merger of the two studios would

the stock market crashed,

months. Meanwhile, three ru-

for three

inous things happened:

studio. Just as negotiations

were closing, Fox was gravely injured

and did not recover

making of motion

loans to acquire another big movie company,

and

II

hands."

1929 Fox overreached.

in

manager of a clothing

store in

known

to

everyone at Universal as Uncle Carl-

had a lighthearted manner but was a

fierce business competitor.

Oshkosh, Wisconsin, but then he quarreled with the owner


and, at 40, found himself jobless again.

One

night in Chicago, however, he discovered his true

dropped into one of those hole-in-the-wall

calling. "I

cent

motion picture

"The pictures made

theaters,"

me laugh,

and the projection jumpy.

body

else.

knew

motion picture
In 1906

right

remembered.

though they were very short

liked them,

away

later

that

and so did every-

wanted

to

go into the

business."

Laemmle

to exhibitors.

Laemmle

five-

When

started a

company

that rented films

the formation of the Edison trust in

1908 threatened to ruin him, he decided to begin producing his

own

films,

IMP,

Company
feisty

forming the Independent Motion Picture


for short.

Laemmle proved

to

be the most

of the independents, lambasting Edison's group in a

vigorous advertising campaign while fighting off 289 separate legal actions

it

filed against

him. Meanwhile he enticed

"Biograph Girl" Florence Lawrence to join


lured her replacement at Biograph,
In 1912
to

form

full

Laemmle merged

IMP

and then

young Mary

Pickford.

his studio with several others

Universal, then drove off his

new

partners to gain

control of the company. Universal was successful from

Universal executives publicized the 1915 opening of their

new

Cali-

fornia studio by arriving from the East on this banner-draped train.

31

u#

*''^.

iiM,

Dining the shooting of


In Old Kentucky, Louis
B.

Mayer

(left)

in

1919 an independent
producer

takes a break

with his first big

star,

Anita Stewart, and di"


'

ansfmlK

^:

*^
J:
'

>/

**.

'i
I

^
i

-^

"1

Till

the beginning, and in 1915

it

its

own

acres, Universal City

his place

among

was Marcus Loew,

must be

Side.

Ambition

it,"

he

large

I-

1,

C:

A N

I-

enough

to

MGM's dominant

into poverty

on

was a byword

said, "as the

wolf

who

New York's
for

Loew. "You

licks his teeth

rabbit."

fellow furrier

Adolph Zukor

what grew

arcades, then in 1904 launched

theaters.

was

companies.

to achieve his goal

As a young man Loew joined


penny

rival

who had been born

as ravenous to reach

behind a fleeing

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the product

Like the other big studios,

Lower East

II

the studio moguls.

of the moguls' compulsion to take over


force

R T

post office and voting precinct. Without question, Carl

Laemmle had taken

MGM.

established a statc-of-the-arl studio north of

Hollywood. Sprawling over 230


be granted

To increase the supply of high-quality

to

in

running

be a mighty chain of

films,

he decided to go into

movie production himself

The second key


from

Russia,

down

figure at

Mayer got

MGM was Louis B. Mayer. An immigrant

his start in the

movie business by converting

a run-

Massachusetts burlesque house into a handsome cinema. In 1915 he

Theater magnate Marcus Loew was a superb

manager, whose operations one journalist Ul<ened


to "the

helped form Metro Pictures Corporation, then

making

wood

films

on

his

left

for California

maneuvers of a crack army

division."

and began

own. Mayer became a Holly-

legend: so sentimental that Lassie

made him

weep; so foul-tempered that he more than once

punched a

star in the snoot; so given to

pomp and

excess that he declared the Fourth of July his


birthday, claiming he could not

remember

birthday back in Russia, and every year led

own

his exact
all

of

MGM in a massive celebration whether primarily


of America's birthday or his

Completing

mous

pedigree was the irrepress-

Players- Lasky to start a

He and

his partner,

names

to call

it

tion,

and Goldfish

gave

it

to himself.

sive roster

ny

never certain.

Samuel Goldfish, who had gone on from Fa-

ible

last

MGM's

own was

as well,

famous

and

the

Goldwyn

liked the

at

Goldwyn

and he spent the

so well that he

built

up an impres-

Pictures,

rest

their

Pictures Corpora-

name

Although he

of talent

studio in 1916.

Edgar Selwyn, combined

for films such as

for

new

he was forced out of that compaThe

sleepy look of Metro's front office in 1918-

and

its

of his career as an independent producer,

Wuthering Heights and The Pride of the Yankees

such mangled metaphors, dubbed Goldwynisms, as accusing

coming years of box-office torpor

belie the studio's

eventual destiny as part of

moviemaking giant Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

33

34

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

directors of "biting the

hand

hi 1919

Loew purchased Metro

ration. Five years later

he folded

in

me

new

Pictures

Goldwyn

II

1-

<:

t-

1.

Pictures
for

soon renamed Metro-Goldwyn-

Mayer. In 1927

Loew

died of heart disease, before the

studio reached

its

make

Corpo-

studio,

glory days. But

li

out!"

and made Mayer head of filmmaking operations


the huge

I.

golden

that laid the

egg" and nixing a project with "hiclude

III

Mayer went on

to

MGM Hollywood's most prestigious film studio.

Warner Bros. There was

among

often

brotherly love

little

Harry, Abe, Sam, and Jack Warner.

sons of a Polish immigrant

first

The four

decided to try the


With leading

motion-picture business in 1903. They showed films in


a tent in their Youngstown, Ohio, backyard, then
a nickelodeon where Harry

and Abe sold

tickets,

Don Juan

opened

sound

in the

man

John Barrynwre seated

the 1926

movies

Warner

in the center, the cast

of

Bros, film that pioneered the use oj

assembles

for a celebratory portrait.

Sam

cranked the projector, and Jack sang between screenings.

They ventured
trust forced

into film distribution, but the Edison

them out of business, so

in

producing inexpensive movies. Profits were often


but the brothers refused to throw
years of scrambling they

in the towel,

melding

stride since the birth of the

elusive,

and

had accumulated enough

to try a revolutionary breakthrough

^Without a doubt the biggest

1910 they began

after

industry."

capital

film with

The Warners' assessment of the

talkie

synchronized sound. They obtained the major rights to a


system called Vitaphone and used

more
just

feature,

Don

in a

Juan. Although the

music and sound

The following

it

effects,

year, the

1926 John Barry-

movie had no

talk,

the audience was amazed.

Warners included fragments

of dialogue in The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson. Harry

"Who

portedly had doubts;


talk?"

he

said.

re-

the hell wants to hear actors

But the movie proved a sensation. Warner

Bros. Pictures rapidly built itself into a giant.

But as success arrived, what

little fi-aternal

harmony there

was disappeared. The day before The Jazz Singer debuted,


Sam, the family mediator, suddenly died. Somewhat

Abe pulled out of the


that

business,

and tensions grew so

Harry once chased Jack around the studio

lead pipe.

By the end the two

launched the

talkies,

active Warners,

lot

later

fierce

with a

men who had

were no longer speaking to each other.

Beneath an image ofAl Jolson


theater where the first talkie,

in blackface,

The Jazz

New

Singer,

Yorkers

premiered

swarm

the

in 1927.

35

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

Ince the Innovator


"W"

"T" hile the budding moguls at the top of the

% /%
T

/ movie industry assembled mammoth corporafilmmaking

tions,

was becoming increasingly

at the

nuts-and-bolts level

sophisticated.

neering work in production was done by


Ince,

who

an easterner

Born

in

Much

of the pio-

Thomas Harper

gained fame as a maker of westerns.

Newport, Rhode

Island, in 1882, Ince gave

up

playing the rear end of a horse onstage to join Biograph in

1910 as an actor,

later

becoming

a writer

and

director.

The

next year, he struck out for California to supervise the operations of the Bison

the popular but

still

Company,

a studio specializing in

crude genre of westerns. Bison leased

18,000 acres of land near Santa Monica, where Ince created


the standard industry practice of shooting ft-om detailed
scripts.

Bison also signed up an entire Wild West show win-

The show had authentic cowboys and

tering in the area.

dians, horses, steers,

His face a picture of determination, Thomas Ince was a trailblazer as


a

manager of studio operations and

creator of cinematic atmosphere.

and wagons. The cowboys not only

served as extras in Ince's oaters but also patrolled the


fences, ready to

In-

lot's

run off any Edison trust detectives.


Ince brilliantly exploited these assets.

had

He

a water supply system installed so his

employees could keep on shooting pictures


right

through the blistering summer. His stu-

dio buildings were designed so they could

double as exterior

sets.

Within a few years he

was overseeing eight directors and had more


than 500 people on his payroll, and the Bi-

son complex became

known

as Inceville.

In 1914 Ince launched the film career of

William
tor

who

S.

Hart, a trained Shakespearean ac-

loved the Old West and was commit-

ted to re-creating
sible.

it

as authentically as pos-

Handling a pair of sLx-shooters with

panache, Hart went on to star in westerns unThis 1918 view shows the filmmaking kingdom Ince ruled
buihiings

36

and

sets

studio

spread across a southern CaUfornia hmdscape.

til

1925. But the hard-driving Ince

far:

He had

had pushed himself too

died of an apparent heart attack a year

earlier.

Western
William

'III

r.

R T

II

or

C A N

III.

star
S.

Hart

1912 film Custer's Last Raid, luce employed

Sioux and more than a hundred others as ex-

Some had
when,

actually been present as

in 1876,

young boys

Sioux and other warriors wiped out

force led by General George

Armstrong Custer

the Little Bighorn.

"I

reckon God

wantin'

ain't

me much,

ma'am, but when


look at you,
ridin'

feel I've

the wrong

dialogue for William

trail."

S. Hart's

character

57

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

The

No

Clowns

Silent
one did more

to tickle the

funny bone of early

moviegoers than a one-time vaudevOlian named

Mack
stage for the

two years

Sennett. Sennett gave

movie business

work with

later to

graph, and tried his


pany.

own

He showed
in

hand

director D.

a genius for

Mack

Sennett (above, right)

of the hilarious Keystone Kops fihns


role,

doubtfully contemplating a

as the director

and producer

here appears in a comic acting

matchmaking

W.

Griffith at Bio-

comedy

so he went out

it,

films,

on

com-

his

working with a whole

among them

Fatty Arbuckle

galaxy of major comic talents


(below),

for the

1912 and founded Keystone Pictures. At Keystone

he would turn out some 900

famous

out for Hollywood

in 1908, set

at directing

New York

up the

Mabel Normand

(far right, bottom),

Ben Turpin

agency's services.

(page 41, bottom),


Like
pervising

Thomas

and Charlie Chaplin (page


Ince, Sennett

was a production whiz, su-

numerous one- and two-reel


ly.

In the early days

45, top).

films simultaneous-

he worked with rudimenta-

ry scripts, encouraging his cast to improvise


physical hilarity

on camera.

gan to plan out his films

in

Later he be-

more

detail.

The

essence of Sennett's comic style was slap-

stick

pies in the face,

with

cars,

and other

manic escapades
sorts of

madcap

goings-on. According to Holly-

^
,;

wood

lore, the

pie-throwing gim-

mick originated one day when

Lined up outside the Los Angeles studio of Keystone Pictures in


nett's

1915 are the

rolling

funniest scenes. The automotive

on the cars and risky for the

the irrepressible

props of some of Mack Sen-

actors,

grabbed a pie from some workmen

mayhem was murder

but audiences loved

who were

it.

Mabel Normand

at

having lunch and chucked

it

Turpin to loosen him up. Sennett

found the prank so funny that he made

Go

hire

some

girls,

any

it

girls,

a staple of his comedies.

Policemen were also a regular

so long as they're

pretty,

especially around the knees.

source of laughs. Sennett realized that

portraying

them

of authority

Mack

made them wonderfully

Sennett, on finding potential bathing beauties


Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle

38

as self-important figures

III

[;

1!

l-

II

(II-

AMERICAN

1.

a lypiail nioiiiciit of dcli^lttjul uuuhic<.<; a car full of Keystone

Kops

(left)

made

ii

nuishcd between two

his first

appearance as one

trolleys.

of the

Every

humbling

Seiiiiett

actor

officers.

f^\

'^s^'

JH,

Sennett's female extras, like those at right, sported bathing attire

that

was daringly skimpy for

beauties were the

its

time. Keystone bathing

pinup choice of many World War

I soldiers.

^-

^\

.11

In the 1919 film

Up

toward gunplay

(left).

in Alf's Place,

card playing takes a turn

In movie slapstick, bullets could fly

furiously without injury to any of the characters.

-A

J^

deliciously villainous

drives in a stake to pin

while

Mack

Ford Sterling

another Keystone

Mabel Norrnand

Sennett himself secures her

'T

star-

to the railroad tracks

legs (right).

jl^jwrr-

^\\-

i^:/

-^

39

'^^^^1

^1
llln a1^H
1

nil
,

v..

k!

1liin i1

ridiculous:
it,

"Wherever there

embarrass

from

endured mishaps,

left)

it,

and thumb

collisions,

and

their noses at

Kops (page

entertainingly inept Keystone

The

said.

llee

it,

li

II

t)

I-:

C A N

1-

1,

iVI

comics can embroil

dignity,

is

Till,

pratfalls

it,"

he

39, top

of every

kind. Keystone films also featured a host of bathing beauties

who

(page 39, top right),


to

be looked

An

who

all

to

work

Sennett

words, "around

while the comics are making funny."

was pioneered by Charlie

alternative to slapstick

Chaplin,

went

at

w^ere, in

learned his trade in British music


for Sennett in 1913 at

halls.

$125 a week

He

anci, like

Sennett actors, served a brief studio apprenticeship as a

Keystone Kop. But the slapstick-loving Sennett was, fundamentally, out of tune with Chaplin's style of
tle

characterizations

"made your

said,
ally

was allowed

and

comedy

sub-

Normand

a wistful sadness that, as

heart ache." So although Chaplin eventuto deviate

from the stock Sennett

didn't last long at Keystone.

trademark character the

By

Little

he

roles,

1916, having developed his

Tramp, he was making

$10,000 a week at the Mutual Film Corporation.


If

other silent-era comic actors couldn't quite reach

came

Chaplin's level of genius, they

close. Buster

Things have

Keaton

on for dear
(left),

somehow gone wrong again for Harold

life in

Lloyd, as he hangs

a famous scene from the 1923 film Safety

Last.

a veteran of vaudeville, created dazzling sight gags in

which he endured bizarre and often threatening situations


Diminutive Ben Turpin

with gloomy aplomb: In various films he soared skyward

was a

crossing

atop a runaway balloon, played solitaire in a sinking rowboat,

and

whose

regular in

Mack

eyes were insured against un-

Sennett's stable of comics.

lived inside a steamboat's paddle wheel.

Harold Lloyd gave comedy a note of realism. Horn-

rimmed

glasses

were the trademark of

earnest but hapless

young man. Lloyd

his usual role as

an

specialized in

predicaments that were extreme yet believable, such as

He had

the harrowing scene at right.

somewhat exaggerated
reality, as

for

doing

all

a reputation
his

own

stunts. In

a valuable box-office draw, at times surpassing

even Chaplin, he was held out of the riskier scenes in

fa-

vor of a stunt man.

In the film

One Week,

Buster Keaton

(left)

follows instructions for

putting up a prefabricated house, persevering in his long-suffering

way even though

the

components

of the kit are rnismarked.

41

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

D.

W.

Griffith

and The Birth


of a Nation

He

gave us the

grammar of film-

He understood

making.

the psy-

So

chic strength of the lens."


said actress Lillian Gish of
Griffith,
sial

who

David Wark

directed her in his controver-

1915 masterpiece The Birth of a Nation

and many other

pictures. Griffith did not

invent such techniques as closeups or

The

crosscutting, but in

Birth he used

them

more compelling

to

effect

than any American film-

maker had

before.

The son of a

mer

Civil

for-

War Confed-

erate colonel, Griffith

joined Biograph as a
director in 1908.

Over

the next five years he

made 400

films,

mostly one-reelers, for the studio, until

its

lack of interest in feature-length films

prompted him
in

to

go out on his own. With-

months, he began shooting The

Birth.

Blending grandeur and intimacy, the


film followed

two

families,

one Northern

and one Southern, through the

and Reconstruction
the longest

movie

scale, its narrative


its

42

eras.

yet

At

made

Civil

2 reels,

in

War
it

was

America.

Its

complexity, and especially

nuances of emotion were unprecedented.

D. W. Griffith gives instructions on the set of The Birth of a Nation. During the

shooting of some of the battle scenes,

liis

voice couldn't be heard over the noise even

through a megaphone, so he controUed the action by waving color-coded flags.

II

I-;

li

R T

1 1

I-

Acclaim came swiftly

F.

A N

C:

I'

I.

and so did out-

rage. Griffith presented equal rigiits For

and showed the Ku

blacks as dangerous

Klux Klan

(inset opposite) in a heroic light.

So powerful was the

KKK, defunct

since 1869,

Hgnant

1915

life

in

came back

in Atlanta,

premiere of The Birth as

The National

impact that the

film's

its

to

ma-

using the

inspiration.

Association for the Ad-

vancement of Colored People and prominent figures

like

reformer Jane

Addams spoke

out against the film. But most viewers were

simply awestruck.
in

New York,

It

opened on Broadway

playing to

theater ticket prices,

houses

full

and ran

for

at live-

44 weeks.

It

persuaded Americans to think of films as an


art form, not just

The next

an amusing novelty.

year Griffith produced an even

more complex

film. Intolerance.

The

lavish

three-hour-and-15-minute epic used


tings varying

from ancient Babylon

ern America to dramatize the

to

mod-

theme,

title

though one form of intolerance

set-

it

al-

failed to

address was antiblack racism. Box-office results,

although impressive, did not match

production

costs, a

Griffith's career

problem that dogged

untO he was

finally forced

out of the business

in the 1930s.

Three moments from

Griffith's

The Birth of a Na-

tion

demonstrate the

director's

mastery of action

and

his careful

composition of shots: a battlefield

closeup of the "Little Colonel," played by


B. Walthall (top); Confederate

clashing (center);

Henry

and Union forces

and John Wilkes Booth leaping

from a box at Ford's Theatre

after shooting Presi-

dent Lincoln. Griffith spent $100,000 on The


Birth of a Nation, a figure that seemed
until the next year,

when

his costs for

enormous

producing

Intolerance ballooned to two million dollars.

43

YEARS

10

The

I-

C)

I.

WO

15

Talent

Takes Over
Early

filmmakers refused to credit

actors

by name, fearing

that

fame

could lead to demands for higher


salaries.

When

removed, their

some.

the cloak of
fears

anonymity was

were realized

leader of the

upward

and then

salary spiral

was golden-curled Mary Pickford, who began performing

went on

in theaters at age six

and

to a blockbuster career in film roles

of innocent adorability. So powerful was


her childlike image that even

age 27 she

at

played a 10-year-old, the illusion aided by

on her

the use of oversize furniture

sets.

Pickford was canny and iron

In real

life,

willed,

and she negotiated her pay

stratospheric $10,000 a

week by

rate to a

1915. Char-

Bom

Gladys Smith

Her famous
lie

ringlets

in Toronto,

Mary Pickford became

ktiown as America's Sweetheart.

were augmented with hair bought from Los Angeles prostitutes.

Chaplin soon reached the same heights,

as did

Douglas Fairbanks, an acrobatic

swashbuckler and Pickford's future husband.


In 1919, to thwart a possible salary

squeeze by the big studios acting in unison,


Pickford, Chaplin,

and Fairbanks banded

together with director D.


their

own company.

uing to make big

W.

United

Griffith to

money

Artists.

form

Contin-

wasn't a bad idea,

and the new operation succeeded. But there


was

also

United

something to the

Artists'

integrity of the

terference
fi"ee

to

claim that

mission was to maintain the

filmmaking

art

without

in-

from greedy moguls. Chaplin was

spend several years on a single pro-

duction and to

resist talkies,

films until 1940.

And

making

silent

Griffith, at least for a

time, was permitted his

44

stars'

runaway budgets.

1917 look-alike contest

in Bcllinghatn,

Washington,

testifies to

Charlie Chaplin's

Till

So the

II

1-

I-

C A N

II

lunatics

have taken charge


of the asylum."
An executive's remark about
United Artists

Douglas Fairbanks, the

Sad-faced Charlie Chaplin


tle

Tramp adopts

immense

in

sits in

a doorway with Jackie Coogan, a waif

The Kid. Chaplin wrote and directed

popularity. His Little

Tramp

role

whom

the Lit-

the poignant 1921 comedy.

was widely imitated by other

actors.

agile hero of

numerous

historical

dramas, embraces a swooning Julanne

Johnston

in

The Thief of Bagdad, a 1924

hit.

I.

10

A R

!I

An

HOLLYWOOD

1-

Evening

at

the Movies
A

s salaries

and studios grew

to

monu-

mental proportions, movie theaters

^. were doing the same. A move to-

JL

ward opulence was

began

exliibitors in big cities

and deep carpeting

audiences.

A sumptuous

fitting

out

to attract upscale

3,000-seat picture

opened

palace called the Strand, for example,


in

New York

But

in 1914.

uel

as

oak panels, mir-

their theaters with marble,


rors,

by 1910,

in evidence

its

manager, Sam-

"Roxy" Rothapfel

had even grander

(inset),

visions.

In 1927 the city wit-

nessed the debut of the

Roxy

(right)

Rothapfel,

named

who had

for

spent

$10 million building what


he proclaimed to be the

The Roxy

largest theater in the world.

more than 6,000 viewers


comfort on red plush
with the

letter R. It

symphony

in air-conditioned

monogrammed

seats

housed a

orchestra, a

seated

10-piece

mammoth

pipe or-

gan that was played from three separate


consoles,

and a

fully

equipped hospital

case any patrons were taken

ill.

Sightlines

and acoustics had received meticulous


tention,

and

the ushers.
Picture, as

own

set

it

marine colonel trained

was dubbed, even possessed


bells.

dingy storefront, smoky

its

greater con-

old-time nickelodeon

wooden benches

46

at-

The Cathedral of the Motion

of cathedral

trast to the
its

a retired

in

with

interior,

and

could hardly have been

II

II

()

!!

A \

47

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

imagined. Roxy, one journalist declared, had


given the movies "a college education."

Glorious excess was breaking out


over. In

bottom

Los Angeles Sid


left)

Grauman

all

(opposite,

chose Spanish and Byzantine

design touches in 1918 for the Million Dollar Theater.

venue

He

in 1922,

built

an Egyptian-style

then in 1927 created his

masterpiece, the stunning 2,258-seat Chi-

on Hollywood Boulevard.

nese Theater

Seattle

movie palace

was modeled on the

(opposite, top)

royal quarters of the

Chinese emperors. The firm of Balaban


Katz gave Chicago theaters

an imitation

Versailles,

like

the Tivoli,

and advertised the


on

"intricacies of Eastern magnificence"

display at the Oriental. Balaban


aters

&

&

were adorned with towering

Katz theelectric

signs that could be seen for miles. Inside

were awe-inspiring mazes of vestibules, waiting rooms, promenades, lounges,


bies

and

the latter embellished, as in

all

lob-

picture

palaces, with vivid lobby cards advertising

the latest

Hollywood productions

(right).

Each of the theaters offered a playground


for children with a staff of nurses to

them while

watch

their parents enjoyed the movie.

This escalation of extravagance did not


always add

up

sound

to

financial practice,

and many of the theater palaces were absorbed by the big studios. Adolph Zukor

puUed Balaban

&

Katz into Paramount in

1925; William Fox took control of the over-

extended Roxy Theaters Corporation

in 1926,

before Rothapfel could even complete his


great showplace;

and by 1930 Sid Grauman

was a Fox employee. But

industry

that

was the movie

a business battlefield that resem-

bled nothing so

much

as a big-screen epic.

The

ceiling of the Fifth

Avenue Theatre

in Seattle copied

at double the size

Impresario Sid
(left)

movie palace

111

li

the vault of the imperial throne

t)

11

room

in Beijing's

L K

C A N

Forbidden

1.

City.

Grauman

created one

culminating

gaudy

after another,
in the

famous Chinese

world-

Theater.

f^ ALwAys-ToSiD

Los Angeles Times columnist wisecracked, ''Sid

go

but,

may

in for barbaric splendor,

anyway,

it's

splendor."

tradition at the Chinese

was for
prints

stars to leave their

and autographs

wet cement

in front

theater (right).

in

of the

|-)AMb/\wDFoor PrInTs-CJ.S.

49

10

A R

[;

OF H O

I.

WOO

I Y

Stars of the Silent Screen


he key to a
ized,

T^

was

silent film's box-office success, studios eventually real-

star power.

