moive assignment

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Star System and Hollywood B Films Star System MGM had the largest and most prestigious roster of stars

-This enabled the studio to produce nearly a third of the top grossing films throughout the 1930s. -Films such as Grand Hotel (1932) and Dinner at Eight (1933) put together constellations of these performers—ensemble casting—generating huge box office interest. -The glamour and fame of being a star in the 1930s had some harsh realities. -Some have claimed that the system had become a “star serfdom.” The stars had to conform to the dictates of the front office.

The stars were: -an economic imperative to studio production -provided a sort of insurance policy for expensive productions -they were themselves a production value or cost factor in production -they were a prestigious trademark for the studio.

-Economically, the star system stabilized the motion picture industry by creating the market value of motion pictures. -The stranglehold on the stars was what was termed the “Seven Year Option Contract.” -The studio used a contract that progressed in steps over a term of seven years. -Every six months, the studio reviewed the actor’s progress and decided whether or not to pick up the option. -The studio really always had the option. -The contract did not provide reciprocal rights

-an actor could not quit to join another studio -could not stop work -could not renegotiate for more money. If the options were picked up the star was tied to the studio for seven years

-The contract also had complete control over the star’s image.

The studios invested enormous amounts of money and time cultivating the star. The studio could and often did: -change the name of the actor

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-control their image and likeness in advertising and publicity -enforce the actor to comply with rules covering interviews and public appearances.

To battle the “option contract” horrors, 18 actors formed the Screen Actors Guild in June 1933

-The actors were not taken seriously until 15 May 1937 when they threatened to strike. What the stars got:

-minimum pay rates -guarantees of continuous employment -12 hour rest periods between calls.

-Basically, they got nothing: The star system remained in tact as these new financial arrangements really had little economic impact on the studio.

Agents:

-The agent comes on the scene during this time in Hollywood. -William Morris, Joyce Selznick, Charles Feldman, and Leland Hayward became the negotiators for the stars. -The agent took 10% of all wages earned by his or her client.

Other Ways to make money with the star commodity

-The studio, in order to maximize star financial power, would ‘loan out’ stars to other studios. -The studio would charge the other studio a minimum of four weeks salary plus a surcharge of three weeks or they would charge a basic salary for however long the star was employed and tack on a 25% surcharge.

Two actors, James Cagney and Bette Davis (both at Warner Bros.), challenged studio policies on salaries, roles, and image.

-Cagney walked out of the studio in 1932 at the beginning of a new film. -Aside from salary disputes, Cagney was distraught at the typecasting the studio was forcing him into: what he saw as the ‘dese, dem, and dose’ roles. -He took Warners to court and he won a new salary of $150,000 per film. -Bette Davis walked out on her contract in 1936. -She called her relationship with Warners “one of the stormiest.”

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-Huge fights with Jack Warner -She fought with the studio to get a loan-out to star in RKO’s Of Human Bondage(1934) -Warner tried to appease Davis with a raise in her salary from $1000 to 1350. -She still got put into mediocre roles however. -Finally, in 1942 (with a great prestigious career behind her) Davis sues Warners.

Variety estimated that 700 features were needed each year to supply to.

-Double features were vital to exhibitors because it satisfied a “bargain hunting” consumer -Studios saw these films as “breaking in” films for new stars and directors -The showing of a two-for-one allowed the exhibitors to make more money from one premium film and a lesser Independent film. -More people came to the theater where they could see both a first fun and a “B” Film rather than just a first run

By the end of the 1930s, 60% of all theaters in the US are running double features

-The success of the double feature demanded a doubling of cost effective production. -Low Budget movies were added to studio production

Class A and Class B films were designated.

-This gap was also filled in by Poverty Row Studios. -The “B” film has been called “quickies,” “cheapies,” “low-budgets” and have been ranked from “C” to “Z.” -Distinction: “A”s were made on budgets averaging $350,000 or more with major stars. -designated for the top of the double feature bill. -Features ran approximately 11/2 hours to 2 hours.

-rented on a percentage basis and so could reap enormous amounts of money or be complete disasters

-“B”s filled the botton-half and had lesser known leads. cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars to $200,000.

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-running time was usually 50 to 75 minutes. Bs always made money because they were rented on a flat fee

(Their cost was so strictly managed that it was almost impossible to lose money)

B Film Production B Films of the Studios

-These films filled out the exhibitor’s bill. -Usually made within 2 to 5 weeks. -Since the studio wanted to maintain their image, Bs were never quickie films in terms of production values. -The studios maintained their “house style” for these films.

The Secondary or Smaller Bs

-Smaller Bs were recognizable by their lack of an exhibition arm. Studios such as Republic, Grand National, Mascot, Tiffany, and Monogram were very successful and busy during the period. -Republic and Monogram were the more successful of the bunch -Smaller smaller Bs included Ambassador-Conn, Chesterfield, Invincible, Liberty, Majestic, Sono Art, Educational and World Wide. -Budgets were rarely over $100,000.

Poverty Row

-These studios were often transitory, lacked finance, and most often lacked or had limited access to necessary facilities and equipment. -These are the C or Z films—artists like Anger liked these film’s “bad” qualities.” -They concentrated most often on Westerns, mysteries, and occasional series as well as nature and expedition films. -Budgets ranged between $5,000 and 20,000. -Casting took place on the street in front of Poverty Row until the Screen