"You could take 1,000

in a chair," said a director,

eyes of the public,

near-mythic

status.

lived in a palatial

movie

Two

stars

of

feet

Norma Talmadge

"and her fans would flock to see

images hyped by

press agents

it."

In the

enjoyed

of the greatest, adored in America and Europe

alike,

Hollywood home. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks

struck Britain's Lord Louis Mountbatten as fellow nobility: "At the time of
their reign in Pickfair,"

and

in fact they

The

Mountbatten

behaved

in the

they were "treated like royalty,

said,

same

sort of dignified

public's fascination with stars

star's

behavior could stand up to such scrutiny, and

but her wild private

life

led

Fairbanks, both already married

Paramount

when

they

many a

repu-

was immensely pop-

to fire her.

fell

lives,

and gossip columns. But

tation suffered lethal damage. Clara Bow, for example,


ular,

that royalty did."

extended to their off-screen

giving rise to movie magazines, tabloid coverage,

not every

way

Even Pickford and

in love, feared the conse-

quences of divorce and remarriage.

No

sUent-era star could match the public adulation lavished

dolph Valentino. This

and cads

gangsters

men

Italian

immigrant made a

until his sinuous

on Ru-

living playing stereotypical

tango scene in 1921 's The Four Horse-

of the Apocalypse transfixed female audiences. His next film, The Sheik,

him

established

as the screen's first great "Latin lover."

Valentino blended dark good looks, physical grace, and erotic force in
a

way

that

made women swoon

his bracelets

And

and men

and cosmetics, one writer termed him

in his private life the great screen

manding. His
dured
bova,

all

first

wife refused to

all

paramour proved

consummate

when

suddenly of peritonitis.

mourners who swarmed


was so rampant

his funeral in

Among

nomenon

puff."

than com-

which en-

Ram-

at least

on

at the

peak of

the outpouring of grief

crowd and many were tram-

a dozen overwrought fans


first

of mass hysteria over a show-business

a flickering face

and

the 30,000 mostly female

New York,

mitted suicide. Valentino's death marked the

50

less

their marriage,

Valentino, 31

that police lost control of the

There were also reports that

power

powder

the lion's share of artistic control of his films.

sniping ceased in 1926,

his fame, died

pled.

a "pink

Mocking

of six hours. His next, set and costume designer Natacha

demanded

But

snort in derision.

a silent screen

com-

appearance of the pheidol,

demonstrating the

could have.

The

Sheik, Valentino

Agnes Ayres.

woos leading lady

"Women

are not in love

with me," he maintained, "but with


the picture of me on the screen."

.'A

'^^fej

'^

Bebe Daniels displays an extravagant costume from Cecil

B. DeMille's

II

II

()

i-

h K

C A N

1919 melodrama Male and Female, which juxtaposed ancient and modern

Sisters Lillian (left)

and Dorothy Gish won

critical

II

I.

scenes.

acclaim in Orphans of the Storm.

Fans copied the lavish on-screen wardrobe and


hairstyles

of movie queen Gloria Swanson. Mar-

riage to a French

marquis added

to

her glamour.

53

100

YF.

ARS OF

HOLLYWOOD

Lon Chaney, the "Man of a Thousand


HTjo Gets Slapped (right).
casts,

most notably

in

Faces," appears as a tragic clown in thefihn

Chaney portrayed a

The Hunchback of Notre

series

Dame and

Ramon Novarro, John

Three screen heartthrobs

three different movies

relax between scenes

In the 1920 version of Dr. Jekyll

tinguished acting clan

54

Gilbert,

on the

Tlie

Phantom of the Opera.

and Roy

MGM studio

the doctor

and

D'Arcy, costumed for

lot in this

and Mr. Hyde, John Barrymore

played both

He

of grotesque but sympathetic out-

1926 photo.

member of

a dis-

(above, right) his evil alter ego.

>
I

m^>

Shapin Worlds
on Film
THE HOLLYWOOD DIRECTOR

hat

is

drama,

bits cut out?"

also

knew

that building

Griffith's Birth

camera (page
at the

after

all,"

Alfred Hitchcock once remarked, "but

There was some truth

drama on

film

in that,

was anything but

with the dull

but as a movie director, Hitchcock

easy. In the

decades following D. W.

of a Nation, the 1915 masterpiece that demonstrated the evocative power of the

42),

movies grew into an immensely expressive

art,

with the director positioned

very center of the creative process. Although approaches to the job varied somewhat,

directors typically played a

So pivotal a

major

and camera

cisions about lighting

role naturally

role in casting, hired technicians,

angles,

and took

drew strong

hand

coached

ing boots

and wielded

on earth

a crop,

matters." Otto

slightest provocation,

and he once

personalities. Cecil B. DeMille,

told his

staff,

Preminger gained notoriety

for his tirades

tongue-lashing. Hitchcock referred to actors as being "like


directors

seemed

to

made

de-

Hollywood's long-

On

the set he wore rid-

"You are here to please me. Nothing

he would subject an offending actor or crew

The demanding ways of some

actors,

in the final editing.

time maestro of epics, popularized the image of the director as despot.

else

life

during shooting;

member

at the

to a highly public

cattle."

know no bounds.

Erich von Stroheim, the silent era's ultimate perfectionist,

became known

Austrian -born
for his

wars with

studio executives over budgets, schedules, and content. For his 1922 film Foolish Wives he

superb cinematic technician and an iirirelenting taskmaster on the

set,

British-born director Alfred

Hitchcock adopts an imperious look in a publicity shot for his 1960 classic of terror.

56

"

II iwiwimiHiiiiwimi

.rsoii

York

Welles emerges frot

taxi,

on

office receipts

his

way

to check box-

for his Citizen Kane,

based on the Ufe of media mogi

William Randolph Hearst.


I

^tnuu

,--'-

'IHbilN

/VKIH

;/

"V

2D<tel4MLE

^I

insisted that a tuil-size replica of the casinos

Carlo be built on the Universal


version erected

on the California coast

The

casinos from the ocean side.

show

to

II

I'

WO

('.

IDS ON

III

of Monte

He then had

lot.

second

the

same

film took a year to shoot

and ran 400 percent over budget. After

a colossal fight in

1922 with Universal's boy-wonder producer Irving Thalberg about those excesses, von Stroheim transferred his
talents to

Greed

MGM and began work on his trailblazing film

(right).

Two

years later he

he thought was the

final

MGM promptly gave


chopped

it

product

to a

in a graveyard,"
as released

is

eight hours long.

$30-a-week film

by three quarters.

it

handed the studio what

"It

was

like

cutter,

who

seeing a corpse

moaned von Stroheim, though

considered one of the silent

the film

era's greatest.

In the heyday of the studio system, the all-powerful

moguls were generally able to keep

their top directors in

check. Executives mustered the creative package of script,

In his 1925 film Greed, based on the


director Erich von Stroheim
ter,

dentist,

how

and

director,

and

shows an actor playing the

120-degree

in

title

charac-

a drugged patient. To achieve the realism

he wanted, von Stroheim shot on location

San Francisco and


stars,

to ravish

Frank Norris novel McTeague,

in

a boardinghouse in

midsummer

heat

in

Death

Valley.

films flowed out the studio doors

with businesslike efficiency. Michael Curtiz, a

Hungarian recruited by Jack Warner


directed

Warner

more than

hundred

in 1926,

pictures for

Bros, in almost every imaginable genre.

Though he complained

that

"Hollywood

is

money, money, money, and the nuts with


everything

else,"

some of the

Curtiz

managed

to create

of the studio

finest pictures

era,

including The Charge of the Light Brigade


{1936), Angels With Dirty Faces (1938),

ventures of Robin

Hood

mortal Casablanca

Other

(1938),

and

The Ad-

1942's im-

(right).

gifted directors

Howard Hawks,

Frank Capra, John Ford, and John Huston to

name

were

a few

also able to achieve creative

greatness despite the constraints of the studio

system. All were skilled at navigating the sharkinfested


style,

Hollywood

waters,

although they didn't

and each had a strong personal

like to talk

about

it.

When

The main characters

(Humphrey

style,"

that master scoffed, "I myself

haven't the vaguest idea." John Ford

Michael Curtiz's Casablanca

would not go along

Rick

Bogart), Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), Victor Lazlo (Paul

asked
reid),

about "the John Huston

in

and Captain Renault (Claude Rains)

stirring climax. Rick

manfully persuades

gather for

Hen-

the film's

his true love, Ilsa, to forget

about him and fly off with her Resistance-leader husband, Victor

59

100

YEARS or HOLLYWOOD

with anyone

who

tried to

coax out of him an explanation or even an ad-

mission of his genius. But his colleagues in the industry recognized that
Ford's

work was

a virtual encyclopedia of the film

medium. "Almost any-

thing that any of us has done you can find in a John Ford film," said director Sidney

Lumet. Frank Capra described Ford as a kind of apotheosis of

the profession: "half-tyrant, half-revolutionary; half-saint, half-satan; halfpossible, half-impossible

Orson Welles watched


40 times before starting his

but

all

director."

Ford's groundbreaking western Stagecoach

own

film-directing career with Citizen

1941 (page 58). Welles was just 26

at

cast

based on the H. G. Wells novel

Barbra

star,

tion of Martians landing in


Streisand, while shooting a

five decades,

Wyler adapted

many

stage productions to film. "I consider the first

function of a director

to

Tlie

Halloween eve broad-

earlier, in a

War

New Jersey was

of the Worlds, his dramatiza-

so convincing that

it

caused a

movie version of the

musical Funny Girl (1968). In a directorial career

spanning almost

in

the time but already a legend in the

worlds of theater and radio. Three years

William Wyler huddki with his

Kane

nationwide panic. For his baptismal film

unprecedented

artistic

Welles was given almost

effort,

freedom by RKO, and he used

it

to the fullest, de-

scribing the situation as "the biggest electric train set any

boy ever had."

be the acting," he said.

Functioning as writer, performer, and daring cinematographic experimentalist,

he crafted a film that combined newsreel tech-

niques with the

drama of a

detective mystery. Press

magnate William Randolph Hearst, who took offense


at

the lead character, an obvious

and

unflattering

version of himself, ordered his newspapers to snub the

fjg^glJHH
^^^^^H\1

film.

Thus

it

was a box-office disappointment, but

would be ranked by many

critics

the finest

it

American

movie ever made.


In the mid-

and

late

1940s

resentful of studio control,

films independently.

As one

critic later

It

many

leading directors,

began trying

to

produce

was often a draining experience.

wrote, "the studio chiefs created a

magnificent support system for directors," freeing them

from worries about financing and arranging


to

work with

familiar actors

and

for

them

crew.

As a new generation of directors came of age outside the studio system, creativity surged.

Helping dispel tension, John Huston mugs


cast during the filming of the
nie.
tors,

to his

1982 musical An-

Huston

the son of a film actor

a journalist, tried prizefighting,

and

worked

briefly

served as a cavalryman in the Mexican army.

60

took one of the oldest Hollywood genres, the gangster picture, into new

and more

Before joining the ranks of Hollywood direc-

Arthur Penn

brutal territory with his stunning 1967 film Bonnie

Sam Peckinpah

and

Clyde.

did the same for the western two years later with TJie Wild

as

Bunch. In terms of sheer range, no one outdid Stanley Kubrick,


the cast-of-thousands

Roman

who

filmed

epic Spartacus (1960), the stinging antiwar

tilni Pitllh

^1

/\

(,

O R

1.

1) S

ON

II

I.

of Clary (1957), the blackly humorous,

end-ot-thc-\vorld classic Dr. Stmiigclovc

breakthrough science

fiction film 2001:

1964), the

Space

Odyssey (1968), and the hair-raising social satire

Clockwork Orange (1971).

and

In the 1970s

own

superstars in their

emerged

'80s directors
right.

as

The names Steven

and George Lucas became syn-

Spielberg (right)

onymous with "blockbuster"

after Spielberg's

phe-

nomenal success with jaws (1975), Raiders of the


Lost

Ark (\98\), and

Star

Wars (1977) and

E.T. (1982),
its

sequels.

and Lucas's with

And

film audi-

new work by Woody

ences eagerly awaited each

Altman, Brian De Palma, Francis Ford

Allen, Robert

Coppola, and Martin Scorsese.


In Hollywood's early days, at a time

job because "he

a director his first

yells

when one

studio executive gave

women

good,"

hardly stood a

On

location in Poland, Steven Spielberg directs

Liani Neeson in the 1993

drama

Schindler's List,

which recounted the story of a German industri-

chance. But Dorothy Arzner defied convention

and masculine

prejudice,
alist

working her way up from

comedy

then directing a

on

script supervisor to editor to screenwriter,

called Fashions for

Bow and

to direct Clara

March

Fredric

Women
in

Paramount's

Colbert, Sylvia Sidney, Katharine

Crawford.

Much

later,

Hepburn, Rosalind

directing. In

woman

1976

to be

War

II

Italian

nominated

first

Campion's

script

make

and

Beauties,

New

a brilliant

Honor
fitting,

and

first

harrowing

Zealand-born Jane Campi-

haunting The Piano. Neither won, but

in 1993 for her

earned her a screenwriting award.

comeback with The

(1985),
since

and The Dead

Huston did not

and

'50s,

new

(1987).

The

title

of his

film tech-

John Huston,

Man Who Would Be King

(1975),

last

live to see its release. Earlier

remarked on the intimate connection between directors and

film

was

he had

their

work:

Penny Marshall reviews

Hanks on

the set of the

the script witli

1988 comedy

grossed more than $100 million.

"Each picture," he
of

lives

in his factory.

forays into

for a Best Director Oscar, for the

nology, one of the legendary directors of the 1940s

too

them

and Joan

(right),

Despite changing tastes and the challenges of mastering

all

the Nazis by employing

sound

filmmaker Lina Wertmuller became the

drama Seven

on was nominated

Prizzi's

more than a thousand Jews

She went

Russell,

Barbra Streisand, Penny Marshall

Jodie Foster were able to use their clout as actors to

made

from

shielded

The Wild Party (1929), and subsequently worked with Claudette

release.

'World

in 1927.

who

said, "is a

world unto

itself.

Tom

Big,

A former

which
televi-

Picture makers lead dozens


sion sitcom actress, Marshall launched her direct-

when each

life

for each picture.

picture

is

finished

And, by the same token, they perish a

and

that

world comes to an end."

little

ing career two years earlier with


Flash, starring

Jumpin Jack

comedienne Whoopi Goldberg.

6i

11

1'

C;

WO

1.

ON

1-1

Masters of the
Big- Budget Epic
A
/

showed

taste for spectacle

among

itself early

filmmakers, with Cecil

DeMille setting the pace for sheer directorial grandiosity. Pharaoh-

B.

.X-like, he ordered the construction of the largest set in

ry for his 1923 Technicolor epic

The Ten Commandments.

100

desert rose an ersatz ancient Egyptian city

studded with a million pounds of statuary.


chariots for the film

and assembled 3,500

He

feet tall,

also

extras

time.

Through the

DeMille continued to create epics

wrapped

olence but often neatly

making Gone With

the

Wind

700

feet

became

wide, and

for the

the biggest

for decades afterward,

invariably spiced with

romance and

vi-

in the cloak of a historical or Biblical event.

In 1939 director Victor Fleming followed the


in

In a California

and 5,000 animals

and

silent era

histo-

had craftsmen build 300

shooting. Studio executives were appalled, but the film

moneymaker of its

movie

same general

recipe

Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) scandalizes Southern


aristocrats

(right).

For a scene of Scarlett O'Hara


lett

wandering amid wounded and dying soldiers


Atlanta,
tras

Fleming had 1,600 bodies

800

and 800 dummies being rocked

by the extras

arrayed

in front

in Civil

War-ravaged

by leading the recently widowed Scar-

O'Hara (Vivien Leigh)

Victor Fleming's

in the Virginia reel in

Gone With

the Wind.

ex-

discreetly

of the meticu-

lously re-created Atlanta train station.


In the 1950s

and

'60s,

ing with TV, rolled out

Hollywood, compet-

new wide-screen

for-

mats such as CinemaScope and VistaVision.


Lavish productions like
Eighty Days

wowed

and Roman

(1953),

Ben-Hur
(

1963),

the

epics, including

in

The Robe

(1959), Spartacus (1960),

and DeMille's

final film, a

wildly popular remake of The Ten

ments. But there

World

audiences, as did a spate of

Biblical

Cleopatra

Around

was

Lawrence of Arabia

art, too.

Command-

In 1962's

(right), director

David Lean

captured the mystery and majesty of the


desert with a nearly silent, three-minute se-

quence:

Peter O'Toole as Lawrence of Arabia leads a

tiny speck

on the horizon grows

draws closer and closer until


ing toward the viewer

it

into a swirl of dust that

reveals itself as a

pure cinematic magic.

man on

camel gallop-

charge across the desert. Director David Lean's


choice of the little-known Irish actor for the role

was seen as

risky but

proved

brilliant.

63

I")t(cfc

Soup

Gr^^^^arx cavorts

levy of beauties a:^Rufui

T.

cally iiicotnpetcnt ruler

Fin

of Frei

S II

1'

Ci

WO

II

ON

I,

A Range of
Comic

Flavors

the depths of the Depression, a

In

to

sweep

all

comedy came along

the major Oscars. Frank Capra's

pened One Night (1934) featured Clark Gable


tough-as-nails reporter in pursuit of a

played by Claudette Colbert.


the story, not the

girl,

The

as a

heiress

reporter thinks he wants

but Cupid launches his arrow

mismatched couple, and

at

the

hilarity reigns as the sexes battle

romp put

against the inevitable. Capra's


into the

runaway

Hap-

It

Hollywood pantheon

several scenes

including one

in

which

Gable makes a mocking nod toward modesty by hanging


a blanket

on

a clothesline to separate his

bed from Col-

cabin they're forced to occupy, and a hitch-

bert's in the

hiking sequence in which Colbert shows that a leg works


better than a
It

thumb

if it's

comely female.

Happened One Night inaugurated the genre of

comedy described

movie

as "screwball"

baseball pitch that darts


in a

on

refers to

and dips

in

term drawn from a

In Bringing

unexpected ways and

find themselves facing an ill-tempered double of the tame leopard

zany goings-on. These celluloid cock-

Up

Baby, Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant (top)

they have been pursuing. Their director,

created westerns,
tails

combined fast-paced banter with themes

Shakespeare

and abrupt
in 1938

and

who

mistaken

reversals of fortune.

with

center).

identities, the battle

Howard Hawks's

Gary Grant played

finds himself

mantic melee, cars are


a rock,

Howard Hawks

(above),

as well as comedies.

of the sexes,

Up Baby

^^4,

.^jiiifcj^^KA__.

(right, top

_.

-.

^^r^Ml^j^HK^

tweedy paleontologist

mixed up, much against

Katharine Hepburn as a ditzy

beaned by

and war films

as old as

The genre reached a peak

Bringing

thrillers,

his will,

socialite. In the

with

ensuing ro-

stolen, clothing torn, a lawyer

is

^VHHH

and the reluctant Grant ends up chasing

V-'^^^

a leopard through the Connecticut woods.

The Marx Brothers perfected


brand of comedy

Duck Soup.
rattling,

their

own

inimitable

in chaotic confections such as 1933's

In this send-up of diplomacy

and saber-

Groucho played the newly appointed

mk

ruler of a

spencer Tracy busses Katharine Hepburn in George Cukor's witty

country called Freedonia, with brothers Chico as minister


of war, Harpo as his chauffeur, and Zeppo as his secretary.

romance Adam's

Rib,

which locked them, as prosecuting and de-

fense attorneys, in a courtrootn battle of the sexes.

65

V.y

J^

As Freedonia lurches into war with


relaxes with a

game of jacks.

1'

N G

VV

C)

R L

C)

Groucho

fictional neighbor, Syivania,

In a classic secjuence that required perfect

comic timing, Harpo dresses up


fearless leader that he's

its

Groucho and

like

tries to

convince the

gazing into a mirror. Duck Soup's director, Leo

McCarey, also worked with such icons of comedy as Harold Lloyd, Laurel

and Hardy,

Mae

West, and

W.

C. Fields.

Comedies directed by Preston Sturges wryly toyed with American


dreams of wealth and fame. In Christmas
Powell believes his

life

in July (1940),

has changed forever

contest, only to discover

after a wild

young Dick

when he wins $25,000

spending spree

in a

that he's not the

winner he thought he was. Sturges's bubbly Palm Beach Story (1942)


starred Claudette Colbert as a beautiful
failures

young wife disappointed by the

of her inventor husband, played by Joel McCrea. Fleeing to Flori-

da, Colbert

encounters a trainful of wacky millionaires, including the

Preparing
Billy

ultrawealthy but penny-pinching oil king

crooner Rudy Vallee. Just

when

it

J.

ihaot a scene with Jack Leniinon,

to

Wilder

strolls the set

oflrma La Douce, a

D. Hackensacker, played by
1963 comedy

seems that Colbert might snag the rich

gendarme

about a Paris prostitute

lover,

who has

to

wear

and her

disguises be-

hubby of her dreams, love-starved McCrea shows up, and she has second

cause he

thoughts about joining the ranks of the lunatic

Vienna-born Wilder won two Best Director Oscars.

Some

rich.

is

also her pimp. In a long career, the

of Hollywood's greatest ac-

Katharine Hepburn and SpenTracy among them did

tors

cer

their best

comic turns under the direction of

George Cukor. Despite the success


of Bringing

Up Baby,

the outspoken,

independent-minded Hepburn was

re-

garded as box-office poison until Cukor


helped rehabilitate her career with Holiday (1938)

and The Philadelphia Story

(1940). In 1949

Cukor paired Hepburn

with Tracy as a battling couple of married attorneys in

and three years

Adam's Rib (page

later

a top female athlete


in

65),

they returned as

and her manager

Pat and Mike. Their on-screen chem-

istry,

sparked by an off-screen romance,

became the

Co-workers on a

stuff of film legend.

Billy

Wilder

(right, top),

known

for such

bumpy road

The Apartment, Jack

Wilder's

to love in Billy

Lemmon

rides with

dark dramas as Double Inelevator operator Shirley MacLaine. Ambitious

demnity and The Lost Weekend, also wrote or directed some sparkling

comedies from the 1930s to the '60s

Ninotchka (1939), The Major and

Lemmon
trysts

lends his apartment to his bosses for

until

one of them uses

it

with MacLaine.

67

)inkW'

^tA

wi"

"-ywite

4^

Actor-director

matozoon

in

Woody Allen, costumed


bit

from

as a sper-

the outrageous Every-

thing You Ahvays

Wanted

(But Were Afraid

to

to

Know About

Sex

Ask) (1972), awaits with a

tubcful of comrades the critical

moment

of launch.

Minor (1942),

the

Stala^i 17 (1953),

The Apartment (page


in the

67). His

The Seven Year

luii

1959 smash Some Like

Roaring Twenties, featured Ibny

Cairtis

and

ll

Jack

1955),

an

all-girl

66j, set

Lemnion

as jazz

itself,

reached

sie (right), in

in love

full

comic flower

clothes to get a

with his female costar,

that he's really a


falls in

ade,

I'

(I

C)

I,

I)

C)

I,

women and

join

definition of sex-

1982 with Sydney Pollack's Toot-

in

which Dustin Hoffman plays an obnoxiously touchy actor

who dons women's


fall

band, where they encounter the ravishing Marilyn Monroe.

The cross-dressing theme, which made sport of the


uality

II

and 1960's

Hoi (page

musicians who, to elude mobsters, disguise themselves as

man

while her

TV

soap opera

who

part.

He proceeds

to

does not know, and can't be told,

father, equally

ignorant of the masquer-

love with him.

Just as screwball

comedies humorously reflected Depression -era con-

cerns with money, class,

and

status, the

comedies of Woody Allen

(left)

In drag as soap opera star ''Dorothy" in Tootsie,

"Life is divided into

the horrible and the

So you should be thankful

miserable

Dustin Hoffman (above, right) chats with

Lange, playing an actress friend. The director,

Sydney Pollack (below), worked


years before trying his

you're miserable.'
Woody

Allen, in

Annie Hall

captured the big-city neuroses of the

won

20th century. His Annie Hall

the Best Picture Oscar for 1977 (along with Best Director

Screenplay) with

its

bittersweet tale of

played by Allen and Diane Keaton,


Allen's

but

late

two

who

angst-afflicted

meet,

fall in

Manhattan (1979) played the same themes

still

hilarious

way, and

his

Hannah and Her

love,

in a

and Best

New Yorkers,
and

split

up.

more poignant

Sisters

(1986) delved

even deeper into the urban psyche without losing any of the laughs. Hip

but worried, smart but self-absorbed, forever obsessed with sex, Allen's
leading characters

often just reflections of himself

phisticated terrain of
galleries,

Though
heiresses

Manhattan

inhabited a so-

restaurants, loft apartments, art

and, perhaps most important, psychoanalysts' offices.


far

from the mainstream, these urbanites,

and plutocrats of the screwball 1930s

films,

struck a chord with viewers as they acted out their

version of the universal

human comedy.

like

the

Jessica

hand

in television for

at movies.

r-iwr!^^-.-r'/.Ai;ii;j_.i_p^ jc

At

the

end of John

Ford's

1956 western The

Searchers, John Wayne, as a rootless Civil

War

veteran, walks into the wilderness.

Wayne

Taut Tales of

II

1'

C,

IDS ON

III M

teamed up with another master of the genre,

also

loward

lawks, lending an unsettling dimension to

Hawks's Red River (1948) as the ruthless

the Frontier

leader of a cattle drive.


Several directors have been fasci-

More

than any other film genre, westerns seemed

quintessentially American, harking back to the

pioneers
challenging landscape
eties in the process.

typal

who

and wiped out ancient

it

only

when

laconic, self-reliant,

necessary. In

native soci-

good with

who

reluctantly takes

George Stevens's

up arms

and

the

to rescue

Amid

Sam Peckinpah upended


ern's

Wild Bunch (page

the frontier

male world.

male archetypes
(page 72).

in his starkly

Gary Cooper

is

these male

drawn 1952

classic.

a sheriff about to

guns and marry a beautiful Quaker, Grace

fe-

offered

no

72).

The hyper-

set in 1913,

had been tamed

gang of killers

as the film's hit

The
and

feel

gunning

theme song put

director

of the

is

for

it,

most responsible

classic

western was

John Ford, creator of My


Darling Clementine

1946)

and Fort Apache (1948).


Ford established

his style

in Stagecoach (inset), shot in

1939 in

Monument Valley,

Utah,

where outsize geological formations dwarfed the characters while

giving their struggles an epic scale.

Stagecoach featured John

Wayne, whose gruff strength


suited Ford so well that

the pair (right)

worked

together for decades.

"

his

When

he

him, he must choose,

'tween love and duty."

for the look

depicted some 200

1992 Clint Eastwood's unflinching Unforgiven


heroes, only killers dueling to the death.

Film icon John Wayne stands with the master of the western, John
Ford, during the shooting of The
(1962). Ford directed his first

learns a

long after

High Noon

hang up

Kelly.

killings. In

and

the west-

conventional morality with The

female leads, by contrast, were often schoolmarms or other

Zinnemann explored

Sundance Kid (pages 72-

the turmoil of the late 1960s,

violent film

Director Fred

Butch Cas-

73) romanticized the two outlaws as

homesteaders ft-om a vicious gang, then moves on. Western

gentle tamers, bringing order to the unruly

Hill's

knights of a dying frontier realm.

1953 film Shane, for example, Alan Ladd plays a nomadic

former gunfighter

Old West. George Roy


sidy

These movies helped create an arche-

American male hero:

gun but using

built a civilization in a vast,

nated by the theme of the end of the

western back in 1917

and played

the lead.

Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

:.

YEARS OF

H O

I.

I.

Y VV

O O U

Abandoned by fearful townspeople.

Sheriff Will

Kane (Gary Cooper)

faces a

gang of

desperadoes in High Noon. The story reflected the travails of the screenwriter, Carl Fore-

man, who had been a victim of the anti-Communist purge

Blood-spattered Ernest Borgnine

Sam

and William Holden

Peckinpah's grim, gory western The Wild

trayed the West as the

troops, outlaws

Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) go out

72

of

Hollywood

take cover during a gunfight in

lived

and died by

Butch Cassidy (Paul

in a blaze

in the 1950s.

(1969). Peckinpah (right) por-

domain of amoral antiheroes who

Surrounded by Bolivian

1969 mixture

Bunch

in

the gun.

Newman) and

of glory. George Roy

the

Hilt's deft

humor, romance, and adventure became a popular and

critical hit.

'^

^
^,

'

II

A P

{,

WO

1.

ON

II

I,

Common

The

Man

Hero

as

string of

memorable movies

T^he
made by Frank Capra
1930s and
including Mr.
(left)

in the

'40s

Deeds Goes

to

Town, Meet John Doe, and

a Wonderful Life (right)


ingly original style

the director's

critics

a strik-

and personal stamp

own name became an

The term "Capraesque"

tive:

it,

bore such

and even

(or, as

a self-mocking

that

adjec-

some

Capra put

"Capracorn") v^as used to describe

umph

It's

tri-

over long odds by an ordinary citizen.

Capra himself might have represented

Dissuaded from suicide by an angel

Stewart) rediscovers the joys of his family in

1946 fable about the goodness of the


the

American dream. He arrived

nia

from

Italy in

1903

at

age

in Califor-

six, later

after a business disaster,

it

It's

a Wonderful

common man

George Bailey (James


Life.

The heartwarming

did poorly when

first released,

was Capra's favorite film and eventually became a Christmastime

staple

but

on TV.

sup-

ported his immigrant family with odd jobs,


put himself through college, got into movies
as a lowly film processor,

become

the

and went on

most popular

to

director of his

winning three Oscars.

day,

Idealism was a Capra signature, perhaps


purest in his 1939 film Mr. Smith

seen at

its

Goes

Washington.

to

When Jimmy Stewart,

playing a scoutmaster turned freshman senator, filibusters

on the

ate (right) to the point

and

to

floor of the U.S. Sen-

of physical collapse

uhimate victory over government

corruption

it

was one of the most un-

abashedly patriotic, sentimental, and emotionally powerful scenes in

movie

history.

Capra had evoked an America where the


tle

lit-

guy can, by decency and strength of will,


Gesturing with a book containing the Declaration of Independence,

prevail over the

powers of greed and veas a youthful, idealistic

nality.

The Depression-era audience, dab-

bing away

tears,

loved

it,

as did the critics.

newcomer holds

mactic filibuster scene in

Mr

Jimmy Stewart

the floor of the U.S. Senate during his

Smith Goes

to

cli-

Washington. Stewart had a doctor swab

his vocal cords with a caustic solution so his voice

would be suitably

raspy.

75

"SS^ifci,

r^-/

S II

I'

(i

()

I)

I.

ON

II

I,

Journeys into

Gangland
Growled

threats,

of sirens

storms of gunplay, and the screech

terrified

and

thrilled audiences in the

wave of gangster

early 1930s as a

films took

America on a tour of the underworld. Warner Bros,

way when production chief Darryl

F.

led the

Zanuck took note

of newspaper stories about big-city gang wars and called

based on the headlines. To lend authenticity

for pictures
to their

productions, Warner Bros, and other studios

hired streetwise crime reporters

among them

Edward

the illustrious Ben Hecht

to spin out scenarios

in

Little

and fast-paced

G. Robinson guns

Warner

rected by

violent picture of the period, Scarface, di-

Howard Hawks, was modeled

after the life

Chicago mobster Al Capone, with Paul Muni

Another Hollywood tough guy, George

role.

Caesar (1930), directed by Mervyn

of

in the lead

ences with
is

peared as Muni's henchman. But the two actors most

With

his

swagger and his

nited the screen

Enemy
It

(left),

recounted

when,

flair for

in 1931,

directed by William

how Cagney 's

mesmerized audi-

cornered by cops at

When Robinson

its

conclusion, he

"Come and get me!" Af-

performance playing Rico

re-

Bandello, Robinson struggled for year,

sponsible for defining the image of the screen gangster


(right, top)

bloody than some

grimness.

its

defiantly yells,

Raft, ap-

less

successors, the film

ter his vivid

were Edward G. Robinson

a joe

dialogue.
LeRoy. Although

The most

down

Bros.' first gangster picture,

to escape

being typecast as a mobster

and James Cagney.

tough

Cagney

talk,

he appeared

Wellman

in

The Public

(right,

youthful character,

ig-

bottom).

Tom

Powers,

William Wellman, director of The Public Enemy, had tough-guy credentials himself

A former professional

hockey player, he joined the

French Foreign Legion

and earned an
fell

into a

life

of crime and thrived

at

it,

at

one point

ridi-

culing his hardworking brother thus: "Aw, that sucker

too busy going to school. He's learning

Though crime

how

he's

to be poor."

ultimately did not pay in these films,

Depression-era audiences, buffeted by economic forces be-

yond

their control, often cheered the

who outsmarted

the law

and

bad guys

polite society to

get fancy cars, fancy clothes, fancy apartments,

and fancy dames. Gangster

films, in fact, repre-

sented a low point in Hollywood's depiction of

women. Cagney,

for example,

the scene in Tlie Public

became famous

Enemy

in

for

which he angrily
;

a grapefi"uit half into the face of his moll, played

in

World War

aviator's wings.

Clarke, win) ciidLiicd slaps, kicks,

The

who

drew

films

criticism

and shoves

in

I'

c;

R L

(1

I)

ON

I.

other gangster movies as well.

and

politicians,

young people toward

criminality.

this pressure the studios altered

the virtues of hard

from censors,

feared that they were influencing

Under

sociologists,

course and began to emphasize

work over the appeal of the tough-guy

lifestyle. In

V!(i-

^^-

films such as

"G"

Men

(1935), the cops

became

good guys

all- American

.:

underworld. In 1938 Cagney

in a life-and-death struggle against the evil

and Warner
gels

Bros, cinematically atoned with the Michael Curtiz film

An-

With Dirty Faces. Cagney played the vicious mobster Rocky Sullivan,

regarded as a hero by the boys in his old slum neighborhood

to the

dismay of Catholic
priest Jerry

Connelly

(Pat O'Brien), Rocky's

boyhood
Rocky

is

pal.

When

condemned

to

die in the electric chair.

Father Connelly makes


a

death-row plea

the

killer.

priest's

to

Taking the

appeal to heart,

the sneering, cocky

Cagney marches

to-

ward the execution


chamber, then suddenly pretends to break down, transforming himself into
a sniveling,

weeping coward. His supposed emotional collapse

by assembled

who do

reporters,

not

know

of

its

next day the kids in the slums read the headline

and

crime not only doesn't pay,

realize that

it

80),

"ROCKY DIES YELLOW"

doesn't

make

heroes.

nie Parker. Starring

away
ally

Faye

and

in a tide

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway

old-style

movie

star allure,

(inset)

Clyde, based

all

(left),

and then seemed

though some viewers

of blood

or not, had glamorized crime

Dunaway

and

murky

robbery-and-murder spree of Clyde Barrow and Bon-

real-life

brimmed with

to the

but in 1967 director Arthur Penn

revived the genre for a hyperviolent farewell in Bonnie

on the

witnessed

redemptive purpose. The

During the next decade, the gangster picture gave way


world of film noir (page

is

felt

the film
to

wash

it

that Penn, intention-

over again.

writhes under the impact of bullets in the harrowing climax of Bonnie

Clyde. Arthur

Penn (above) filmed the scene as a slow-motion dance of death.

79

Dark Films About


Dark Deeds
ilm noir

a genre

came from French

F\

whose name, meaning


critics

was soaked

born of the Depression and World War

"black,"

cynicism

in

Populated

II.

by cigarette-puffing hoods and sensuous femmes

domain of cheap

and nighttime

hotels

more than disappointment and

little

Noir directors created a

city streets

and

Tuttle
role.

starring Alan

deep shad-

style that featured

Gun for

promised

the double cross.

ows, stark angles, and a sense of menace.

of the form was This

fatales, its

An

example

early

Hire (1942), directed by Frank

Ladd

hallmark tough-guy

in a

pair of 1944 noir classics featured Fred

MacMurray

playing against type as a slick insurance salesman lured


into

murder

as-nails

Wilder s Double Indemnity and a hard-

in Billy

Dana Andrews

(left,

Preminger. Novelist James

bottom) in Laura, by Otto

M.

Cain's steamy Jlie

Postman

Always Rings Twice was the basis for Tay Garnett's 1946
masterpiece. French-born Jacques Tourneur's

Out of the

Past (1947) starred the inherently noir Robert

Nothing was straightforward

Mitchum.

in the noir world.

Time

was fractured into frequent flashbacks, and plots were


Above: Noir posters promise gritty atmosphere and tawdry
Below: In Laura,

Dana Andrews

gates the suspicious hut aUuring

sex.

as a homicide detective interrotitle

filled
left

with red herrings and unexpected twists that often

the audience off-balance

and uneasy.

In John Huston's

character (Gene Tierney).

The Maltese Falcon


Spade, played by

to

something about

Bogart, acts not out of hero-

some world-weary

man's partner
it. It

is

Sam

hard-boiled detective

Humphrey

ism but according

"When

(right),

killed he's

doesn't

private code:

supposed

make any

to

do

difference

what

you thought of him, he was your partner and you're supposed to do something about
in true noir fashion,

As gumshoe Sam Spade


Maltese Falcon,
Greenstreet

8o

and

it."

The meaning of

it all,

remains impenetrable.

in

John Huston's 1941 noir tour de force The

Humphrey Bogart

vies

with poiuierous Sydney

sniveling Peter Lorrc over a

gem-studded

statuette.

^i#til

<i^A
^*<lv^

W^

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

Gritty Portrayals

of City Life
A
/
-A-

America grew increasingly urbanized

War

JL

and sometimes even the

They expanded genres


works

film noir into

and often

textured,

World

directors turned their attention to cities as

II,

the settings,

their films.

after

more

that were

far

more

gangster movies and

more

realistic,

richly

violent than the movies of the

Kazan

1930s. Their goal, as director Elia


get poetry out of the

like

subjects, of

common

(left)

put

it,

was "to

things of life."

Kazan was the pioneer of a new naturalism based on


location shooting,

on long shots and

takes, and, especially,

on the psychological exploration demanded by Method


ing.

This technique, derived from the work of Russian stage

director Konstantin Stanislavsky,


Elia

Kazan demonstrates emotion on a

out the best in his


that

cast,

Kazan

set.

master at bringing

directed 21 actors in performances

drew Academy Award nominations,

resulting in nine Oscars.

was taught

Group Theatre and Actors Studio

ing actors, Kazan brought the

Method

at

to

Hollywood

member

more than a

recorder, ifs a microscope.

theater

of the

but had quit

Communist

when

takeover of the

and you see

it

goes

their

people

Party in the early 1930s

party bosses ordered a

Group Theatre. Much

Kazan, 1981

Communist

later,

during the

most

private

Cold War, he ap-

peared before the infamous House Un-American Activities

Committee, admitting

ship and

whose
Elia

It

into

and concealed thoughts."

a pariah

and movie people. He had been

controversial red-hunting days of the

penetrates,

in the

1940s and changed film acting styles forever.

among many

is

'40s,

A genius at inspir-

Kazan himself, however, soon became

"The camera

New York's

1930s and

in the

when Kazan was working on Broadway.

late

act-

his

own

past party

naming former Communist

member-

colleagues,

some of

careers were ruined as a result. Excoriated as

who had

betrayed friends to a witch hunt, he said, "Any

time you hurt people, and


don't like

one

it."

did hurt

some

people, you

But then he pointed to those friends' con-

tinuing silence in the face of Stalin's murderous dictatorship

and

said,

"I'm glad

Perhaps because of
masterpiece,

82

On

was on the other

side."

this experience, Kazan's

the Waterfront (right),

is

1954

a study in the

In scenes

from

corruption

Elia Kazan's

and

On

the Waterfront, ex-boxer Terry

betrayal (top); staggers under a

mob

Malloy (Marlon Brando) hears

beating (bottom

left);

and

strides past

his brother,

S II

I'

CharUe (Rod

(,

VV t)

I.

1)

ON

Steiger), confess his

once hostile fellow dockworkers (bottom

II

1.

own

right).

83

m
Hustlers Dustin

Hoffman

and Jon Voight face a frigid

New

York wind together in

John Schlesinger's Midnight

Cowboy. The fihn's raw subject

matter drew an

later revised to R.

X rating,

The black-and-white

ambiguities of betrayal.

Academy Awards,

New

around
loy,

among

under pressure from

own

punishment
integrity.

act of

informing

Academy of Motion

would

crisis

C)

1,

1)

C)

I-

1.

when

of conscience:
cioing so

would

"They always

tell

girl

is

he

loves,

another his

ostracism; his reward

me

is

I'm a bum," he says.

to

make more superb movies, but because of

in 1952,

even a special award given him by the

man who had

and Sciences almost half a century

later

admitted he was one of Hollywood's greatest

all

forged a

later say, "revealed

his

new

something

di-

acting style that, as Martin Scorsese


in the natural

Chicago-born Wiliiain Friedkin began working


in

TV while

still in

his teens.

He

later directed

more than a dozen

films, ranging from the fluffy

rock-and-roll flick

Good Times

to the

behavior of people
about gay

that

a priest, but only after several

for informing

Picture Arts

was controversial. Yet


rectors, a

(,

bum."

ain't a

Kazan would go on

own

even those being exploited by the crooks.

one victim the brother of the

brother. His

his gangster acquaintances,

his peers,

his choice

mob murders

"Well,

York harbor. Us inarticulate longshoreman hero, Terry Mal-

be anathema

belief in his

explores gangster control ot dockworkers' unions

whether to inform on

own

which won eight

lihn,

played by Marlon Brando, taces an agonizing

He makes

S II

life

The Boys

in the

daring film

Band.

hadn't seen on the screen before: the truth behind the posture."

The new
the '60s

and

permeated urban films of

style

'70s,

such as British director

John Schlesinger's

Hollywood movie.

first

Midnight Cowboy. This was the


drifter,

played by Jon Voight,

New York

to hustle rich

tled himself

streetwise

man

who

of a Texas

arrives in

women and

for $20by a

con

tale

is

hus-

sickly, repulsive,

with the memorable

name

of "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman)

(left).

The young Texan,

instead of getting re-

venge, develops a protective affection for the

doomed

Ratso.

The

layered, sensitive perfor-

mances Schlesinger drew from


ing both laughter
three

and

tears,

his stars, evok-

earned the film

Academy Awards.

fast-moving documentary style and

a lengthy,

pulse-pounding car chase

William Friedkin

(right, top) a

Oscar for the 1971


nection (right),

thriller

won

Best Director

The French Con-

which pitted

New York

cop Popeye Doyle against an ur-

bane European heroin smuggler, Alain Charnier. Friedkin's direction

Marseilles hit

man

is

gunned down by

New

York cop Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) after a


spectacular car chase in The French Connection.

85

100

YEARS OP HOLLYWOOD

Hackman

helped evoke a superb performance from Gene

as Popeye, de-

spite the liberal actor's disgust for the bigoted, racist, dishonest but dedi-

cated character he portrayed. But the film, as Friedkin said and showed,

was about "that thin

line

between the policeman and the criminal."

Although Friedkin would have another

with the horror

hit

The Exorcist (1973), he was eclipsed during the decade by

young new

directors, including

thriller

group of

George Lucas (page 132) and Steven

Spielberg (page 108). All had been fascinated by film since childhood,

all

possessed encyclopedic movie knowledge, and most trained at university


film schools.

The two most attuned

urban American scene

to the harsh

were Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.


In

Hollywood Coppola was

rected his

first

man

of

many

through
Robert

Martin

and

De Niro

as Jake

Scorsese's

LaMotta

takes a

punch

on the

set

of Taxi Driver;

De

Niro played a Vietnam veteran driven homicidally


over the edge by the corruption of New York

di-

and founded

as a director

own

his

science fiction film

first

production company. His big break-

was The Godfather (1972). With

a large cast of fu-

in

Raging Bull (above). Below, actor

director confer

By the time he

big-budget movie he had already shared a Best Screenplay

Oscar for Patton, produced George Lucas's

THX-1138

parts.

ture stars

and Marlon Brando

overnight

classic, effortlessly

in the title role (right),

characters of those

who

became an

balancing the vicious world of organized

crime, the ethnic family values within

life.

it

and the deeply

it,

realized, tragic

shared those values.

Of this almost mythic

film

and

Coppola's colleague Martin Scorsese

Morte

like epic poetry, like


is

like

some guy on

Scorsese grew
spired by the

up

d'Arthur.

its

sequels,

said, "It's

My stuff

the street corner talking."

New York's

in

Little Italy. In-

power and honesty of films

like

Kazan's and by the new-wave style of directorconceived, or auteur, movies arriving from Eu-

rope in the 1960s (page 107), he wanted, he


said, "to create

images that reflected the

around me: what

saw

and, in particular, in

life

home

in the streets, at

my

church. There

found

the images very powerful, transcendent and, at


times, lurid

and

erotic."

Scorsese formed a famous

partnership with
(left).

Method

Together they

gritty, big-city films,

86

made

and enigmatic

actor Robert

De Niro

a string of tough,

including

Mean

Streets

1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980),

Stroking a favorilc

Don

'%- *ii f.fii|

cat,

Vito Corlconc

(Bratido) balances ihc

~'

conflicting roles of pa-

terfamilias
chieftain in
father. His

an

offer

and Mafia
The God-

"Make him

he cant refuse"

entered the language.

10

F.

A R

or

HOLLYWOOD

?v.
m ____
.K-< f^

TfmTf

I
^^
1

^^"\

rr^

Lights reflect off cars on a hot South Central L.A. night in Boyz
ton (inset).

The

reahstic depiction of black

urban

life

N the Hood,

by director John Single-

was a dramatic eyeopencr.

s II

I'

N G

VV () R

1.

ON

hit

man

I)

ill M

and (ioodl'clhh (1990). Dark though Scorsese's


stories were,

by using staccato camera work

and editing he re-created the pulsing energies


of

New York. He found

traffic lights,

noise,

and

neon

poetry in rock music,

signs, shiny cars, street

(as in Taxi Driver)

demented, often

improvised voice-overs.
Revolutionary and iconoclastic
time, Scorsese

and

in their

his fellow upstart directors

of the 70s paved the

way

for,

and helped

support, an even younger generation of film-

makers. These newcomers sometimes lacked


the formal training of their mentors, but they

were self-taught and well taught.

Among them

were African American

di-

John Travolta, as the uiuntellcctual


rectors,

almost nonexistent in Hollywood until the 1970s, when Melvin

Van Peebles created Sweet Sweetback's Baud


of black urban

ties

102)

24) to garner

(at

and screenwriting

men

(inset, opposite),

Academy Award nominations

for his 1991

about three young

work Boyz

struggling to

N the Hood

it

reminded people,

as

home." Singleton followed up


South Central L.A.

life

reali-

one
in

the youngest film-

critic

reality

put

it,

and so vibrantly

Justice,

Quentin Tarantino's Pulp

The Jilm showcased


skills

and

Travolta's

restored his

Fiction.

remarkable acting

long-moribund

career.

This story

(left).

that "a ghetto

1993 with Poetic

situation in

both directing

for

grow up amid the gang violence of

South Central Los Angeles was so thick with


ed that

evoking the

His famous successors included Spike Lee (page

life.

and wunderkind John Singleton

maker

Asssss Song,

Vin-

cent Vega, struggles with a thought-provoking

is

act-

You name me any


horrific thing,

and

can

also a

which showed

make

a jol<eout of

it."

from the women's point of view.

The body of new African American

film

work was one

Quentin Tarantino, 1994


sign of the

growing authority of independent filmmakers; another was the wild success


tin

enjoyed by such visceral, anti-intellectual writer-directors as Quen-

Tarantino,

His bloody

whose

first

film education

came from working

video store.

in a

movie. Reservoir Dogs (1992), became a cult

classic.

He

entered the mainstream in 1994 with the outrageously violent but darkly

funny Pulp

Using every seedy urban reference and lashings of

Fiction.

comic-book gore, the film intertwined the


with those of a pair of hit men.

Awards
ever,

and won

It

tales

of small-time thieves

was nominated

for Tarantino's script. Its

for seven

most obvious

Academy

virtues,

how-

were the sterling performances the director drew from actors John

Travolta (top right),

and Bruce

Uma Thurman

(bottom

right),

Samuel

L.

Jackson,

Willis.

89

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

Directors as

Men

Music

he Hollywood musical was born with the introduction of sound movies

T^

Singer (1927)

ary film

artists

and then

languished.

and moviegoers longing

Depression to make the musical a

It

took vision-

for escape

new American

E Zanuck, who,

go to Darryl

First credits

The Jazz

in Al Jolson's

from the

genre.

despite the

misgivings of Warner Bros., produced the hit 42nd Street in

1933

with Broadway's Busby Berkeley


numbers

Berkeley designed his

and was the

to use a

first

as choreographer.

specifically for the screen

camera mounted overhead (page

92) or hidden beneath the stage.

The

result

of 42nd

Street's

success was a series of extravagant Berkeley-choreographed


films

marked by kaleidoscopic chorus

line formations.

flood of song-and-dance flicks followed from other

studios.

At RKO, Fred Astaire danced through a

series

of

comedies, mostly with Ginger Rogers. ("He gives her class

and she

gives

him

sex,"

Katharine Hepburn observed.)

MGM set up a team that would dominate the genre, named


the Freed Unit after

its

acquired The Wizard

famed screenwriters

producer,

ofOz

lyricist

Arthur Freed. He

(page 114) for

like Betty

MGM and hired

Comden and Adolph

Green,

songwriters from Irving Berlin to Alan Jay Lerner, and directors like Vincente Minnelli.

After assisting

Busby Berkeley on

(1940), Minnelli directed the


top),

'eft,

Co-directors
ley

Donen

Gene

Kelly

and Stan

smash

Strike

hit

Up

the

Meet Me

Band

in St. Louis

a nostalgic family tale set in 1900

whose theme,

of The Wizard ofOz,

like that

confer on the set of

Singin in the Rain (1952).

The pair, both dancers


choreographers,

had

al-

ready collaborated on

Broadway and

in

arid

was "There's no place

like

home." Minnelli's

characteristically brilliant use of color

and

design and his seamless

working

in

of senti-

Hol-

mental songs made


lywood, most recently
in 1949's

the Town.

On

the film a classic.

Minnelli

IMf^^

Zt

.*-

:X
^IFrtt

o
*^^it

m^^^^^^M

Ik

Gene KeUy climbs'a lamppost


from
ityg,

number

Singin' in the Rain. Stanley Donen's swing-

boom-mounted camera added

ance of thtjamous routine.

-Jl^

in the title

to the

exuber''

YEARS

10

would

HOLLYWOOD

direct a Freed protege

An American

from Broad-

Gene

way, dancer-choreographer

19518

Kelly, in

based on a

in Paris,

George Gershwin tone poem. The FreedKelly collaboration, with co-director Stanley

Donen

(page 90), reached

lowing year with Singin'


91), a blockbuster

written by

its

peak the

in the

fol-

Rain (page

about "old" Hollywood

Comden and Green around

decades of Freed's

own

songs.

Traditional musicals remained popular in

the 1950s and '60s, with such box-

office

smashes as Guys and Dolls (1955),

The Music

Gigi (1958),

Fair

Man

(1962),

My

Lady (1964), and The Sound of Music

more

(1965). But a newer,

ban kind of musical was

The

first

edgy,

by lerome Robbins

ur-

in the wings.

of these was a

of Broadway's West Side

more

Story.

96 1 adaptation

Choreographed

Romeo

the tale

(right),

Chorines with neon-lighted violins form a flower in Gold Diggers of 1933. The

and Juliet

transferred to

New York,

with

mu-

lavish spectacle

was a signature of Busby Berkeley musicals

like this one.

by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sond-

sic

heim

became cinematic

in the

hands of

Robbins's co-director, Robert Wise. Spectacularly filmed

on

location,

A decade later came


the inspired

Bob

won

10 Oscars.

Cabaret (opposite),

work of director-choreographer

Fosse, notorious for his risky lifestyle of

drink, drugs, cigarettes,

ended abruptly with


was

it

60. Fosse

a heart attack

not

surprisingly,

nelli)

tale

and her

about decadence. The

The

comment not

of Sally Bowles (Liza Min-

lovers,

mar Germany and


storm.

when he

new kind of musi-

songs and dances provided

only on the

which

used Christopher Isherwood's

Berlin Stories to create a


cal

and women

but on dissolute Wei-

the approaching Nazi

strands of story

and song became

one, thanks to Fosse's brilliant direction.

92

Choreographer Jerome Robbins demonstrates a move

for

West Side Story. "Dancers

didn't always like him," co-director Robert Wise said, "but they respected him."

"
*

H A

I'

t;

WORLDS ON FILM

iidbreaki)ig Cabaret, Liza Minnelli (left) belts

at Berlin's Kit

Kat

Kliib,

introduced

and supported

by the club's reprobate emcee (Joel Grey, above)


is

sleazy chorus.

and
ist

The film's

painting were
stylized sets

always thought

would be

was romantic.
People would mourn me: *0h,
that young career.'
dead

at 25.

Bob Fosse

It

and

often savage dancing

inspired by

German

the briUiant

Expression-

work of director-

choreographer Bob Fosse (below).

"I

one

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

War

Bringing

to the Screen
"^

"T" ar stories offer a wealth of cinematic possi-

% /%
T
and

comedy; epic scope alongside the intimate;

tales ot a cross section

of American characters

most challenging moments of

Combat
war.

What

drama and low

the director: high

bilities to

the director
for instance,

and

his era.

view of

shown them depends on both


During and

after

World War

II,

war movies emphasized the courage of

many

soldiers in battle. In

of these films, as one

soldier observed, "people sat in their trenches

ideological discussions about the beauties of


at

the

their lives.

films provide civilians their only

the films have

at

real-life

and had

democracy

home." John Sturges's 1963 action adventure about

Allied

POWs, The

Great Escape, was in this tradition; so

was producer Darryl

of D-Day, The Longest

and

realistic

look

at

Zanuck's panoramic re-creation

F.

Day

(1962).

A much more

war marked Steven

grim

Spielberg's 1998

masterpiece. Saving Private Ryan (pages 124-125),

whose

opening sequence of the American D-Day landing on

SUWkI ***"

^=/Vi

Private

Maggio (Frank Sinatra)

Borgnine)

94

in 1953's

From Here

defies a sadistic sergeant (Ernest

to Eternit}'.

The film won

eight Oscars.

^-*

K-^nlfiiJent

Geo

I'litlon t'xhorls his

iloiiiiiuini pert'
stiy ihiil

Ptttton

itut lavish

n'lm-

onvnuin

wc

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

Omaha

Beach constitutes perhaps the starkest and most terrifying cine-

matic look

at

combat ever offered

moviegoing pubHc.

to the

Lewis Milestone's film of Erich Maria Remarque's World

about

idealistic

young Germans caught

War

novel

in a wilderness of futile death,

All

Quiet on the Western Front, also offered a nightmare vision. Fine act-

ing

and unforgettable images

stance

made the 1930

film a classic.

dramatic and many-sided

tale

of

II

army was Fred Zinnemann's powerful From

Here

to

Eternity (page 94),

on

the Japanese attack

which culminated with

Pearl Harbor.

David Lean

presented a look at the psychology of

men

Producer-director Francis Ford Coppola,

The Bridge on

in

POWs

(1957), a tale of British


babowl)overby*wil!^.

in

in

best
rA'S'H' is *e
comeOj
tmetit" ar

which

lost

Now,

reviews a scene with Marlon Brando.

Kwai

the River

in a Japanese

who

100 pounds during the arduous filming of Apocalypse

wartime situations

since

wire, for in-

War

America's pre-World

^^'

severed arms holding barbed

camp

and honorable commander

their brave

proceeds blindly toward self-destruction.

sumlarnei_^_^

America's Vietnam experience brought

new

masterpie<*;SM_it^twce_^

ambiguity to combat movies, epitomized by


Franklin Schaffner's 1970 World
ton (page 95).

M-A*H^^'^j^^^nl

brilliant

George C.

on

a film that pleased

MASH

Getting his

typical response to

of the

authenticity resulted in

Vietnam, however, was a


'80s.

The

series

funniest was

Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) searches for the


maniacal, renegade Colonel Kurtz (Brando) with
orders to "terminate with extreme preiudice."

(inset),

whose

setting

was actually the Korean

crack at a big-time movie,

first

broke every rule

in the

Hollywood book

plotless string of vignettes

The most

Scott's portrayal

both hawks and doves.

of passionately antiwar films in the 1970s and


1970's

epic, Pat-

II

but flawed warrior and Schaffner's

ruthless insistence

A more

War

TV

conflict.

director Robert

in filming

MASH's

Altman

virtually

skewering the military.

chilling of the antiwar films

phantasmagoric 1979 vision, Apocalypse

was Francis Ford Coppola's

Now

(right),

which followed

GIs in Vietnam on a descent into madness during a mission to assassinate a Green Beret officer (Marlon Brando) gone off the deep end.
so ugly that the

situation

is

Sheen,

told

is

"does not

by

exist,

gle enclave,

commander of the

his superiors in military

nor

will

it

ever exist."

The

team, played by Martin

doublespeak that the mission

When

Sheen reaches Brando's jun-

he sees the irrelevance of right and wrong in the moral

squalor of Vietnam. "Charging a

man

with murder in

this place,"

he
Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall), sport-

thinks to himself,

The

96

film

is

"hke handing out speeding tickets

at the

Indy 500."

was nominated for eight Academy Awards, winning two.

ing a cavalry hat. uttered the immortal phrase


"I love the smell of

napalm

in the

morning."

,.7

stands

^V.V;
r'^Vt-^HC

.1^
PVilt

l^^

.^^
VU

'^l^-J*--

'.:^

Films That

Tweak
Inspired by

Fears

folklore about vampires,

werewolves, and zombies, horror

movies have

thrilled audiences since

Hollywood's early days. Director Tod

Browning made
genre, filming

name

for himself in the

Lon Chaney

silents that capitalized

in a

on the

number of

actor's terrify-

ing visages. In the taUde era Browning in-

troduced a new sensation, Bela Lugosi,


starred in Universal's
(right)

93 1

thriller

who

Dracula

complete with creepy sound

effects.

The same year


Universal released director James Whale's

Frankenstein

(left),

starring Boris
Karloff.
later

Four years

Whale followed

up with the

wildly

eccentric Bride of

Frankenstein, casting
a weird-looking but sympathetic Elsa Lan-

chester (inset) as the monster's mate.

From The
marked the

Mummy in

directorial

1932, which

debut of Dracula

cinematographer Karl Freund, through

Roger Gorman's low-budget '60s


flicks

based on Edgar Allan Poe

horror movies depicted

But John Carpenter's


loween and

Wes

little

grisly

fright

stories,

bloodletting.

1978

hit

Hal-

Craven's 1984 slasher

Nightmare on Elm

Street

launched a trend

toward graphic guts and gore.

^RlMtSTmTAim|T^

99

10

YEARS OF

H O

1.

1,

Y VV

O O D

The Master of
Suspense
A

"W"

"T"ith their blend of intrigue,

% /%

/ smoldering

sensuality,

and

dark humor, the films of maes-

menace Alfred Hitchcock held audi-

tro of

ences spellbound for six decades. Classic

Hitchcock plots placed some of Holly-

wood's most self-possessed blonde beauties,

including Ingrid Bergman, Vera Miles,

Grace

Kelly,

and Kim Novak,

had always heard

situations. "I

idea was to take a

blonde

in perilous

woman

that his

usually

and break her apart

to see her

shyness and reserve broken down, but

thought

was only

this

films," said

in the plots

of his

Tippi Hedren. She learned

otherwise during her physically punishing


scene in The Birds, which

attic

left

her

needing a week of medical treatment.


At his best in films such as the 1946
spy melodrama Notorious, the 1954 sus-

pense story Rear Window, and the 1955


thriller

To Catch a Thief, Hitchcock

probed for the

evil that lurks

behind be-

nign facades. Heralded for his cinematic

used inventive techniques

expertise, he

such as complex camera movements,

montage
view.

made

editing,

Thanks

to

and

shifting points of

cameo appearances he

in the majority of his movies, the

portly director's profile and image

became

an icon. His black-and-white masterpiece


Psycho

(right),

picture," led

which he

one

slyly called a

critic to call the

"fun

mischie-

vous director a "barbaric sophisticate."

////W/cdci's

I960

hit

Psycho had Anlhoiiy Perkins

concealing a bizarre secret in the

shadowy

Victori-

an house that stood behind the Bates Motel, which


itself

entered the language as a hall-hiiniorous

synonym

for

an undesirable lodging.

-::>

,.*f

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

Mavericks of Moviedom
Director Spike Lee's surprise
I

It

showed Hollywood

could be profitable.

1986

hit

comedy

that handling black

She's Gotta

urban themes

graduate of the film school

York University, Lee offered scathing, often controversial

mentary

in his

movies, reaching a peak in 1989 with

which received an Oscar nomination

at

New

social

Do

com-

the Right Thing,

for Best Screenplay.

took a sledgehammer approach to the urban

Have

The

racial tensions

film

surround-

ing an Italian-American pizza parlor located in a black neighborhood


in Brooklyn.
In the 1992 film biography

of the radical African-American


Beginning

(below), Lee

reexamined the

political leader. Despite a

life

running time of

in the '80s, the films of director Spike

Lee (above) offered a thick perspective.

Denzel Washington, pUiying the

102

Malcolm

title role in

more than

Spike Lee's powerful biopic

three hours, the

Malcolm X, preaches

movie showed Lee

to

at the

height of his directori-

a crowd outside Harlem's Apollo Theatre.

al

powers, combining complex camera angles with mulliple story lines

11

1'

(,

VV

1) S

ON

II

1.

in a

film of epic proportions.

Controversy of a different sort surrounded the work of director Oliver


Stone
for

(right).

He began

his film career as a screenwriter,

Midnight Express (1978). Stone's

Salvador,
nalists

commercial success

combined elements of brutality and

caught in an insurrectionary cross

year Stone finished the


rors of the

and

first

smash

Vietnam War,

in

life

that

my Award

their

for Best Picture,

He continued

1986

tale

of jour-

Central America. That same

Platoon (below). This account of the hor-

veterans hailed the

Bronze Star

and Stone won an Oscar

Tom

movie

as

Hollywood's

war experience. Platoon received the Acade-

his hard-hitting

the Fourth of July, starring

fire in

as a director,

gut-wrenching action and moral degradation

many Vietnam

most authentic picture of

politics in a

which Stone had served, earning

a Purple Heart, depicted

so true to

hit

winning an Oscar

for his directing.

filmmaking with the 1989 saga Born on


Oliver Stone (above) directs the action in his

Cruise as a paraplegic Vietnam veteran, for

The psychotic Sergeant Barnes, played by Tom Berenger, threatens a Vietnamese child

1993 Vietnam film Heaven

in

Oliver Stone's grimly realistic

& Earth.

war drama. Platoon.

103

YEARS OH HOLLYWOOD

100

won

which Stone

second Best Director

his

Oscar. JFK, a 1991 film in which Stone con-

tended that the assassination of President

Kennedy had been


high government

a conspiracy

officials,

cized as a fanciful

among

was widely

criti-

and biased version of that

tragedy and prompted the U.S. Congress to

open sealed

on the

files

assassination.

Three thought-provoking
Stanley Kubrick

The

placed

squarely in the

(riglit)

most inventive

forefront of the screen's


directors.

hits

blackest of black comedies,

1964's Dr. Strangelove (below, right)

starred Peter Sellers in three roles, includ-

ing a lunatic

German

scientist

and an

English officer desperately trying to avert

world catastrophe. The movie marvel of


1968, Kubrick's
epic 2001:

and sound

the

accompaniment

mad

in

of

jaunty music

to

advance

his cynical

Clockwork Orange. Malcolm McDowell plays the

view of a world gone


sadistic hooligan Alex.

fiction

Space Odyssey, took four

make and

years to
al

landmark science

Director Stanley Kubrick (right) choreographs a savage rape scene carried out to

featured elaborate visu-

effects.

Melding space

travel

with theology, philosophy, and allegories

on the future of mankind, the


ly

film virtual-

reinvented the genre.

Clockwork Orange (1971), perhaps

Kubrick's

most controversial movie, painted

an unsettling portrait of a future steeped


in senseless violence.

damned, the

film contained seductive

scenes of stylized

His

mayhem and

last

work before

was the psychosexual


Shut, with Nicole

who had
director.

torture that

some viewers and offended oth-

astonished
ers.

Both praised and

his death in

thriller

1999

Eyes Wide

Kidman and Tom

Cruise,

only praise for the legendary

"Suddenly

you, or you'll see

he'll

how

say something to

he creates a shot,
In Dr. Strangelove, Peter Sellers as the

and you

realize this

Cruise. "This

104

man

man

is

is

different," said

profound."

he played
ntilitary

loses control over his

and political

folly

and

title

character

ex-Nazi persona

the

one

of three different roles

in Kubrick's

dark comedy about

Cold War's dance with nuclear catastrophe.

Kcir Ihillcd, as Miffioii C.ouiuitiiuk'i

in Kubrick's visionary science fiction epic

iimn

2001:

V..-^

Space Odyssey, walks through the air lock

of his spaceship. Fantastic visual and sound


philosophical themes,
ages

P
*

Dave Bow-

made

the film

an

effects,

and dazzling futuristic iminstant classic.

::

liPlipMiMMP'

CoMtrifii*
i

H
^

Ctciotriit

Fo?oco#n
4

1i

S 11

I'

(,

C)

1,

IJ

t)

from

Influences

Abroad
A group

of imaginative foreign directors emerged

from

art

house obscurity

Jmi. Fellini first

release

won

made

in the 1950s. Federico

a splash with the international

of La Strada, a parable about

innocence that

lost

the Oscar for Best Foreign Fihn in 1956.

With La

Dolce Vita (1960), his bag of tricks spilled forth, releasing

outrageous fantasies,

Cementing

sins,

symbols, masks, and perversions.

Fellini's stature as

the director's director was

Liv

Ullmann (above) plays a

fronting her

own breakdown

in

coldly analytical psychiatrist con-

Ingruar Bergman's Face

to

Face (1976).

8^

(1963), about a director trying vainly to complete a film.

From

Japan, Akira Kurosawa burst

upon

the scene

with Rashomon (1950), a complex story of rape and murder. In


rai,

1954 Kurosawa directed the epic The Seven Samu-

and he scored again

late in his career

with Ran

(1985), a colossal samurai version of Shakespeare's King


Lear.

Beginning in the 1950s French directors launched

new-wave filmmaking,
auteur, giving

primacy

in

which the director became an

to his

creativity over the "literary"

own

visual

and cinematic

emphasis of screenwriters.

Films such as Alain Resnais's Last Year at Marienbad


(1961) and Fran(;ois Truffaut's 1973

Oscar winner Day for Night


helped

make

the

new wave

fa-

mous. Swedish director Ing-

mar Bergman gained an


international reputation

upon

Roberto Benigni (right) directed, cowrote,

the 1957

and

starred in the Oscar-winning 1997 fable

worldwide release
Life Is Beautiful,

of The Seventh
Seal

and Wild

about a father who shields

son from the horrors of a concentration

through humor, quick

and

wits,

his

camp

love.

Strawberries, with
their surreal treatFellini cast his wife, Giulietta

Masina, as the impish

ment of the themes


and
of

faith, alienation,

and death.

lovable Gelsomina

(left) in

La Strada,

quisitely touching tale of the relationship

carnival strongman

and a simpleminded

his ex-

between a
waif.

107

^"M

'J

#^^'

Manufacturing
the

Dream
*

BEHIND-THE-SCENES MOVIE MAGIC

sweat the

like to

I
and

director

E.T.:

details,"

and producer.

declared Steven Spielberg

On

The Extra-Terrestrial and dramas

like Schindler's List

make

he wanted. During the shooting of Atnistad


himself

at just the right

Hollywood's most successful

the set of fantasy blockbusters like Raiders of the Lost Ark

berg earned a reputation for stepping in to

it

(left),

and Saving Private Ryan,

sure that the particulars

in 1997,

came out

he grabbed a crewman's lantern and held

who

take Spielberg's hands-on approach

still

the efforts of a multitude of specialists, such as screenwriters, set


signers, cinematographers,

sound engineers, makeup

artists,

special-effects technicians. Stars give films their faces

the artistic accolades,

but

exactly as

angle to illuminate the tortured faces of a group of slaves.

Yet even filmmakers

happen

Spiel-

and producers

get credit for

and

making

depend upon

and costume de-

stunt performers,

and

voices, directors receive

the whole enterprise

the people listed in the closing credits, whether they create sparkling dialogue or

dizzying digital effects, are essential to a movie's success.

Savvy directors

fiilly

appreciate

even

relish

the

work of these

graphics designer said of the experience of bringing dinosaurs to

World: Jurassic Park: "He'll howl with glee


attacked by a

I! rex.

He

if

something

is

life

experts.

computer-

for Spielberg in TJie Lost

exciting to him, say, a person getting

just can't contain himself."

Steven Spielberg works on the set of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, undistracted by the immense model of
a dinosaur's foot, a product of the vast off-camera effort required to create a movie.

109

100

HOLLYWOOD

YEARS OF

Mapping Out
This excerpt from

Movie

Words on Paper
Gone With

the shooting script for

the

Wind

choreographs action and camera movements, using abbreviations

Hke

b.g.

for background

252 LONG SHOT

and assigning

WAGON

Burning buildings

number

to

each shot.

AT RAILROAD TRACK
Rhett gets out of wagon, goes

in b.g.

to

horse's head, starts to pull horse bridle.

253

Give Voice to a Film

may be

he screenplay

the most important element

of a movie, providing not just memorable lines but,

.JL^ in the form of a shooting script

for filming.

MEDIUM CLOSE SHOT RHETT AT HORSE'S HEAD


-

It is

also,

(left),

however, the most vulnerable element.

Producers, directors, agents, and actors can

RHETT

(pulling at horse)

Come

on!

Come

on!

a blueprint

all insist

on

Throw me your
changes, sometimes to strengthen a character or resolve a

shawL

problem

(he reaches out of scene)

that arises during shooting,

sometimes

just be-

cause writing looks so easy: As screenwriter William Gold-

254

MEDIUM CLOSE SHOT SCARLETT


-

man

put

it,

"Everybody knows the alphabet."

Prissy in back of wagon. Scarlett throws

When

the shawl.

255

GONE

MEDIUM CLOSE SHOT RHETT AT HORSE'S


-

producer David O. Selznick decided to

make Gone With

the Wind, he turned to playwright

Sidney Coe Howard,

who

pared Margaret Mitchell's

HEAD
He

catches the shawl,

ties it

best-selling 1,037-page novel (inset)

around

cogent

horse's head.

fire

RHETT

Sorry, but you'll like

it

better

if

down

to a

the

script.

But Selznick went on to hire

and

a long series of other writers, including

F.

you don't
Scott Fitzgerald, to produce

new

versions of the

see anything.

screenplay,

256 LONG SHOT

WAGON

AT

(BURNING BUILDINGS

R.R.

TRACKS

all

the while constantly revising their

work. The resulting

mound

of pages eventually

IN B.G.)
filled

an entire

filing cabinet, yet

when shooting

Rhett finishes tying shawl over the horse's head.

began, only a fraction of the scenes existed in usable form.

257

MEDIUM CLOSE SHOT EXPLOSIVES


-

IN

For help, Selznick called in another screenwriter, the

BOXCAR
The fire

highly regarded Ben Hecht,


in the

is

on,

He pulls

suggested they start again

Howard's version. The resulting

fi-om

RHETT Come

who

background.

Come

on!

humous

the horse, turns the horse,

and then

leads

him
four

Best Screenplay Oscar for

months before

the film's

effort

won

a post-

Howard, who had died

December 1939

release.

away from CAMERA.


In the old Hollywood, writers rarely

259 LONG SHOT


The fire

is

EXPLOSIVES

IN

BOXCAR

much

nearer.

ly labeled

Slowly, pulling the reluctant horse, Rhett heads

after they

from studio

toward the spot

still

clear of flame.

away from

A moment

executives. Jack

Warner

scornful-

them "schmucks with Underwoods," and most of

them labored under

260 LONG SHOT

CAMERA

respect

commanded

contract to one studio or another, rele-

gated to shabby, cramped


lents enjoy

much

offices.

Their latter-day equiva-

higher prestige, as well as paychecks that

have disappeared through the opening, the flames

can run to seven figures.

And

those

who both

direct

and

reach their climax, the boxcars start to blow up, the largest

building at the

left

end of the screen

screen becomes a mass of flames.

110

collapses,

and

the

write, like

enormous

Woody

Allen and Francis Ford Coppola, wield

creative control.

storyboard of thumbnail sketches, based on the screenplay, allows the producer, director, and others

at top by William
the

Cameron Menzies, production

designer for

dramatic scene (bottom), the crew assembled and

Gone With

set ablaze old sets

the Wind, depicts Scarlett

from

Selznick's

back

lot

to visualize

and Rhett

each scene. The sequence of sketches

as they flee a burning Atlanta. To create

including some from

1933's King Kong.

A N U

1-

A C T U R

C;

III.

>

I,

Designers Set
the Scene
Robert Boyle, a top Hollywood production designer,

was able

as

he put

to ply his trade because he


it,

"what a

Boyle's job was to design the


create the right visual

"dramatic truth," but


far

from

liar

the

camera can

and

environment. He always sought


this,

he noted, could be "very, very

reality."

thriller

classic

North by Northwest, Boyle helped the camera

convincingly.

lie

be."

the locations,

sets, select

During the making of Alfred Hitchcock's


1959

knew,

chase across the

The screenplay

called for a spectacular

Mount Rushmore

Lights illuminate a plaster replica of Mount Rushmore, built at the

MGM studio after Hitchcock was denied use of the real thing.

National Memorial.

But the U.S. Department of the Interior refused Hitchcock permission to film on

site,

and he

in

felt

that he could better control the lighting

on

a studio set.

So he had Boyle design scale-model plaster


four presidents' faces instead, and viewers

convinced they had seen the


Fooling the eye

is all

real

casts

of the

came away

monument.

part of the job.

can create the illusion of a vast

any case

room

clever designer

while constructing

only a small corner. The epic sea battle in 1959's Ben-Hur


skillfully

blends closeups of the actors in motion with

A painted
footage of miniature ships floating

on dyed

ington,

ers use

their

backdrop depicts the carved stone faces of George Wash-

water. Design-

Thomas

Jefferson,

Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.

such tricks of the trade whenever necessary, but

commitment

to authenticity can also

ordinary lengths. For All the

Presidef^t's

go to extra-

Men

(1976),

George Jenkins re-created not only the Washington Post

newsroom but even

the kinds of trash found in reporters'

wastepaper baskets. For director Josef von Sternberg, the


products of his imagination took on a certain authenticity.
After creating his

own

sets for

Shanghai Express in 1932,

he visited China and declared the

Ill

real thing disappointing.

North by Northwest, Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint pause un-

der

Thomas

Jefferson

chin

(left)

as they flee from villains.

The

real

Rushmore makes

on location

in

its

only appearance in this scene, filmed

South Dakota with Grant, James Mason, and Saint.

113

100

YEARS or HOLLYWOOD

A World That
of

Oz

Wasn't.

(1939), the art department at

by many the best


be.

Although

more
sets

When work began on

this

in the business.

often in the studio than

L.
artist

tiny

of the

to

on location

and painted

the scenery

The world

a special challenge:
in the

for
to

imagination of author

Frank Baum.
Bringing

the materials to he used in constructing them.

Munchkins

it

to life

was the task of designer WiUiam

whom

one of

cottages with thatched roofs were scaled

Horning, a qualified architect

played by dwarfs

called "extremely practical, ferociously intelligent,

mushroom-shaped

to the size

had

it

Jack Martin Smith specifies the dhnensions of

Munchkin houses and


The

For this movie

did duty as Paris or the Himalaya

be created had existed only

drawing by

MGM was considered

was an era when films were shot much

The Wizard of Oz posed

The Wizard

in the film.

hard as

nails."

The

original

his assistants

book contained no

and

illustration

of Munchkinland, so Horning had to dream the place up

and then build

it

to the scale of

its

diminutive residents.

Even harder was envisioning the Emerald

home

of the Wizard of Oz,

needed

it

As the

City.

to surpass the rest

of the settings in surreal magic. The head of

MGM's

art

department, Cedric Gibbons, eventually came across an


old

German drawing of a

"test

fantasy city that looked like

tubes upside down," one

artist said.

Creating the sets was further complicated by the use

of Technicolor. This process,

in its infancy,

still

bersome and unpredictable, and the


to learn a

new

week finding
that

color vocabulary.

art

was cum-

department had

One employee

spent a

a shade of paint for the yellow brick road

would not appear green on

related problem,

making the

film.

Another color-

carriage horse in

Oz

turn

every hue of the rainbow, was solved by using a succession of horses and sponging each one
This sketch

is

an

artist's

conception of the set for Mimchkinland.

The mythical place consisted of 122


normal

size

and arrayed on

ered 10 feet high to

make

terraces

the

ent variety of Jell-O powder.

down

The animals

with a

differ-

did, however,

structures, built at one-fourth

around a

pool. Flowers tow-

Munchkins appear even

tend to
In

smaller.

sound

lick off
all,

most of the

about 60 Oz

sets

Jell-O

between

were built on

shots.

six different

stages, as nearly 1,000 carpenters, painters,

and

other craftsmen labored frantically to stay a week ahead

of the shooting schedule.


Dorothy, played by Judy Garland, stands awestruck in Munchkin-

land (opposite). "I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore," she exclaims.

The

bridge, pool,

and flowers

are part of the constructed

set,

whereas the liouses combine painted cutouts and a musUn backdrop.

114

was obviously imaginary

On

film the world they created

but

still

so vivid that

when

Dorothy gazes around and concludes, "We must be over


the rainbow," generations of audiences have agreed.

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A N U

Dressing the Stars

Drama

with
want

my

clothes loose

enough

to prove I'm a lady,

but tight enough to show 'em I'm a woman,"

West told the designer costuming her

Mae

for 1933's Slie

Done Him Wrong. Edith Head complied, outlining the


star's

voluptuous form to such

make

the film a smash. West praised "Edith's things" for

effect that

she helped

being "allurin' without being vulgar." They had, she said,


"just a little insinuetido

In a career that

Head
in

(at

left,

about them."

spanned more than half

costumed the

sketching in her studio)

more than 500

films.

a century.
stars

As Paramount's chief designer

the height of the studio era, she supervised dozens of


ters, cutters,

seamstresses,

and

milliners.

at

fit-

Few expenses

were spared: Six or eight employees might spend weeks


sewing beads onto
(1936) she

a single

gown. For The Jungle Princess

wrapped an unknown named Dorothy LaEdith

mour

in a boldly

Head put Grace

Kelly in

patterned sarong that became Lamour's


a fetching gilded strapless

trademark and established a new fashion on American


beaches.

The $35,000 mink

Rogers in Lady
legend for

its

dress she created for Ginger

Dark (1944) became

in the

extravagance. She was

still

Hollywood

working into

gown

(sketch above) for To

Catch a Thief (1955).

prompted

pantsuits for Airport

and

outfitting Paul

Robert Redford as dapper 1930s con

Head saw

and bell-bottom

herself, she said, as "a

Newman and

men

in

The

Sting.

combination of

psychiatrist, artist, fashion designer, dressmaker, pin-

cushion, historian, nursemaid, and purchasing agent."


"In her dressing room," said actress Arlene Dahl, "you

had no

own

secrets

secrets

you were stripped

was

bare."

to never upstage the star.

One

of Head's

She kept her

appearance so plain that she once made Hollywood's


worst-dressed

No one

list.

else

came near Head's record of 35 Acad-

emy Award nominations and

eight Oscars. But British

director Alfred

Hitchcock's quip, "There's


hdls in

the 1970s, doing polyester miniskirts

It

them thar gold!"

The gown remained


one of Head's favorite creations.

I-

A C T U U

C;

T H

f.

DREAM

.J

>

h A R

or

HOLLYWOOD

designer Sir Cecil Beaton achieved

unique double-

Oscar distinction
with

My Fair

Lady {\964). His

adornment of
Audrey Hepburn
(at left)

won

Best

Costume Design,
and
sets

Edwardian-era

his

took the award for Best


Art Direction.
Director Cecil B. DeMille

once declared,
that will

when

"I

make people gasp

they see them. Don't de-

sign anything that

buy

in a store."

movie

want clothes

is

anyone could

But not every

DeMille blockbuster, and

designers aim for realism as often as


for spectacle,

making sure

that the

clothing suits both the character

and the demands of the

Making

.''

In

My Fair Lady,

Hepburn goes
races in a

as

ing,

scene.

Elizabeth Taylor

dowdy

Richard Burton's bicker-

hard-drinking wife in Who's

Audrey

to the

Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Ascot

required

show- stopping en-

semble by Sir Cecil Beaton,

whose original sketch

^'

ly

ty.

all

the craft previous-

spent on showcasing her beau-

is

Her clothes were

carefully cut

above. Opposite are drawings

to

by three other notable designers,

be

as unflattering as possible,

with padding added in

along with the stars

they adorned.

wrong

places.

Sylbert,

just the

Designer Anthea

commenting on

new kind of

this

authenticity, stat-

ed that a film "must never


be about costumes.

It

must always be about


the characters."

118

r*-l

Marilyn Monroe, There's

Show Business

(1954)

No Business

William

Like

Travilla

Faye Dunaway, Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Theadora Van Runkle

A N

'\

'

C,

Mil

l(

Kate Capshaw, Indiana lones and the

Temple of Doom (1984) Anthony Powell

x:

119

10

A R

()

HOLLYWOOD

Makeup: The Magic


of Transformation
he

artists

faceless.

T^

who

The exceptions

usually remain

are the remarkable West-

makeup dynasty whose

mores, a four-generation

members have become Hollywood


right. In

makeup

apply movie

celebrities in their

own

1917 George Westmore, a former wigmaker, began

beautifying silent-film
footsteps,

His

stars.

six

sons

all

followed in his

and during the 1930s the makeup department


of every major studio was headed by a

Westmore. Three of George's grandsons


continued the Westmore tradition, as did
several

members of the

next generation.

Since George Westmore's time, the


task of writing a story

the

human

face has

on the

grown

tablet

increasingly

complex. Modern movie makeup


heavily

made

on

prosthetics

of

relies

artificial features

out of rubbery material that can

add dramatic

human

into an alien or a monster. For

Big

Little

scars or wrinkles or turn a

Man

(1970),

makeup

artist

Dick Smith had to change 33-year-old Dustin Hoffrnan


set) into

a 121 -year-old survivor of the

(in-

Old West. Smith be-

gan by studying the faces of old men. Then, using a plaster


cast

of Hoffman's head as a base, he sculpted wrinkled fea-

tures in clay.

were

filled

thetics.

Molds made from each of these

with liquid

latex,

which hardened into the pros-

This method allowed Smith to produce a fresh

of prosthetics
day's filming.

painted with age


It

took

five

around the edges

final effect

spots

and

veins

and then

to

to paint

more

set

for each

hours to position and glue

pieces onto Hoffman's face


latex

clay features

all

the

liquid

blend them with his skin. The

was so powerful

that people

on

the set

For his

role in 1970's Little

lengthy

makeup

Big

Man, Dustin Hoffman undergoes

found
that were applied to his skin weighed several

themselves helping Hoffman out of his chair or offering

him an arm

as

if

he

really

were an old man.

ordeal (above). The carefully crafted latex features

pounds altogether

but the result was dramatic, convincingly turning Hoffman into a

former frontiersman

(right)

who claimed

to

be 121 years

old.

10

YEARS

t-

HOLLYWOOD

In 1996's

The Nutty

seven different
professor

roles.

Professor,

The

title

Eddie

Sherman Klump, who

and transforms

is

Buddy

beginnmg

for

makeup

workout guru

played

own

DNA

Love. These two

Baker and David LeRoy Anderson, who had


over for five more parts

(left)

obese chemistry

tinkers with his

himself into slim

characters were only the

Murphy

character

to

artists

Rick

make Murphy

Latice Perkins

and

four other Klumps. The film won an Oscar for Best Makeup.

:"'

mm

K
s
^d

_!iS^^

JAm!

nmm

Among Eddie Murphy's


fessor are, at

from

top.

left,

Papa,

1^

roles in

Professor

The Nutty Pro-

Sherman Klump and,

Mama, and Grandma Klump.

MANUFACTURING

Ai makeup

Till:

artists

i:

fanned
Murphy,

prosthetics for Eddie

they worked from a cast of his

head and shoiddcrs

(left)

and

from concept sculptures of

Sherman Klump's enormous


body (below). One of the most
daunting tasks was making the
pieces of imitation fat

"move

and

as

Sijuisli like flesh,"

makeup
it.

artist

Rick Baker put

After a variety of experi-

ments. Baker

found

and

his

crew

that they could produce

the desired effect by using con-

doms filled with water


of the

as one

components of the

"fat."

123


YKARS OF HOLLYWOOD

Capturing the Story

||

in the Camera's Eye


hen

W'

read a script and like the story,

emotional

visuals."

respond to

cinematographer Janusz Kaminski

level,"

then imagine

how

it

on an

said.

can enhance the storytelling through

As director of photography for Saving Private Ryan (1998),

Kaminski had the challenge of making the camera translate filmmaker


Steven Spielberg's vision into

World War
the Allies'

mandy

II

drama

reality.

its first

focuses unrelentingly

D-Day landing on

the

Omaha

coast. After studying actual

pecially the

For

work of legendary

Life

25 minutes this powerful

on the carnage and chaos of

Beach sector of France's Nor-

combat footage and photographs,

es-

magazine photojournalist Robert Capa,


Spielberg and Kaminski decided
the film should, as Kaminski put

"look
a

i^^Tt,J.

l*sirr.i|iri

like

it

was shot

in 16

it,

mm by

bunch of combat cameramen."

ii^iS^|Sii|^

To achieve
Kaminski had

this sense

his

of realism,

camera operators

shoot mostly with hand-held cameras.

They simulated

quality of

the frenetic

combat with

deliberately

out-of-sync shutters and special devices that


ter

or

artificial

blood splattered the

ing because that's what

lenses,

Kaminski

we assumed would happen

Kaminski also manipulated the


of burned-out, bleary

shook the cameras.

sky,"

lighting.

said,

If

wa-

"we kept shoot-

in reality."

Because he wanted a "kind

he had the protective coating stripped from

lenses for flatter contrast.

Overhead

helped diminish sunlight.

And

to

silk

canopies and heavy black smoke

enhance the documentary look, he

extracted roughly 60 percent of the color from the final negative


creating

muted

tones. For

film," as a colleague

put

it,

making the camera

"a real participant in the

Kaminski received an Academy Award

for

Best Cinematography.

The GIs of Saving Private Ryan struggle through enemy


(right).

124

Above, the crew prepares

to

obstacles

on

Omaha

shoot with a crane-mounted camera.

Beach

Silk

>4H|^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H

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100

126

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

A N U

A C T U R

C,

i:

The Sound of Movies


the days of silent film, live organ music added

In

action on-screen. Since the advent of

have played the same


providing a

hit

role,

song that helps

The best-known modern

enhancing the

movie scores

mood and sometimes

scores are those of composer-conductor John

ominous theme

pending shark attacks

and paid

The sweeping

in 1927,

to the

sell tickets.

Williams. In 1975 his

Herrmann's music

sound

drama

for Jaws

sharpened the suspense of im-

tribute to Bernard

for the 1960 thriller Psycho.

orchestral odyssey Williams creat-

ed for the Star Wars films almost single-handedly

brought symphonic scores back into

During filming, microphones


dialogue, which actors

may

style.

also capture

rerecord later as

needed. Other noises, such as a gunshot, usually

come

ft-om a library of recordings.

(inset)

invented by movie sound pioneer

surfaces for creating sounds.


ple, the

Foley stage

Jack Foley

There a "Foley

artist"

may have been

provides

work

a variety of

can reproduce, for exam-

cadence of a woman's footsteps on a marble

crophones

^^^y artist at

floor.

On

the

arranged to catch dialogue more clearly

set,

at the ex-

pense of such sounds; adding them back in heightens realism. Foley


also specialize in innovative

sound

effects

like

mi-

artists

squeezing an open bottle of

dishwashing detergent to simulate the sound of a dinosaur egg hatching.

At the mixing board


music, dialogue,

in

a recording studio, specialists perfect the combination of

and sound

effects that

audiences will hear on a film's soundtrack.

127

(lire

seemingly

to

yal Wedding.

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C,

I)

R h A

Believable

Make- Believe
red Astaire

F\

19518 Roy-

Wedding, climbing the walls of his

room and tap-dancing

How did

ing.

was so high on love

that he defied gravity in

al

hotel

(left)

he do

across the ceil-

The room turned

it?

upside down, not the dancer.


furniture, camera,

chored to

its

floor

The

set

with

and cameraman an-

was placed

in a revolv-

ing cage that turned while Astaire danced.

own

This trick was Astaire's

sions

very

come from
first

built, all

named Bruce

Shaw

in

Jaws (1975).

after director Steven Spielberg's lawyer.

illu-

special-effects experts.

The

of them was Georges Melies, a

French magician turned filmmaker,


Tlie

mechanical shark operated by air pressure devours actor Robert

Three sharks were

inspira-

but usually the ideas behind such

tion,

Conjuror (1899)

made

who

in

himself and his

assistant disappear.

Over the next century


took on an ever higher
tion. In

special effects

level

of sophistica-

MGM's

The Wizard ofOz,

ary Arnold Gillespie "melted" the

Witch of the West by standing


garet

legend-

Wicked
Mar-

actress

Hamilton on a small patch of floor

that could

be lowered. As she descended,

pinned
around her remained behind.
her clothing

to the stationary floor

Alfred

This

lifelike

dummy

A crewman for Danger:

with a swivel neck

rigs

Exorcist (1973) in which Linda Blair's

device that produces the illusion of bul-

head appeared

to

turn 360 degrees.

let

Hitchcock staged frightening avian attacks


in

for

some

and shrieking

an actor with a remote-controlled

wounds.

On

cue, caps explode,

ing bullet holes in the actor's shirt

burn-

and

rupturing sacs of fake blood.

The Birds (1963) by blending separate

footage of diving birds

Diabolik (1967)

performed the famous scene from The

actors

scenes, using mechanical

birds for others. Today's visual wiz-

ardry can

make

entire cities

in fireballs, as they did

go up

when

alien

An

actor in a medieval tale receives help

996

with his costume, which contains front and

blockbuster Independence Day.

back sockets that hold the halves of a spear.

ships blasted earth in the

129

100

YEARS

HOLLYWOOD

on the screen while minimizing

ger

Daredevils

air

bags cushion

falls.

the impact of blows.

at

Work

character's

head

molded from
air,

catch

fire, fly

runaway automobiles, collapse under

T^

It's all

perform the
film

in a day's

stunts.

work

for the

his

When

through

in

own

stunts but
in

Mel Gibson

130

from

ing

hand

When

a small

the precipice.

in.

Nevada

bottles in

The

wood

balsa

glass

held together by

barroom brawls

window

are

the hero smashes

thin plastic, though for a long time the industry

derring-do.

star.

perches atop an upside-down coffee table on a

self performed the scene

paraffin.

optical sleight of

Stunt coordinators try to maximize the illusion of dan-

Star

made of soft

down on

is

added

to

Spectacular effects often result fi"om clever tricks or

had a

the scenes get dangerous, skilled daredevils step

chair that crashes

reinforce the illusion.

one of them

are rarely willing to take such risks with a

is

The

used sugar candy. The sound of shattering glass

falling debris.

recall that silent-

brush with death when he broke his neck

and they

cliffs

men and women who

Modern filmmakers

comedian Buster Keaton did

off

Enormous

Special props called breakaways ease

Those whiskey

toothpicks.

hey hurtle through the

is

actual risk.

(box, opposite) as well as

a car soars off a

The

blown

soldier

mine probably sprang

a wild chase in which his character, police detective

Riggs,

is

gets

ramp placed inconspicuously

an extra

at the

into the air

Weapon 4

dragged through heavy

traffic

lift

edge of

by an explod-

off a hidden trampoline.

freeway, as part of a stunt created for Lethal

Martin

cliff, it

human

The

(1998). Gibson him-

behind a

trailer truck.

laws of physics also

lend a liand.

nia\'

from

stunt double, Brian Smr/, jiunped

moving bus

Speed

in

1994), he

When Koanu
a

moving

knew he would

One
the

at the

of the most perilous

burn.

hill

were going

ments and

Human

face

same

feats

the stunt

not miss

to protect

C.

T U K

Ci

of the

most stuntiing

effects

them resemble the

actors they double for.

known

as

trified

them and

viewers of Die

Hard 2 (1990) was

graphic composite. Hero Bruce

painted

on

at

the protective clothing

members stand by

to hose

it

down

low temperatures

and then

McClane, besieged by enemies

Willis, as

One

scene that elec-

actually a photo-

in the cockpit

of a grounded

set afire.

seat

is

Crew

cut

and punching

out.

and paste. Below,

an

ejection

The shot was achieved by cinematic

Willis, in the ejection seat,

was filmed

against an illuminated blue screen. This allowed the isolation

of the image of Willis alone, with no background. The film of


WiUis was then laid over a background image of the plane ex-

with carbon dioxide.

shown at bottom.

over-the-top disaster film, The Towering Inferno

(1974), contained

enough

skyscrapers to require

1.

policeman John

ploding, leading to the final composite shot

One

to

They may

even carry concealed miniaturized breathing equipment.

combustible substance that burns

I)

stem from optical trickery

rather than from a stunt man's courage.

military plane, escapes by strapping himself into

help

TIM

if

torches typically wear fireproof gar-

masks designed both

Cut-and-Paste Action

car to a

velocity.

is

Reeves's

Some
both vehicles

A N U

stunt

man

hurtles

Schwarzenegger

fiery deaths

and plunges from

no fewer than 140 stunt

from an exploding house

thriller

in the

artists.

Arnold

Last Action Hero (1993). His dramatic

flight actually occurred with help

from the compressed

air in a

hidden device, a hinged kicker ramp, which flipped him

aloft.

131

1-

r-n*

(% \f^

m
%
<r
fS-^*^.
T^#^

MtJ

MAN

I-

A C

U K

Mil

C,

.\rli<t< at

Industrial Light

Light

Industrial

& Magic (left)

iliapc a plaster

& Magic

1)

for the giant

mold

head of

the character in Re-

turn of the Jedi (1983)

Lucas's

toy box"

what some employees

that's

called Inclustrial Light

J
left

special-effects shop.

among some

of films

known

&

Magic (ILM), the famed

George Lucas

shown

mold
at

of his models from the Star Wars series

started the firm in 1975 to generate effects

for the original Star

Wars movie. He

set

as

filled

the final

with latex

rubber emerged the

completed creature

below, with friend

Salacious

up shop

Ephant

Man. From

Crumb.

in a

warehouse north of Los Angeles and hired an energetic

young
for

staff,

work

flops.

It

many

who showed up

hours wearing T-shirts, shorts, and

at all

was

barely out of college,

a "hang-loose atmosphere,"

"We were

neers recalled.

one of the pio-

bunch of hippies,

flip-

really

but

highly motivated."

There and

later in a facility

north of San Francisco,

Lucas and his crew launched a revolution in movie

galaxy
To populate the Star Wars cosmos
away" they designed,
and brought
"a

fects.

far

to

built,

effar,

ro-

life

bots and other wonderfully grotesque creatures. They

constructed miniature spaceships flickering with thou-

sands of tiny

zoomed

at

window

lights.

warp speed

actually sitting

still

On-screen these

in intergalactic dogfights while

thanks

to

new computer-controlled

camera systems perfected by the firm {page

Though ILM provided


films, including the

winning

Park

flicks

135).

more than 150

Indiana Jones trilogy and Jurassic

the Star

Wars

exerted a special magic. For the fourth in the series.

special effects

most

effects for

14 Oscars in the process

Star Wars: Episode

shots.

craft

I The Phantom

showed up

Even before that

in nearly

release. Star

successfial series ever

ations,

Menace

(1999),

ILM

95 percent of the

Wars had become the

made. Appealing across gener-

through 1998 the Star Wars trilogy had grossed

$1.8 billion at the

box

office

in licenses for books, video

and more than $4.5

billion

games, apparel, and replicas

of George Lucas's beloved toys.

133

Popping Up on ihc
fihning,

A N U

A C

V K

C,

II

1,

I)

I.

through a trapdoor that conceals him during

set

animator Jon Berg adjusts the position of one of the snow

walkers seen in The Empire Strikes Back (1980). In ILM's stop-

motion technique, the

an

object

illusion

of movement was achieved by filming

one frame at a time and moving

it

between exposures.

Jon Berg peers through the viewfinder of a motion-control camera


to line

up a shot of a snow walker. The computer-operated camera

allowed filmmakers

models and

to

make

to

impart the

illusion

of motion

exact multiple copies of objects

to stationary

and move-

ments for the purpose of building composite images.

In a masterpiece

immense
Empire

ofILM special

effects, little

snow walkers

(left)

as they stride across the screen with guns blazing in

Strikes Back. This

image was the fruit of stop-motion

nique, motion-control cameras,

and compositing

the optical

look

The
tech-

magic

that permits various elements to be layered into one shot.

135

HOLLYWOOD

100 YliARS OF

hardware capabilities and employ new software. Special

Breakthroughs in

programs modeled the

beast,

augmenting

a basic tube

shape with such intricacies as transparent ripples and

Digital Illusion

minous

gram
or

Fl

all

Star

the spectacular special effects of the original

Wars

trilogy,

George Lucas

frustrated.

felt

Technology could not yet translate

all

his fantastic

visions into realistic images. But that began to change

sophisticated

computer graphics.

Major breakthroughs

ILM

confronted an extraordinary challenge in The Abyss

(1989). Director James

Cameron envisioned

of creatures, a snakelike "pseudopod"


water that could transform
faces. "It

had

when

had

its

to be living," said

to feel that

it

had

made

to resize, color-correct,

Still,

Lucas's crew

mind of

its

In

136

it,

ILM had

to vastly

its

computer

The Abyss a computer-generated creature made of seawater changes

and

establish

an

2:

Judgment Day (1991),

more

specialists to

startling character, a cy-

borg named T-1000. The creature had to metamorphose


of stages, from gleaming metallic hu-

amorphous blob of

liquid metal to

human

form. Rapid increases in digital processing power and

memory

gave the technicians

new

ning existing images, composing


ring

expand

forth an even

to

and rippling purposefully."


To create

summon

manoid

own and was moving

alter digitized images.

Cameron asked ILM's computer

of sea-

Mark Dippe of ILM. "You

a pro-

in digital effects.

For his next film. Terminator

a series

human

was Photoshop,

needed nine months to complete the

Oscar-winning milestone

through

tip into various

and

75-second computerized sequence

the strangest
totally

vital tool

created primarily for publishing, which enabled

director

in digital effects started

One

ILM

dramatically in the late 1980s with the advent of ever

more

reflections.

lu-

them

to film. In

possibilities for scan-

new

ones,

and

transfer-

what one of them described

as a

"manic, energy-filled production with incredible dead-

into the hkeness of Ed Harris, as

Mary Ehzabeth Mastrantonio

reaches out.

A N

11

1-

A C T U R

C;

MM

lU A

Preparing for the eoinputerized birth of T-1000,

painted with a
runs
camera.

actor Robert Patrick

of reference points

Given

life

who

for the

by software using digitized i?nages of

Patrick, the
actor,

black grid

gleaming T-1000 runs just

like the

limps slightly from an old injury.

In a spectacular sequence from Terminator 2: Judg-

ment Day, T-1000 emerges from a wall offire


liquid metal, which then shifts into

human

as

shape.

137

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

ICO

and

lines

ILM brought

pressures,"

Cameron's cyborg

To

to life

up a scene

in

the role of mathematician Ian

computer-generated

film.

Malcolm

When

for Jurassic

Park, actor Jeff Goldhlum

minutes of

in nearly six

set

George Lucas's old

associate,

flees a

charging

Tyrannosaurus rex that he has

Steven Spielberg, planned his 1993 adapta-

to

tion of the best-selling

ing inserted into the shot, the

thriller Jurassic Park,

he anticipated using only a

bit

imagine

is

there.

Before be-

beast was built from scratch

of computer

by computer
graphics.

He

intended to rely mostly on

physical models. But ILM's


l<dds

wanted

show him

to

computer whiz

that they could

generate a "full-screen, in-your-face Tyran-

nosaurus rex." Their demonstration was so


awe-inspiring that Spielberg
lotting six dramatic

wound up

minutes to their

al-

digital

dinosaurs, capped by the climactic battle

Beginning
T. rex,

between the

T.

rex

and the

the

its

creation of a

computer pro-

velociraptors.
duces an image representing

"The keys
liminal," said

to

filmmaking are

Mark Dippe. "You

all

sub-

see a dino-

saur walk by a tree and the tree shakes, you


believe

it's

there."

To

an idea of

get

a three-dimensional wire-

frame skeleton of the


beast.

the creators later

how

six-ton

Using special software,

added

di-

muscles, surface texture,

nosaurs moved,

ILM

animators observed

and

other features.

large animals, consulted paleontologists,

and even participated

ment

classes.

in

dance and move-

With in-house software they

captured the dinosaurs' every sway and


gle,

jig-

even such subtleties as the expansion

and contraction of skin during breathing.

Some computer-graphics

solutions

brought with them new problems. The images frequently


technicians

more
ic

had

seemed too mechanical, so


to

natural look.

add blur and grain

They

also

for a

used electron-

paintbrushes to touch up flaws in the final

composites. But in one dramatic example

of the power of digital


child actress

adult stunt

effects,

was attached

woman

the head of a

to the

body of an

so that the child appeared

During film editing


to be

performing the stunt. Not

but humans could

138

now

be built

just

animals

digitally.

with

live action.

{above), the

computer integrates the evolving

digital creature

This compositing process combines two separate images

dimensional wire model and the so-called background plate of the fleeing

the three-

actor.

The final composited


the cutting

shot,

which wound up on

room floor, brings together a Tyran-

uosaurus- rex

and a

terrified Jeff Goldblum.

4JI0I^

f^

^m

'*'M

00

YTARS OF HOLLYWOOD

4-^

^
In

The Mask (1994), Jim Carrey plays a bank

clerk

whose body changes

when he dons

to

a kind of Silly Putty

a mysterious mask. The filmed im-

age above provides the background plate.

With eyes popping, a computer-generated wire-

frame figure

is

composited over the filmed

background plate of Carrey. Computer images


exaggerated the actor's

own facial

contortions.

In the computerized figure, Carrey's tongue

and

eyeballs extend hugely. In other scenes, his figure

explodes

and

"freeze"

when commanded by a cop

drips with

icicles.

to

In the final composite, the film of the real

Jim Carrey and his popcyed computer


caricature merge seamlessly in a bizarre
digital

union of reality and

illusion.

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

Master of

Animation
not just a cartoon," Walt Disney once

It's
exclaimed

about a project. "We have new

worlds to conquer here." Animation was a primi-

er he

brought

boat Willie

having

By

bottom).

when

1920

tive art in

his

Disney, then 18, got started. Eight years

chosen

field into

won an Oscar

in 1932 for Flowers

chipmunks and
one

and

Trees,

Competing animators were awed by

beautifully executed work:

rels,"

Mickey Mouse

(right,

Disney was one of Hollywood's biggest names,

30,

color cartoon.

sound with Steam-

the age of

the cartoon that launched

lat-

giraffes

scampered

squirrels

artist said

"The

like

ran

the

first full-

his studio's

and the

like giraffes

chipmunks and

squir-

admiringly.

In 1934 he began a three-year project that skeptics labeled

Disney's FoOy

the

first

feature-length animated film. Audiences

nationwide were dazzled by


with

and
ing

lavish,

unprecedented

detail.

Snow White move with

shadows should

faO,

and

the Seven Dwarfs,

winning characters,

enthralling story,

its

Snov^/ Wliite

Immense

realism

and adding

and

irresistible

music,

labor went into

grace, determining

glistening effects to jewels

mak-

how
and

soap bubbles.
Disney's spare-no-expense approach carried over to the studio's later films.

Lead characters

bi (inset, bottom)

became

ney successfully turned

parks. After he died in 1966

with The

1989
Walt Disney

acts out a scene from Pinocchio (1940) for his staff.

it

Little

drift.

But

Mermaid

in

began a new era of ani

mated blockbusters, showin

Disney routinely introduced ideas through such performances,


that the

which

often,

one animator

said,

would

"kill

they were so funny." His presentation of the


the Seven

142

Dwarfs story reportedly moved

the

world Disney had ere

you laughing,

Snow White and


room

to tears.

ated half a century earlier


still

held

its

magic.

(inset, top)

his

and amusement

studio seemed to

Dumbo

and Bam-

part of the world's popular culture. Dis-

attention to television, live-

action films,

like

^^

Snow

Fantasia,

1940

The

Disney Classics
Mickey Mouse, as the

Sorcerer's

Apprentice, makes the stars

dance

in Fantasia;

Snow

White's

dwarfs sing "Heigh Ho"; Ariel,


the Little
sea;

Mermaid,

frolics in the

and a sacred ceremony

marks the birth ofSimba and


Nala's cub in

The Lion King.

White and

Little

tiie

A N u

Seven Dwarfs, 1937

Mermaid, 1989

c:

T U R

r,

il

i:

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

Man

Merry Mayhem
Warner

at

who found

or those

Fy

Warner

Bros.

Disney's world a Httle saccharine, there were

Bros, cartoons:

and

a wisecracking tone

with Warner Bros, gangster

Michael Maltese

recalled,

fast,

ferocious,

relentless

flicks

vils fell

began

series

anarchic, cheeky style was in

cliffs.

As storyman

bill.

cartoons for grownups."

on heads, dynamite exploded while being

obliviously dashed off

matched

that nicely

playing on the same

"We wrote

its

and very funny, they had

mayhem

The Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies


and by the next decade

of a Thousand Voices

held,

in the 1930s,

full

bloom: An-

and characters

Warner animators working on minuscule

budgets produced some of the

six- to

seven-minute epics

The legendary Mel Blanc


carrot for a

plied the voices for almost all the major

malodorous building fondly known

mite Terrace. Yet gifted directors


Friz Freleng,

Robert

Chuck

as Ter-

Tex Avery,

like

Bob Clampett, and

Jones,

McKimson turned

sup-

ejfect)

in a dilapidat-

Warner cartoon
ed,

(above, with a

Bugs Bunny sound

out a thousand-

ing

characters. Tlie

was Yosemite Sam's

holler,

most tax-

he

said,

with saliva!' A medical specialist told Blanc


that he
rico

had throat muscles

like those

of En-

Caruso.

cartoon body of work that remains unmatched


in

animation

Warner

history.
Bros.' first

enduring character

was chubby pink Porky Pig


joined later by Bugs, the unflappable, smart-aleck

(inset).

He was

bunny with

the

Brooklyn-Bronx accent. The "scwewy wabbit," always too much


for

"Ehh, what's up, doc?"

Bugs Bunny
"Th-th-that's

Porky

all.

Folks!"

Pig

befuddled Elmer Fudd, also made short but hilarious work

of antagonists

like

Daffy Duck, the Tasmanian Devil, and pint-

"Itawtltawapuddytatr
Tweety

size,

man

Bird

high-decibel Yosemite Sam, "the roughest, toughest, hestuffest

hombre

that ever crossed the Rio Grande."

Sylvester the cat's vain quest to

make

meal of

little

"You're despicable!"

-Daffy Duck

Tweety sustained dozens of Warner Bros, cartoons, and


"Be vewy, vewy

Wile

E.

Coyote continually chased the Road Runner across

stylized desert landscapes, betrayed

brand products and

his

own

The loquacious southern


with a very different

mined

rooster

foe: a tiny

to catch his first chicken

ity in their sizes.

144

ever

time and again by

Foghorn Leghorn was faced

young hawk, Henery,


no matter what the

quiet!"

Elmer Fudd

Acme

more crackpot schemes.

deter-

dispar-

and

Sylvester's sputter left his scripts "covered

"Ah

say,

Ah

Foghorn

say. Son!"

Leghorn

Model
ter.

sheets like this

Bugs Bunny

MAN

A C

U U

C,

II

1.

I)

l<

From

his

debut on, he was, Friz

gun who was hunting him."

Bugs and Yosemite

Sam

appear on a

eel

Freleng (top). Animators would ink each

ment of action onto

by Friz

mo-

a sheet of celluloid, lay

over a painted background (center),

it

and capture

the combination (bottom) on film. This scene

from High Diving Hare


"Sufferin Succotash!" Sylvester

by Tweety, the cat also stood


in all

one helped animators maintain a consistent look for each charac-

kept a consistent attitude as well.

Freleng said, "so cocky he wasn't afraid of a guy with a

mouse

I.

is

little

in trouble

with Granny again. Continually bested

chance against Speedy Gonzales, "the fastest

Mexico," or Hippety Hopper, the diminutive boxing kangaroo.

in

the diving platform falls, while

suspended
"but,"

in air.

Bugs

is

which Sam's half of

Bugs remains

This violates the law of gravity,

says, "I

never studied law."

145

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

100

The Next Generation


of Animation
A

j%

technology evolved, so did animation. In 1988


Rabbit

starring

Bob Hoskins

JL. character Roger Rabbit

as a

as a

WJio Framed Roger

940s detective, and cartoon

murder suspect

(right)

Disney and

Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment blended the animated and real

worlds seamlessly. "If Roger comes into a

you should

see the cushion

go

down and

room and

sits

down on

a big chair,

a puff of dust," Spielberg said.

After live-action sequences were filmed, animators crafted drawings to


fit

precisely into the footage.

Cartoon characters had to hold


a believable way.

real objects in

To match each

movement of the camera, drawings needed to shift perspective


subtly. Layers

shadow made
ures

of highlight and
the animated

fig-

seem three-dimensional or

created other effects, such as the

shimmer of a sequined gown

worn by

An

sultry Jessica Rabbit.

even bigger breakthrough

was 1995's Toy


ture film

Story, the first fea-

animated

entirely

by

computer. The story of Woody


(inset, right)

and Buzz

(inset, left),

fection, required four years

studio Pixar.

toys

In

Programmers and animators created computer models

model

Snow

to

make

this virtual

same

two lead toy characters received

nuanced

Then they designed


world convincingly

White, Walt Disney created animation's

characters; Toy Story did the

ly

for their owner's af-

of work from Disney and computer-graphics

every character, setting, and object.


for each

who compete

facial expressions.

in the realm of

for

surface "textures"
tactile.

first realistic

human

computer animation. The

a high level of realism as well, with careful-

"For the audience to believe in them,

Woody
Bob Hoskins,

and Buzz have

as private eye Eddie Valiant, wrestles

to look like they're thinking," Pixar 's John Lasseter said. Toy
with his cartoon client in

Story

had a happy ending, winning both

office success.

146

a special

Academy Award and box-

bit.

Who Framed Roger Rab-

During filming, Hoskins had

his scenes against

imaginary

to

play most of

costars.

Kids and

Animals
HARD ACTS TO FOLLOW

Never

work with

kids

and animals," warned W. C.

scene with their behind to the camera."

he was talking about. Movie audiences found


or a lovable pig

(inset).

But

if

Hollywood's

costars, children

At

first

it

Fields. "They'll steal

your best

The grumpy comedian knew what

difficult to resist a

critters often

were even bigger scene

noble dog

like Lassie

upstaged their grown-up

human

stealers.

producers were slow to catch on to

this

phenomenon, and

youngsters in film served largely as props. By the 1930s, however, child stars

shone so brightly

in the

movieland firmament that ambitious mothers

were besieging the studios, dragging along a kid


next

little

person to make

The one who made


cisely

56 corkscrew

it

curls.

it

who was

sure to be the

big.

biggest of

all

had

dimpled smile and pre-

For four years in a row, beginning in 1935

when

she was seven years old, Shirley Temple (right) outdrew every other

Hollywood
buoying the

spirits

star at the

and

office.

Her sunny on-screen optimism was

infectious,

of a nation mired in the Great Depression. She could sing. She could

dance. She was impossibly cute.

her lines

box

didn't shy

And

she was such a quick study that she always

away from prompting her adult fellow actors

if

remembered

'\i

they forgot theirs.

,'W
Two bnbcs who made
right,

148

the grade in Tinseltown: Above, a talking pig

had

the

title role in

Babe (1995). At

sipping milk, Shirley Temple was America's image of wholesome goodness during the mid- 1930s.

Temple was

a natural. At ago

feet

rolled in

dancing school, where

tt)

making

one-reelers. In 1934,

made no fewer than


special miniature

1.

*Don't ask

me how

she does

it.

a talent scout discovered

Before she was four she had her

her.

A N

two she was keeping time

music on the radio. At three she was en-

with her

KIDS AND

when

first

she turned

eight feature films

YouVe heard

film contract,
six,

champions

she

and was awarded a

of chess

at eight

and

violin

virtuosos at lo? Well, she's

Oscar for bringing "more happiness to

millions of children

and millions of grownups than any

Ethel Barrymore at six."

child of her years in the history of the world."

Such was her popularity that Temple's studio, 20th


Century-Fox, maintained
scripts for her.
plots,

but

if

a staff

for

of 19 writers to develop

These screenplays typically featured treacly

the films were forgettable.

"Sparkle, Shirley, sparkle!" her

And

Costar Adolphe Menjou on Shirley Temple

5 cents at their

Temple never was.

mother would remind

her.

neighborhood theaters Ameri-

cans could watch that sparkle and momentarily forget


their woes.

It

was no wonder that she was photographed

more than anyone

in the world, including

her adoring

fan President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

By the time she reached puberty, Temple had earned


three million dollars
cy.

12;

and saved the studio from bankrupt-

Only then did she learn

that she

was actually

13,

not

her parents and the studio had shaved a year off her

age to

make

best days

her seem even

more

precocious. By then her

on the screen were behind

her.

In a reversal of the usual filmland scenario.

was succeeded
by someone

as

Hollywood's most popular child

who was

ager with the stage


Joe Yule

made

Jr.

Temple

actually older than she

name Mickey Rooney

a teen-

(right).

into a vaudeville family in Brooklyn,

his stage debut, playing a dwarf,

star

Born

Rooney

when he was

scarcely out of diapers. In 1926, at age six, he appeared in


his first

movie, and his freckled face soon became familiar

In the famous malt-shop scene from Love Finds

ey Rooney as

Andy and Judy Garland

Andy Hardy, Mick-

as the girl next door share

one soda with two straws. Between 1937 and 1943 Rooney and
in

such films as Boys' Town and Captains Courageous.

He made

the

first

of 15

Andy Hardy

Garland made a

total of nine films together

five of them musicals.

films in 1937, play-

ing an all-American adolescent with such verve that he

was number one

at the

box

office three years

running.
Opposite: Shirley TetJtple

Unlike Temple, Rooney stayed in show business. In

an up-and-down career spanning three-quarters of

a cen-

gles"

Robinson tap a

son said, "God

made

and favorite dance partner

classic

sequence

her just

all

in

The

by herself

Bill

"Bojan-

Little Colonel.

no

Robin-

series, just one."

151

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

he had roles in 189 films. "I've been coming back

rubber

ball

Rooney's frequent costar, Judy Garland (page 151), was also the

off-

tury,

for years,"

he

said. "I couldn't live v^'ithout acting."

spring of vaudevillians. Born Frances

her two older

w^ith

But when she was

unsuccessful

sisters in the
1

3 her

Gumm

in

Minnesota, she sang

"Gumm

first

history to be signed without a screen test or

sound

test.

B.

Mayer of

in the studio's

Twice she was

in

teenage pictures before she found her unforget-

Dorothy

in

The Wizard of Oz

Garland was

MGM's

a tornado into the

work out

person

Kiddie Act."

Rooney

cast opposite

by

Sisters

emotive voice so impressed Louis

MGM that he signed her to a contract the

table role as

like a

(right).

second choice for the role of the Kansas

girl

flung

Land of Oz. The studio wanted Temple but could not

a deal with 20th Century-Fox.

Garland was 16 when filming

started in 1938.

To mask her maturing

and make her

figure

fit

the role of 11 -

year-old Dorothy, the studio strapped

her into a corset and


Later, the effort

der look

bound her

breasts.

of maintaining the slen-

demanded by Hollywood

be-

deviled Garland throughout a brilliant

and troubled adult


such

A
Natalie

classics as

Star

Is

abuse and,

an unintentional overdose of sleeping


Playing Garland's

O'Brien,

who became

Margaret knew

how

young

career that included

Meet Me

Louis and

in St.

Amphetamines she took

Born.

to lose weight

Wood meets Santa

paved the way for alcohol

finally,

death

at

age 47 fi^om

pills.

sister in

Meet

Me

in St.

Louis was Margaret

the major child star of the 1940s. Even at seven,

to turn

on the emotional

spigot.

But

just to

sure he got copious tears during a key scene, director Vincente

make

MinnelH

once took the youngster aside before shooting and told her that her

dog had been

killed

by

a car.

It

worked. O'Brien's roles belonged to the

long Hollywood tradition of childhood innocence exemplified by Shirley

Temple. Nine-year-old Natalie Wood, as Susan Walker

worked the same vein

on 34th

(inset,

1947 and shown practically every Christmas since then,

In

The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy

Man

(Itidy

Garland) ministers

(Jack Haley)

and

above),

Street. In that classic, released

in

(Bert Lahr) as the Tin

152

in Miracle

to the

the Scarecrow

little

Susan's

Cowardly Lion

(Ray Bolger) watch.

'^K.

'^-

.*

'

'

ji;
^|:

?'*

i.

skepticism about the existence of Santa Claus

KIDS AND ANIMALS

translornied

is

into fervent belief.

After

World War

screen roles for children began

II,

The new

evolving with the rapidly changing times.

more

screenplays reflected a

stripped of

some of

view of childhood,

realistic

the contrived

endearing charm

if

Land of Oz.

Shirley tap-dancing or Judy in the

of

little

In

The Parent

Trap, 15-year-old Hayley Mills

of British actor John Mills

showed

daughter

a shrewder aspect of

who

adolescence, portraying twins (below, right)

trick

their separated parents into reconciling.

In Paper

Moon

who

(1973), a natural con artist

smoked, cursed, and bilked lonely widows out of

money was
up with

nine-year-old

Tatum O'Neal

a traveling swindler, played

(left).

by her

their

Teamed

real-life fa-

Helen Keller (Patty Duke) takes a lesson from her teacher, Annie

Ryan O'Neal, she demonstrated

ther,

that

old innocence was gone. Unlike Temple,

bered everyone's
hers.

O'Neal had

lines,

more than

who remem-

an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

chilling

As

that year

One

was 14-year-old Linda

performance

in

The

Sullivan (Anne Bancroft), in The Miracle


croft

were reprising

roles that

Worker Duke and Ban-

had won them acclaim on Broadway.

be bribed to learn

to

But she delivered them so persuasively that she

nominees

the

won

of the other
Blair, for

her

Exorcist.

roles available to child actors

changed, so did the

youngsters' treatment in the media. Intimate matters that

once would have been hushed up, such

as Garland's pill

problems, became the everyday stuff of

TV

Perhaps the

first

Patty Duke. At

and

child star to endure such exposure

6 her performance in

and mute

was

The Miracle Worker

(1962) as the young Helen Keller (above, right)


deaf,

tabloids.

won the Academy Award

blind,

for Best

Sup-

porting Actress. But along with the accolades came reports that she threw temper tantrums

her

life

off

it

home when
had

to

proved no
she was

less troubled.

six,

was an

on the
Her

alcoholic.

Duke

herself

Tatiim O'Neal puffs

drank

away

in

and

father,

who

left

Her mother

be hospitalized repeatedly for mental

teenager,

set

heavily, suffered

illness.

As

from manic-

Paper Moon. The actress admitted

she had already been smoking secretly for three years.

With the help of cinematic


twin

sisters Sitsan

sleight of hand,

and Sharon

in the

Hayley Mills portrays

1961 classic The Parent Trap.

155

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

-^.

and was, she

depressive illness,

-.,

charged, sexually

later

abused by her managers.

47 iM
M

The media

The

caulay Culkin.

IJN

tered in the hit

fV

9p ^^

also

went

town on 10-year-old Ma-

to

encoun-

hilarious difficulties he

Home Alone

(below,

left)

paled along-

side the highly publicized feuding that followed in


his real-life family. Culkin,

who

$50 million in his

years as a child

first five

earned an estimated
star,

retreated

^**:*'
1

from the movies while

over custody of

his parents

him and

waged

his six siblings;

a bitter fight

he then mar-

ried at the age of 17.

In kids' roles, too, the kid gloves were


ly,

Increasing-

off.

children were being cast in R-rated films that, by law,

they were not even allowed to view in theaters.

^^ mm

-year-old

new range of acting

abilities.

Anna Paquin of New Zealand took

In

the

Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance

drama The Piano

(left).

in

Pa-

The

their roles in
to

Tatum

O'Neal, the youngest winner of the Best Supporting Actress award.

Culkm

is

when confronted with

cunning

demanded

of

quin had to develop a Scottish accent and learn to inter-

won Oscars for

was Best Actress; Paquin became, next

Ten-year-old Macaulay

1994,

the passionate 19th-century

Anfl Paquiti and Holly Hunter


Piano. Hunter

these roles

Many

and

pret the gestures through

communicated. Yet her only previous acting experience

had been the

adept at demonstrating fear


burglars in

Home Alone

which her mute screen mother

role of a

Unprecedented

skunk

in a school play.

roles as child prostitutes

were played

(1990).

by Brooke Shields and Jodie

Both began

Foster.

professional careers precociously

Shields as a

their

baby

model, Foster as the bare-bottomed three-year-old in


a suntan-lotion commercial.

prostitutes

Shields in Pretty

Driver (1976)

to direct her

appeared

in front

later

Foster in Taxi

went to Ivy

Shields to Princeton, Foster to Yale.

Shields later starred in her

Susan. Foster went

Baby (1978),

Both actresses

(right).

League universities

and

Both played 12-year-old

on

own

to

own TV

series,

Suddenly

win two Best Actress Oscars

films. Appropriately,

when

of the camera as well as behind

her directorial debut, Linle

Man

she
it

in

Tate (1991), she played

the mother of a child prodigy.

Jodie Foster, 13, plays a child prostitute in Taxi Driver. In her next
films she

156

was a gangster's moll and a

nnirderer.

^*"1

'^'i

^?

ll:^*

>'fcj

10

Yl-ARS OF I-IOLLYWOOD

A Menagerie of

joined the gang of mischief-loving kids in 1927.

terrier, first

He had

a distinctive ring

around

his right eye that

had been

applied with liquid dye for another movie and would not

Matinee Idols

come

off.

Over the next decade,

ent terriers played Pete,

Hollywood's

animal superstar was a

first

German shepherd

(opposite, top), saved

bombed-out building

War

I.

in

him Rin Tin Tin

after a character in a

pilot,

in the silent

named

popular French story


to his

of his descendants would follow

The Adventures of Rin Tin

and
Tin.

more than

street

him

a successor appeared in TV's

But none could top the orig-

from Jean Harlow and received

a million pieces of fan mail annually.

Pete the

Pup

of

ring

the series of short

comedies produced between 1922

and 1944.

Pete, a

gende

in the

same

film.

"We

around whichever eye would show

ducer Hal Roach

said.

young comrades, each


trick:

As

if

to say

on

all

the circle shifted back and forth between

"Oh

just painted the


it

off the best," pro-

Whenever trouble loomed


Pete

would perform

no, not again!" he

for his

his primar)'

would

The best-known animal performer of all,


was

actually a female impersonator.

Come Home had

female was cast in the

pit bull

role.

lie

down,

first

to break the

and a pedigreed

critical scene,

owner had hired

re-

the director

trainer

Weatherwax have him

when opportunity knocked,

He swam

Rudd

dog of chasing motorcycles and

furniture, then let

of payment. But
through.

script for Lassie

her stand-in. Pal, a male with a somewhat ques-

Weatherwax
chewing up

Lassie (right),

But when the starring canine

fijsed to go near the water in a

summoned

The

called for a female collie,

tionable resume. Pal's

(below) was the featured canine

Our Gang,

of them wore the trademark

put his paws over his head, and close his eyes.

inal. At the height of his nine-year career, Rinty lived in a

mansion across the

first,

sometimes

eyes

"Rinty" single-pawedly brought Warner Bros, back from

into the character in films,

differ-

dogs but the

adventure film Wfiere the North Begins

Two

dozen

from

(1923). His 21 subsequent movies were so popular that

near bankruptcy.

as a

eye-encircling paint. Audiences scarcely noticed that

and taught him hundreds of tricks. Audiences flocked


debut

all

many

refiagee

France during World

His rescuer, Lee Duncan, an American

and

as

the swollen stream.

Pal

in lieu

came

KIDS AND ANIMALS

liikiiii^

he

(I

somnl

tc>l in

ready for the

is

sileitt-screett stars

'We

192^.), liiii

can't

Tin Tin sliows

Matty of his fellow

talkies.

could

ttoi tiinkc

the switch.

even house-

break him. Do you think

you can

train

him?"

owner of Pal (Lassie)


Rudd Weatherwax
First

The

origiital Lassie

to

was paid more for

Come Home

ill

the 1943 classic Lassie

1 1

-year-old costar, Elizabeth Taylor.

his

work

than his

159

Peggy ihc chimp drapes an arm around Ronald


'i-r

costar in

Bedtime

for Bonzo.

'0^^^-^

emerged

KIDS AND ANIMALS

tioni the water, and, instead of shaking himself as

any normal, red-blooded


hausted on cue.

down

would, slumped

ex-

got the role and shared the screen with

le

do\j,

two other promising newcomers

Roddy McDowall and

Elizabeth Taylor. Pal starred in seven Lassie films. Later, five

generations of his descendants

male

all

played

Lassie in

movies or on TV.

Other animal
Bedtime

roles. In

Peggy

stars

have

for Boiizo

made
1951

),

mark

their

chimpanzee named

became the only animal ever

(left)

comic

in

to share top billing

with a future president. Ronald Reagan played a psychologist

who

raises a

chimp

environment rather

to prove that

than genes shapes behavior. Reagan found Peggy "adorable


to

work with" but unpredictable: She once grabbed

Francis the Talking

Mule

(rigJit,

advises fellow sailors

in Francis in the

Navy

costars in seven

came from

films during the 1950s. His voice

the veteran

the critters so well he sometimes ignored the script

libbed Francis's dialogue.


the trainer manipulated

the muscles

on the

The mule's

lips

and ad-

"What trick is there to


Any fool can do it."

talking?

Francis the Talking Mule,

in

Francis Joins the

them with thread or by

pressing

side of the head. After her first film,

in reality a female

named Molly

let

stardom go

She put on the feedbag with such gusto that

for her next

movie she had

The

title

character of Babe cuddles

up with Fanner Hoggett, played by

James Cromwell.

the Hollywood

almost

hills

all

to lose

and sweating

Molly could climb

cabinet.

stairs,

of the other necessary

200 pounds by jogging

in a

The

to

custom-made steam

wink on
tricks.

standards; she stubbornly refused to

had

sit

cue,

and execute

But she had her

down, and

that

be performed by a stand-in.

title

role in

Babe (1995) belonged

than 48 different white Yorkshire

grow so

pigs.

to

no fewer

Because York-

quickly, four-week-old shoats

were

trained in groups of six so they could begin filming

about
late

weeks

later.

Each wore a toupee to simu-

the tuft of dark hair

(right).

Wacs (1954)

moved because

to her head.

shires

(1955).

mule skinner who knew

character actor Chill Wills, an old

feat

Donald

top) dispensed advice

Donald O'Connor and other human

Francis

Mule {Molly)

O'Connor and Martha Hyer

and nearly strangled him.

necktie

to

his

Francis the Talking

on Babe's forehead

Animatronic clones and computer

graphics created facial expressions and the

100

YEARS OF

HOLLYWOOD

appearance of speech for Babe and the 800 other animals


cast in this

charming

12-year-old boy helps the whale gain his freedom

(right). In real life,

fable.

it

turned out, after the film was shot

films tended to reflect envi-

Keiko was returned to a seaquarium

ronmental concerns. Fly Away

Home

he lived in a cramped,

experiences of Canadian artist

Bill

During the 1990s, animal

domesticated flock of geese

how to

(1996) grew out of the

Lishman,

who

taught a

migrate by leading them

south to winter quarters in an ultralight plane. In the film,

Anna

Paquin,

156), finds

Academy Award winner

grate, they don't

the

way

know where

in a little

When

to go, but

goose-shaped

Life imitated art in the saga


star

for

The Piano (page

an abandoned nest of goose eggs and becomes

surrogate mother to the goslings.

it is

time to mi-

Anna shows them

of Keiko the

killer

whale

amusement park with an unscrupulous own-

Piloting a goose-shaped ultralight aircraft,

Anna Paquin

a severe skin disease.


oft"

in

filthy pool, lost

An

Mexico

weight,

City,

where

and developed

expose in Life magazine touched

worldwide campaign to rescue Keiko. Millions of dol-

lars in

contributions poured

Foundation was formed

in,

and the Free Willy-Keiko

to return the

whale to the North

Atlantic near Iceland,

where he had been captured

Keiko was

1996 to a rehabilitation

airlifted in

in 1979.

facility in

Ore-

gon, where he recovered, gained weight, and learned to hunt.

Two

aircraft (below).

of Free Willy (1993). In the film, Keiko plays Willy, a

captive in an

162

er.

years later he was flown to Iceland to

temporary
enabled

home

him

in a

huge

floating pen.

to acclimate to the ocean

underwent preparation

move

into a

Nylon mesh

around him

as

new

sides

he

for release into his native waters.

leads a flock of Canada geese on their first migration south in Fly .Away

Home.

In Free Willy, a

young friend

leap to freedom. This scene

robot stand-in for the

star,

in-ges the

whale

to

was filmed using a


Keiko.

The

Lights in

Hollywood's Sky
CELEBRATING THE STARS

IP
I

he headline

ported a

in the

November

new phenomenon

21, 1913, issue of the

an outrageous one,

the day: "Picture Actors Are Asking for

Names on

showbiz newspaper Variety

in the

re-

minds of the studio bosses of

the Screen." Farsighted in

many

ways, the

pioneer movie moguls nonetheless did not yet perceive that their business would ride to riches
primarily on star power.

Although those early actors had not asked

them

it

began

did not stop

the camera, they were a

^
'(H

once

well

Tfi 1

to

known

watch

their

about their

an apt

as their faces,

work but
and

lives

celestial

new kind

at

much, the process of celebrating

mere recognition. Smiling or sneering

Americans were willing

and

frailties

and

them

follies.

indeed, eager
at play

The

and

ment, they were

With

their

the serious actors

and equally out of

stars

pay not only

and hear

to read

now

called stars,

ehisive

reach.

of change

And
in

like

became

literally suf-

as familiar as

the heavens in perpetual

one film beggar,

in

move-

another prince.

reaped almost unimaginable wealth, adulation, and, for some of

among them,

The very essence of that

to

metaphor, for as they stood before the camera they were

in a constant process

fame the

actors were

fused with light and seemed to sparkle. Hollywood's galaxy


the night sky

a token of recognition almost equally valued

something called star

qiuihty, 26-year-oid

an Oscar

(inset).

Ehzaheth Taylor exudes a smol-

dering sexuality as Maggie in the 1958 film version of Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

164

into

of popular hero. After their names became as

also to see pictures of

loves

for

YEARS

10

()

I-

II

I,

Y VV

()

(.)

lywood Reporter. Asked

The Making of a
Movie Star

replied simply,

"I'll

if

she'd like to be in pictures, she

have to ask

my

The fortunate few who survived


screen test

the beginning,

stardom exerted

tlie

were taken

possibility of film

a gravitational pull

on American

.A. youth. Although some of the biggest Holly-

James Stewart and Katharine Hepburn,


thousands of
example came from the

wood names
for

in

the promise of a

life

dreamed of being
one story

dream

like

alive.

in the

"discovered."

She was spotted

Coke

it

sunboniwt

set

Few

in

Billy

at 15,

hand by the strong arm of the

They

ever were, but just

cutting school, sipping

Wilkerson, publisher of the Hol-

amid her auburn

curls, Julia

girl

might come off the assembly

ress in a skintight

over, into images.

and

tu-

glamorous tempt-

line a

gown.

Thus reconfigured, new

stars

went into the studio

ventory and were protected from mishap with great

"You

can't

days," said

imagine

and guarded, the

care.

the studios cosseted us in those

"They had

fans

would

to. If

we

weren't looked after

tear us to pieces."

fans were ravenous indeed,

and

satiable curiosity, the publicity function

(right),

in-

Robert Taylor, born Spangler Arlington Brugh

in Filley, Nebraska.

The

how

Jean Turner 16, stands before the camera for her 1937 screen

The Postman Always Rings Twice

studio.

tored in makeup, voice, and comportment, an Iowa farm

Schwab's Drugstore, as legend

seductive but cold-blooded wife in 1946'}

166

irresistible.

Lana Turner's was enough to keep the

although not
would have by
a

movies was

quarterbacks,

casting couch

Restyled, renamed, buffed to dental perfection,

stage, for

hometown prom queens and handsome

the compulsory

and sometimes the notorious

There they were made, and made

A Imost from

mother."

Lana Turner had made

test (left).

By

to gratify their in-

expanded beyond

the time she starred

cts

the

the real-life journey from virgin to vixen.

The Hollywood publicity madiinc would manage


wistful vulnerability,

Marilyn Monroe seems

to

crank out only one prize graduate from

to project the

most affecting

and genuine

this

1111

1949

class

U,

11

of starlets

IN

II

()

1,

1.

but what

Y VV

()

1)

SKY

a one: With her

expression.

167

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

the control of the studios into a journaHstic genre of

No one

own.

press than the

(inset),

and Louella Parsons. Hopper and

rival scoopsters,

gargoyles of gossip

Tinseltown celebrities in their

American

the celebrity

newspaper columnists: Walter Winchell,

Hedda Hopper
Parsons

power of

better represented the

its

own

became

Winchell was an

right;

institution.

Because Parsons and Hopper together had a daily


readership of 75 million people

population in the 1940s


favorable

an

mention by

more than

half the U.S.

they had tremendous power. A

either

actor's career; a slight

was an incalculable boost

could end

it.

to

Hopper candidly

referred to her Beverly Hills

man-

sion as "the house that fear built."

Winchell wielded vast influence

entertainment

political as well as
circles.

Once, accosted by an angry

film fan, he cried,

me

in

"You

can't talk to

God!"

that way! I'm

After Life magazine was

launched

seem

in 1936,

that the

it

soon came to

magazine and Holly-

wood were made

for each other

Hedda Hopper

Many would-be
by

publicity shots taken

help

them win

Life's staff

that all-important

stars

found that

photographers could

first

part.

And many

of

the magazine's most popular covers (right) featured the


screen's

best-known

faces.

The end of World War

II

brought changes to Holly-

wood. The studio system began a period of decline from

would never

which

it

scene,

many

recover.

New

came on

trained by top acting coaches in

dependent, schooled in theory, and


tinsel

actors

less

the

New York.

In-

obsessed with the

than their predecessors, stars such as Marlon Brando,

James Dean, Paul

Newman, Dustin Hoffman, and Joanne

Woodward eschewed
publicity.

Gone were

press agents.

the usual contrivances of mainstream


the fantasies concocted by studio

The new breed

insulated themselves with en-

tourages of assistants, pressed for creative control of their

i68

Whether featuring a supcnio\'a or an


a fond place for the
weel<ly, the

movie

iiigeiiiie,

star portrait.

magazine devoted 290 covers

Life

During
to

its

ahvayi found

36 years as a

Hollywood

royalty.

This controversially racy 1943 publicity


Russell reclining in a haystack

made

still

of Jane

sief

:^^'

her a sensation

before her first picture, The Outlaw, was released.

^Mk

170

10

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

projects,

II

I,

But Americans

The

glasses.

came,

if

IN

r S

II

II

I.

Y VV

under the direction

wanted

still

to see

O D

()

and tivqucnlly produced and directed

instead ol acting

liliiis

(i

their

SKY

own

of others.

behind the dark

public's interest in the stars' private lives be-

anything, a greater obsession than ever. And, in

the relatively forthright spirit of the times,

were surprisingly candid

many

stars

in their selfrihcT Uolocau*ti

revelations. For a long time the job

p^^|a^<f'.

of conveying the stories to the public

|^"tw?'

remained the province of the magazines. Life

ended

1972, but

two years

rived to

in

later People ar-

the gap.

fill

Later,

weekly run

its

magazines

like

Vanity Fair

and Entertainment Weekly added impetus to the trend, elevating celebrity to a

With

fetish.

a seemingly inexhaustible

supply of uninhibited and insanely rich young stars eager to


tell

and show

all,

the magazines published fresh

ten audacious interviews

tographers

and cutting-edge

who were famous

in their

own

pictures
right.

and

of-

by pho-

Coverage

of film stars began to be given equal

weight with

articles

about world leaders,

captains of industry,

and

aristocrats.

With seemingly no end


the public's craving for the

in sight to

lowdown on

the stars, television got into the act

with nightly entertainment-news pro-

grams, followed soon after by countless sites

on the World Wide Web.

In-

ternet users could get the purported

inside

dope on

their favorite stars

everything from

latest love affair to

choice of shampoo.

Whether they were the studio-controlled glamour pusses

of Hollywood's golden age or the independent- minded

actors of a latter day, the stars' appeal


ost engulfed in

With
nd John
the

Travolta (foreg

iw various

stars,

a trade-offfor fame.

their wealth, their

pure visual impact, and their fame,

reactions at

Cannes fihn festival. Constant intrusion by the media was a fact

of life for the

remained the same.

Kobiti Wright Penn,

se

movie

stars

gave their fans vicarious access to dreams, a

high-flying slice of

life

to titillate an

earthbound audience.

171

10

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

cc
Laurence Olivier
Hamlet, 1948

More

Stars

Than

in the Heavens"
the days

InMGM

when each

studio had

its

roster of actors

under contract,

used the headline above as a slogan. Those days are long

gone, but the stars

still

and the following pages.

shine.

Some of the

best

known adorn

these

-;

'
,

wj!

W
n Queen, 1951

'^^!l^^

--f

-^o

175

Robert Redford and Paul

Newman

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance

Kid,

1969

Sidney
7b

Sir,

IN

()

I,

I.

WOO

SKY

Poitier

With Love, 1967


Al Pacino

The Godfather Part

II,

1974

Dustin Hoffman and

Tom

Cruise

Rain Man, 1988

Clint

Eastwood

The Outlaw losey Wales,

1976

177

ilk.

i
1

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

Bette Davis
All

About

Eve,

1950

^nr-

Mae West
She Done Him Wrong,
1933

Joan Crawford

Sudden

Fear,

1952

Audrey Hepburn
Breakfast at Tiffany's, 1961

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

1^"^-

--V W

c
i.l^)f^'"<

WeryiStreep
r/ie

French Lieutenant's

Woman, 1981

r^^
tJP'

II

I,

CUTS

IN

II

()

I,

I.

() () I)

ulia

SKY

Roberts

Pretty

Woman, 1990

Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis


Thelma & Louise, 1991

185

100

YEARS OF HOLLYWOOD

Michelle Pfelffer

Dangerous

Liaisons,

1988

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The

editors wish to

thank the following ituliviiiimb and institutions for their vaiiiable

assistance in the preparation of this vohime:


Calif.;

Lynden, Wash.; Jeanne Cole, Lucasfilm, Nicasio,

Tom

Calif.;

Museum

Mary

Corliss,

Marlene Eastman, Warner

Bros.,

Burbank,

Calif.;

Mo.; Christopher Holm, Lucasfilm, Nicasio,

of

Richard Allen,

Conroy, Movie

Modern

New

Art,

York;

Bruce Hershenson, West Plains,

Mary

Calif.;

and

Ison

Staff,

Library of

PICTURE CREDITS

Warner

da,

Bros. Animation, Burbank, Calif.;

Washington, D.C.; Ellen Pasternak, Lucas

Warner

Bros.,

Digital,

San Rafael,

Burbank,

Calif.;

Archive, West Plains,

Mo.

book appear below. Credits from

Tile sources for the illustrations in this

left to

right are

New

York (Kobal Collection); Movie

New

Harrison, Nebr.; Kobal Collection; Photofest,

Still

Archives,

Movie

York; Kobal Collection;

New

Archives, Harrison, Nebr; courtesy Globe Photos,

Still

York

CORBIS/

Photofest,

New

York. 6-9: Kobal Collection. 10: Photofest,

New

partment of the

11-18: Kobal

Archives, Hol-

Park Service, Edison National Historic

Interior, National

Site. 24:

Modern Art (MOMA) Film Stills Archive, New York. 25: Brown BrothSterling, Pa. MOMA Film Stills Archive, New York. 26: MOMA Film Stills

ers,

of

New York

Archive,

Department of the

U.S.

National Historic Site

(2). 27:

The

Academy of Motion

Archives

MOMA

Calif. 30:

Film

Picture Arts

Stills

and

Archive,

Movie

New

Still

Still

Ar-

Kobal Collection
Wash. courtesy Eddie

Hollywood,

Seattle,

Calif.;

(3). 49:

photograph

THE RAIN

SINGIN' IN

Corp.

Kobal Collection. 53: Paramount, courtesy Kobal Collection

New

York. 54, 55: Studio

rights reserved.

AND

New York.

58:

Bros., courtesy

E.state

Picture Arts

Still

and

Sciences, Beverly Hills, Calif 56, 57:

Life

Magazine. 59: Bison Archives


Still

Archives, Harrison, Nebr.

courtesy Globe Photos,

Archives, Harrison, Nebr. 63:

1962

Columbia

Kobal Collection

70:

Columbia

MOMA Film
Artists,

Archives, Harrison, Nebr. 69:

New York.

Warner

Movie

Still

New York.

62:

Archives, Harrison, Nebr.

Pictures Industries, Inc. All rights re-

New York. 65: RKO, courNew York MGM, courtesy

Pictures. 64: Culver Pictures,

Kobal Collection. 66: United

HE WHO

of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco. 61:

served. Courtesy

Still

Archives;

1920 Turner Entertainment Co. All

Archives, Harrison, Nebr.;

Kobal Collection. 60: Movie

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
tesy

Still

W. Eugene Smith,

Universal, courtesy Kobal Collection

Movie

Bison

Navarro, John Gilbert, and Roy

1924 Turner Entertainment Co. All rights reserved. Photo cour-

Academy of Motion

Photofest,

MR. HYDE

Photo courtesy Movie

GETS SLAPPED

Warner

Ramon

Collection.

Stills

Archive,

courtesy Kobal Collection. 67, 68: Movie

The

Joel Finler Collection,

Bros., courtesy

London

Susan Gray

Kobal Collection. 71: Hershenson-Allen

Still

CABARET

1972

photography by Harry Benson.

Plains,

Mo.

Movie

(5);

89:

(5)

(4)

Warner

103:

Movie

Nebr.

A Time Warner Company


93:

Pictures Corp.

ABC

and Allied

Movie

New York.

Estate. 101: Photofest,

Warner
courtesy Kobal
Roland Neveu/Liaison Agency,

Collection.

Bros.,

Archives, Harrison, Nebr. 105: lerry Ohlinger's

Still

106: Louis

Goldman.

107:

Movie

Miramax, courtesy Kobal Collection United

Still

and

Artists, courtesy

All rights reserved.

Austin GONE

at

Grant, Life Magazine

Time

Biblioth^que du Film, Paris

All rights reserved. 112,

A Time Warner

Photo courtesy the Academy of Motion Picture Arts

THE WIZARD OF OZ
All rights reserved.

Ransom Humani-

1959 Turner Entertainment Co.

Sciences, Beverly Hills, Calif., except right center

Company.

Kobal Col-

WITH THE WIND

A Time Warner Company.

NORTH BY NORTHWEST

114, 115:

Movie

Archives, Harrison,

Gregory Heisler/CORBIS Outline. 110, 111: Courtesy Always Su-

1939 Turner Entertainment Co.

Company.

Plains,

102:

Kobal Collection

Research Center, University of Texas

113:

West

West

100: Hershenson-Allen Archive,

perior Books, Marietta, Ga.; David O. Selznick Collection, Harry

Artists

94, 95: Hershenson-Allen Archive,

Halsman

Halsman

New York.

lection. 108, 109:

ties

Still

Pictures, cour-

Archives, Harrison, Nebr. (4). 98: Photofest,

Still

New York.

Photofest,

Bros., courtesy

104:

90:

Archives, Harrison, Nebr. 99: Hershenson-Allen Archive, West

Still

Philippe

Mo.

Mo.

Archives, Harrison, Nebr. (2). 96, 97: Hershenson-Allen

Still

Archive, West Plains, Mo.;

ABC

Still

Columbia

Archives,

New York.

Everett Collection,

Michael Abramson/Onyx, Los Angeles

Pome-

Movie
Movie

courtesy Kobal Collection. 92: Movie

Stills

1926 Turner Entertainment Co. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy Kobal

Collection DR. JEYKLL

tesy the

of

Still

Inc.,

Film

at Your Feet.

Erwitt/Magnum Photos,

New York

1952 Turner Entertamment Co.

MGM

All rights reserved. 91:

MOMA

Brandt's Saturday Matinee, North

Ben Martin from Hollywood

Archives, Harrison, Nebr. 83:

Elliott

Plains,

Dick Busher, courtesy 5th

Archives, Harri-

Plains,

Mo.

Famous Players/Paramount, courtesy Kobal

granate Press, Ltd. 50, 51:

(Q

Still

Plains,

J.

Still

20th Century Fox Stu-

Movie
Harrison, Nebr.
Hershenson-Allen Archive, West
MGM, courtesy Kobal Collection Hershenson-Allen Archive, West

Mo.

Sciences,

Movie
(3)

New York

(2);

and

Still

1954

Pictures, courtesy Kobal Collection

Courtesy Globe Photos,

York

Picture Arts

Mo.

Susan Gray ,

85:

New

Archives, Harrison,

Pictures,

Archive, West

Archives, Harrison, Nebr. 87: Paramount, courtesy Kobal Collection. 88:

New York; Movie

38: Culver Pictures,

40: Kobal Collection. 41:

courtesy the Academy of Motion

courtesy Kobal Collection

Still

Archives, Harrison, Nebr. 86: United Artists, courtesy Kobal Collection

tesy Kobal Collection;

Archives.

Archives, Harrison, Nebr. 44, 45: Culver Pictures,

Avenue Theatre,

New York.

Archives, Harrison,

Archives. 37:

D'Arcy

Archives, Harrison, Nebr. 80:

Still

York. 84: Photofest,

Material Store,

Photofest,

Hershenson-Allen

Kobal Collection. 81, 82: Movie

New York.

52:

Movie

Archives, Harrison, Nebr. (2);

Still

New York; Movie


Still Archives, Harrison, Nebr.
W. Sandison Collection, Whatcom Museum of
History and Art, Bellingham, Wash.; MOMA Film Stills Archive, New York. 46, 47:
MOMA Film Stills Archive, New York; Brown Brothers, Sterhng, Pa. 48: MGM,
Movie

Archives, Harrison, Nebr.

Still

George Eastman House.

New York.

dios, courtesy

Beverly Hills, Calif. 42: Hershenson-Allen Archive, West Plains, Mo.; Bison Archives.
43:

Still

Movie

Brothers, Sterling, Pa.

Joel Finler

Archive,

Stills

Movie

Archives, Harrison, Nebr. 72, 73:

Still

Mo. BLOOD ALLEY 1955 Batjac Productions, Inc. 78, 79: BONNIE
AND CLYDE 1967 Warner Bros.-Seven Arts and Tatira-Hiller Productions. All

Archives, Harrison, Nebr.

Still

New York

Archive,

Archives, Holly\vood, Calif.

Plains,

Sciences, Beverly Hills,

Still

MOMA Film

Calif.; Judith Singer,

Photofest,

and

The Granger Collection, New York; Movie


Archives, Harrison, Nebr. Culver

Nebr. 39: Movie

courtesy

Bison
Warner Bros./Archive Photos, New York The
CORBIS/Bettmann Bison
Movie

chives, Harrison, Nebr.; courtesy

York

Movie

Picture Arts

Collection, London. 36:

New

New York

Archive,

Stills

Sciences, Beverly Hills, Calif. (2). 29: Bison

New York

Brown

Nebr. 31, 32: Bison Archives. 33:


34: Bison Archives. 35:

London; David Francis

loel Finler Collection,

Academy of Motion

courtesy the

National Park Service, Edison

Interior,

MOMA Film

Richard Koszarski Collection. 28:


the

188

New York.

Marc Wanamaker/Bison

York. 20, 21:

(Bison Archives); The JoeJ Finler Collection, London. 22, 23: U.S. De-

Calif.

Museum

San Rafael,

son, Nebr.; Hershenson-Allen Archive, West Plains,

Collection. 19: Photofest,

lywood,

Movie

rights reserved;

Bettmann.
3:

Digital,

Paul C. Spehr, Fairfield, Pa.; Suzy Starke, Lucas

New York; Movie Still Archives, Harrison,


Nebr. (2). 74: Rex Hardy Jr., Life Magazine Time Inc. 75: RKO, courtesy Kobal
Collection
Columbia Pictures, Inc., courtesy Kobal Collection. 76: Photofest, New
York. 77:

Cover: The Kobal Collection,

Masu-

bottom by dashes.

to

Rochester, N.Y.; Diane

Madeline Matz, Library of Congress,

Marc Wanamaker, Bison

Calif.;

Archives, Harrison, Nebr.

separated by semicolons, from top

of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly

Madhu, George Eastman House,

Hills, Calif.; Janice

Still

Academy

Krueger,

Calif.; Kristine

Margaret Adamic, Disney Publishing Group, Burbank,

Archives, Harri.son, Nebr.;

Congress, Washington, D.C.; Michael Key, Make-up Artist Magazine, Sunland,

Michael Webb, Los Angeles.

1939 Turner Entertainment Co.

Photo

p.

Inc. 117:

A Time Warner

15 courtesy Kobal Collection. 116: Allan

Sketch

Estate of Edith Head, courtesy

Paramount, courtesy Kobal

Collection. 118: Sketch

by Cecil Beaton, by courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London/photo from


BFl, London;
119:

MY

George Zeno,

FAIR

New

LADY CBS

Broadcasting

Inc.,

courtesy Kobal Collection.

York; design and drawing by Theadora

1999 Christopher Casler;

Van Runkle, photo

INDIANA lONES AND THE TEMPLE OF

1984 by Paramount Pictures and

Lucasfilm Ltd.

& TM. All

Used under authorization. Courtesy Paramount Pictures and Lucasfilm


Sketch

Estate of William Travilla,

AND CLYDE
rights reserved.

lONES

photo

1999 Christopher Casler;

Still

AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM

Dick Smith, Branford, Conn.

Ltd.

BONNIE

1967 Warner Bros.-Seven Arts and Tatira-Hiller Productions. All

Photo courtesy Movie

Archives, Harrison, Nebr.;

Lucasfilm Ltd.

Used under authorization. Courtesy Lucasfilm

York

DOOM

rights reserved.

(3). 122:

courtesy Globe Photos,

& TM. All

INDIANA
rights reserved.

Ltd. 120, 121: Photofest,

New York;
New

Express Newspapers/ Archive Photos,

New York;

Universal, courtesy Kobal Collection (3).

Bob Romero

123: Photos by

Make-up

reprinted from

Magazine. 124, 125:

Artist

Photos by David iamcs for the motion picture Saving Private Ryan

Works, reprinted with permission of Dream Works

BOYZ

THM HOOD

N'

served. (A)urtesy

129: Louis

Nebr.

1991

Columbia

(ioldman

Columbia

Warner Entertainment (Aimpany,

HERO

1993

1..P.

Columbia Pictures

(<)

Archives, Harri.son, Nebr.

Still

Still

1998 Warner Bros.

Archives, Harrison,

division of lime

Industries, Inc. All rights reserved. Courtesy

lumbia Pictures; 20th Century Fox Studios courtesy Lucas Digital

Used under authorization. 136:

tesy Lucas Digital Ltd. 137:

Still

from Terniinalor

Canal Plus Distribution, courtesy Lucas Digital


Robert Patrick;

stills

from Terminator

&

ludgnient

2:

Ltd.,

Co-

& TM.

Century Fox Studios, cour-

2()th

Day appears

courtesy

LLC. Used with permission of

hutgment Day appear courtesy Canal Plus

2:

Distribution, courtesy Lucas Digital Ltd., LLC. (2). 138, 139: Copyright

1999 by

Universal C'ity Studios, Inc. Courtesy Univer.sal Studios Publishing Rights. All rights

Photo courtesy Lucas

reserved.

Lucas Digital Ltd. 142:

photo courtesy Kobal Collection


Inc.

Disney

PORKY
all

PIG

in

Disney

Looney Tunes

Enterprises, Inc.;

Bros.

Hope

Freleng Shan.

u.sed

990 Warner Bros.

BUGS BUNNY
BUGS BUNNY Model

Bergman and

courtesy Sybil Freleng

SYLVESTER & TWEETY "HE DID

TM &

(2). 144:

with permission of

Archives, Harrison, Nebr.

Still

1992 Warner Bros. All rights reserved

Friz Freleng

York

courtesy Blanc Communications.

photo of Mel Blanc with carrot

1992 Warner Bros. All rights reserved. 145:

Sheet

Disney Enterprises,

LOONEY TUNES, characters, names, and


of Warner Bros. 1999; BUGS BUNNY Model

Photo courtesy Movie

Model Sheet

in

New

Bull's Eye,

1992 Warner Bros. All rights reserved

Bugs Bunny's likeness

Warner

Inc. 143:

Enterprises, Inc., photos courtesy Photofest,

related indicia are trademarks

Sheet

New Line Cinema, courtesy


Disney Enterprises, Inc.,

Digital Ltd. 140, 141:

Disney Enterprises,

(t)

IT" Limited Edition Cel by

Inc. All rights reserved;

courtesy Sybil Fre-

BUNNY & YOSEMITE SAM "HIGH


DIVING HARE" Limited Edition Cel by Friz Freleng 1993 Warner Bros. Inc. All
rights reserved (3); BUGS BUNNY Model Sheet 1992 Warner Bros. All rights reserved. 146, 147: Disney Enterprises, Inc.; Disney Enterprises, Inc. and Amblin
leng

Bergman and Hope Freleng Shan. BUGS

Entertainment, Inc. 148, 149: Hershenson- Allen Archive, West Plains, Mo.; Photofest,

New

York. 150-151:

Movie

Archives, Harrison, Nebr.;

Still

Archives, Harrison, Nebr. 152, 153:

THE WIZARD OF OZ

A Time Warner Company.

All rights reserved.

Still

1939 Turner Entertainment Co.

Photo courtesy Movie

Harrison, Nebr. 154: Steve Schapiro/Black Star,

Movie

New York.

155:

Still

Movie

Archives,

Still

Disney

Archives,

BIBLIOGRAPHY

New

Enterprises, Inc., photo courtesy Photofest,

156:

Courtesy Globe Photos,

157:

Columbia

New

York

Pictures, courtesy Kobal Collection. 158: Archive Photos,

MGM/Archive

York. 159: Photofest,

New

("ity Studios, Inc.

1999 by Universal

York

Photos,

New

New

York. 160: Copyright

Courtesy Universal Studios Publishing

Movie

Rights. All rights reserved. 161:

York.

Timothy White/CORBIS Outline.

Archives, Harrison, Nebr.

Still

New

Carolyn
New

York. 162: Archive Photos,

York. 163: |ason lames Richter/Kobal Collection. 164, 165:

Ltd. (2). 132-135:

l.ucasfilm Ltd.

Harrison, Nebr.

lones/Fotos International/Archive Photos,

LAST ACI'lON

All rights reserved. 131:

Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Baek, and Return of the Icdi
All rights reserved.

Dream

126, 127: Bison Archives;

l..l..(;.

Movie

Pictures (2). 128:

1998

Pictures Industries, Inc. All rights re-

Dick Smith, Branford, Conn.; Movie

LETHAL WEAPON

(2). 130:

Eppridge,

Bill

Maga-

Life

Time Inc.; Movie Still Archives, Harrison, Nebr. 166: ("ourlesy Lou Valentino
Collection; MGM, courtesy Kobal Collection. 167: Philippe Halsman Llalsman
zine

Estate. 168:

azine

Inc.

Loomis Dean,

Inc.;

Time

Magazine

Time

New

Collection. 170, 171:

trademark of Time

R.

Movie

Inc. 175:

York, Life Magazine

Sanford H. Roth/

Time

used with permission

New

York; Photofest,

Still

New

Sorel/CORBIS Sygma,

Courtesy Globe Photos,

New

York

Columbia

180, 181:

Inc. 169:

Still

Inc. 174:

New

York

Rank, courtesy Kobal Collec-

Archives, Harrison, Nebr. 173:

W. Eugene Smith,

York;

New

Movie

Still

New York

Photofest,

Magazine

Peter

Kobal Collection; United

New York.

179:

Pictures, courtesy Kobal Collection;

(2);

Pictures/ Archive Photos,

New

Colum-

Archives, Harrison, Nebr.

Bros., courtesy

Paramount

York;

Life

Liaison Agency,

Archives, Harrison, Nebr. 177:

Still

Warner

a regi.stered

OLD MAN AND THE SEA

Archives, Harrison, Nebr. (3)

Movie

is

Merie W. Wallace/AP/Wide World

Inc. 172:

Movie

RKO, courtesy Kobal

PEOPLE Weekly

Paris;

Kobal Collection. 178: Courtesy Globe Photos,

Artists, courtesy

Photofest,

Inc.

Time

York. 176:

bia Pictures/ Archive Photos,

Life

Inc.;

1958 Leland Hayward Prod.,

Time

Ir.,

New

York, Life Magazine

Magazine

Mag-

York, Life

Rex Hardy

Time

ENTERTAINMENT Weekly Time

Eliot Elisofon, Life

Inc.

Hamilton/Globe Photos,

1997 Peter Mikelbank,

Inc.,

Time

Paramount, courtesy Kobal Collection THE

tion;

|ohn

Inc;

New

York; Bert Stern,

Magazine

Life

Alfred Eisenstaedt, Life Magazine

Photo Researchers,

Photos,

New

Weegee/K;P/l.iaison Agency,

Time

courtesy Globe Photos,

New York; Movie

Still

New

York.

Archives, Harri-

son, Nebr. (5). 182: Mirror Syndication International, London; CASABLANCA


1943 Turner Entertainment Co. A Time Warner Company. All rights reserved;
MGM, courtesy Kobal Collection Don Ornitz, courtesy Globe Photos, New York;

Culver Pictures,

New

Movie

York

Still

Time

staedt, Life

Magazine

Movie

Archives, Harrison, Nebr.

Still

Press/courtesy Globe Photos,

Inc. 184:

New

Pictures. 186: Touchstone, courtesy

lection

tesy

Photofest,

Globe Photos,

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OTHER SOURCES

996.

Internet

INDEX

Berkeley, Busby, 90, 92

Cruise,

Biograph film company, 24, 25, 31, 42

Cukor, George, 65, 67

Bison Company, 36

Culkin, Macaulay, 156

Numerals

in italics indicate

an

illustration

of the subject mentioned.

Bitzer, Billy,
Blair,

Allen,

Woody

61, 68,

10;

quoted, 69

Linda, 129, 155

Altman, Robert, 61,96


Anderson, David LeRoy,

Bogart,

Tom,

Available: http://imdb.com

103, 177; quoted, 104

August 24, 1999.

Edison,

Thomas

Alva, 23-25, 28, 30;

quoted, 23

Curtis, Tony, 66, 69

25

Blanc, Mel, 144

Humphrey,

6, 59, 80, 81,

173

Curtiz, Michael, 79; quoted, 59

Fairbanks, Douglas, 44, 45, 50

Farrow, Mia, 185


Fellini, Federico, 106,

Bolger, Ray, ;52-;53

Dahl, Arlene, quoted,

17

Fields,

Borgnine, Ernest, 72, 94

Daniels, Bebe, 53

Fleming, Victor, 63

Bow, Clara,

D'Arcy, Roy, 54

Foley, Jack, 127

Arbuckle, Roscoe (Fatty), 38

Boyle, Robert, quoted, 113

Davis, Bette, 180

Fonda, Henry, 172

Arzner, Dorothy, 6

Brando, Marlon, 83, 85, 86, 87,

22

Ayres, Agnes, 50-51

52

50,

96, 168,

175

Browning, Tod, 98

Davis, Geena, 185

Ford, Harrison, 179

Day, Doris, 182

Ford, John, 59-60, 70, 71

Dean, James, 168, 175

Fosse, Bob, 92, 93; quoted, 93

DeMille, Cecil

Foster, Jodie, 61, 156, ;57, 185

B., 29, 30, 53, 62, 63;

quoted, 56, 118

Bacall, Lauren,

Cagney, James,

19, 76,

77-79

107

W. C, quoted, 148

Andrews, Dana, 80

Astaire, Fred, 90, 128, 129

De

Fox,

Niro, Robert, 86, 179

Waiiam, 30-31, 48

Freed, Arthur, 90, 92

Baker, Rick, 122; quoted, 123

Cameron, James, 136-138

Dietrich, Marlene, 14

Freleng, Friz, 144; quoted, 145

Bancroft, Anne, 155

Campion,

Dippe, Mark, quoted, 136, 138

Friedkin, William, S5-86; quoted,

Bara, Theda, 30

Capra, Frank, 59, 65, 74, 75; quoted,

Barrymore, John,
Basinger,

10, 35,

54

Kim, 186

Bassett, Angela,

Beatty,

Warren, 79

Benigni, Roberto, 107

Berenger,

Jane, 61

60

Tom, 103

Donen, Stanley

/ 1

90,

Douglas, Kirk, 175

Chaney, Lon, 54-55, 98

Duke.

Chaplin, Charlie, 33, 38, A\, 44-45

Dullea, Keir, 105

Coogan,

Dunaway,

Jackie,
9,

45
71

Bergman, Ingmar, 107

Crawford, Joan,

Bergman, Ingrid,59,

Crosby, Bing,

8,

72

180

Patty,

91,92

;55-156

Faye, 78-79,

96,

10

86

G
Gable, Clark,

13, 63,

65

Garbo, Greta, 16
Garland, ludy,

119,186

Duvall, Robert, 96

72

Coppola, Francis Ford, 61, 86,

100, 182

142, 143; quoted,

Carrey, Jim, 140-141

Cooper, Gary,

Berg, Jon, 135

Disney Walt,
142

Capshaw, Kate,

186

Beaton, Cecil, 118

190

Movie Database.

Powers, Tom. Special Effects in the Movies. San Diego, Calif: Lucent, 1989.

E
Eastwood, Clint, 71, 177

90, 115, 151,

155

Gibbons, Cedric,
Gibson, Mel,

130,

14

179

Gilbert, John, 54
Gillespie,

Arnold, 129

152-153,

Gwyneth, 186

Gish, Dorothy, 53

Paltrow,

Gish, Lillian, 53: quoted, 42

Paquin, Anna, /56, ^62

Sturges, Preston, 67

Paramount

Swanson, Gloria, 53

Goldblum,

leff,

IM

139

Laemmle,

Goldfish (Goldwyn), Samuel, 28, 29, 30,

33-35

Carl, 25, 3i-33; quoted, 31

152-153

l,ahr, Bert,

10

Lancaster, Burt,

Talmadge, Norma, 50

Penn, Arthur, 60, 79

Tarantino, Quentin, quoted, 89

Penn, Sean, 170-; 7;

Taylor, Elizabeth,

Lasseter, lohn, quoted, 146

Perkins, Anthony, 101

Taylor, Robert, quoted, 166

Lawrence, Florence, 25, 31

Pfeiffer,

Lean, David, 63, 96

Pickford, Mary, 31,44, 50

Grauman,

Lasky, Blanche,

Usky,

Greenstreet, Sydney, 81

Grey,

loel,

93

Griffith, D. W., 21, 38, 42-43, 44,


5e>

Jessica,

86

85,

Hale, George, 26

28
30

Jesse, 28, 29.

Lee, Spike, 89,

Hackman, Gene,

02- 103

Michelle, 187

Pollack, Sydney,

Lemmon,

Porter,

Jack, 66, 67, 69, 175

Edwin

Thurman, Uma, 89
Tierney, Gene, 80

26

Tracy, Spencer, 65, 67,

Preminger, Otto, 56, 80

72

Travolta, John, 89, /70-;7J

Haley, Jack, 152-153

Loew, Marcus,

Hamilton, Margaret, 129

Loren, Sophia, 183

Turner, Lana,

Hanks, Tom,

Lorre, Peter, 81

Rains, Claude, 59

Turpin, Ben, 38, 41

Lucas, George, 61, 86, 132, 133, 136, 138

Reagan, Ronald, ;60; quoted, 161

Lugosi, Bela, 98, 99

Redford, Robert, 72-73, 117, 776

Lumet, Sidney, quoted, 60

Reeves, Keanu, 131

Ullmann,

Resnais, Alain, 107

United

Rice, John, 23

Universal Pictures, 3J-33

Harlow, Jean,

158

i2,

Harris, Ed, 136

Hart, William

Hawks, Howard,

Hawn,

37

36,

S.,

59, 65, 71,

77

Goldie, 185

Hayworth,

Rita,

33, 35;

quoted, 33

Head, Edith, ;]6; quoted, 117

McDowall, Roddy,

Hedren, Tippi, quoted, 100

McDowell, Malcolm, 104

Hepburn, Audrey,

MacLaine,

118, 181

Hepburn, Katharine,

65, 67, 166, 180;

quoted, 90

Truffaut, Franijois, 107

Roberts,

67

Shirley,

Bill

(Bojangles), 150: quoted,

Voight, Jon, 84, 85

Rooney, Mickey, ;5i-152; quoted, 152

Hitchcock, Alfred, 56-57, 100, 101, 113,

Mason, James,

Rothapfel,

168, 177

64, 65,

67

13

Mary

Rox7

Elizabeth, /36

B., 21, 32, 33, 35,

152

17

Samuel (Roxy),

theater,

Russell, lane,

46,

48

Henry

Walthall,

169

Warner, Abe.

B.,

34,

43

35

Warner, Harry, 34, 35; quoted, 35

Menjou, Adolphe, quoted, 151

Hope, Bob, 772

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,

Horning, William,

46-47

Melius, Georges, 129

Holden, William, 72

Hopper, Hedda, 168; quoted, 168

Peebles, Melvin, 89

Rogers, Ginger, 90,

Masina, GiiJietta, 107

Mayer, Louis

45

Van Runkle, Theadora, 119

Marx, Groucho,

69, 84, 85, 120, 121,

107

Robinson, Edward G., 77

Herrmann, Bernard, 127

Hoffman, Dustin,

Liv,

Artists, 44,

quoted, 5

Van

151

HUl, George Roy, 71,72

u
Valentino, Rudolph, 20-21, 50-51;

iS5

Julia,

Robinson,

Maltese, Michael, quoted, 144

Mastrantonio,

66; quoted, 166

Robbins, Jerome, 92

161

Marshall, Penny, 61

129; quoted, 56, 117

Roach, Hal, quoted, 158

McCarey, Leo, 67

180

;64-(65

Thalberg, Irving, 59

69

S.,

18, 159, 161,

Shirley, 148-149, 150, 151, 152, 155

Temple,

177

Poitier, Sidney,

Leigh, Vivien, 63

Lloyd, Harold, 41

6;, 179

Peckinpah, Sam, 60, 71,72

Lange,

49

Peck, Gregory, 174

69

Grant, Gary, 17,65. 112, 113


Sid, 48,

Sylberl, Anthea, quoted,

137

Patrick, Robert,

75

Pictures Corporation, 21,

28-30, 48

Lake, Veronica, 18

Goldman, William, quoted,

Stroheim, Fxich von, 56, 59; quoted, 59

Warner,

21, 33-35, 114,

Saint,

Eva Marie, 112. 113

Warner

Sarandon, Susan, 185

152, 172

Jack, 34. 35, 59; quoted,

Warner, Sam,

10

35

34,

Bros. Pictures, 34, 35, 77, 79.

Milestone, Lewis, 96

Schaffher, Franklin, 96

Hoskins, Bob, 146-147

Mills, Hayley, J55

Schlesinger, John, 84, 85

Washington, Denzel, 102, 178

Hunter, Holly, 156

Minnelli, Liza, 92, 93

Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 131. 179

Wayne, lohn,

Hurrell, George, 6

Minnelli, Vincente, 90-92, 152

Scorsese, Martin, 61, 86, 89; quoted, 85, 86

Weatherwax, Rudd, 158; quoted, 159

Huston, John,

14

60, 80;

quoted, 59, 61

Hyer, Martha, 161

Ince,

Thomas

Harper, 36, 38

Irwin, May, 23

Jackson,

Samuel

L.,

89, 179

Maurice, 126-127

Monroe, Marilyn,

66, 69, 119, 167,

182

Scott,

George C,

Mountbatten, Louis, 50

Sellers, Peter,

Murphy, Eddie,

Selwyn, Edgar, 33

J22, 123

95,

144-J45

96

70, 71

Weismuller, Johnny, 75
Welles, Orson, 58; quoted, 60

104

Wellman, William, 76, 77

Murray, Mae, 21

Selznick,

Sennett, Mack, 38, 39, 41; quoted, 38, 41

West, Mae, 780; quoted,

Shaw, Robert, 129

Westmore, George,

Neeson, Liam, 61

Sheen, Martin, 96

Whale, James, 98

Neilan, Marshall, 32

Shields, Brooke, 156

Wilder,

Newman, PauL

72-73, 117,:

8,

;76

David O., 110, 111

Sinatra, Frank,

94

Wertmuller, Lina, 6

Billy, 66,

17

20

67-69, 80

Williams, John, 127

Upton, quoted, 30-31

Nicholson, Jack, 177

Sinclair,

Jenkins, George, 113

Normand, Mabel,

Singleton, |ohn, 88, 89

Wills, Chill, 161

Johnston, Julanne, 45

Novarro, Ramon, 54

Spielberg, Steven, 61, 86, 94-96, 108-109,

Winchell, Walter, quoted, 168

Jarre,

38, 39: quoted, 41

124, 129, 138; quoted, 109, 146

Kaminski, Janusz, quoted, 124

O'Brien, Margaret, 152

Steiger,

Karloff, Boris, 98

O'Connor, Donald, 161

Sterling, Ford,

Olivier, Laurence, 172

Sternberg, Josef von,

O'Neal, Ryan, 155

Stewart, Anita, 32

O'Neal, Tatum,

Stewart, James, 75,

Kazan,

Elia, 82, 83, 85;

quoted, 82

Keaton, Buster, 40, 130


Kelly,

Gene,

90. 91.

92

Kelly,Grace, 71,100, 7i7, 182

Keystone Pictures,

38, 39, 41

Kurosawa, Akira,

Pacino,Al,

07

54, 155, 156

O'Toole, Peter, 63

Kubrick, Stanley, 60-61, 104, 105


1

Stanwyck, Barbara,

77

Natalie, 752, 782

Woods, Eddie, 76

Woodward, Joanne,

39

13

168, 782

Wyler, William, 60; quoted, 60

66

Stone, Oliver, 103-104

86

Streep, Meryl, 184


J

Wise, Robert, quoted, 92

Wood,

Rod, 83

Stone, Sharon,

Willis, Bruce, 89, 737

Streisand, Barbra, 60, 61

Zanuck, Darryl

Zinnemann,

F.,

77, 90, 94

Fred, 71, 96

Zukor, Adolph, 21, 28-30, 29, 33, 48;


quoted, 28

191

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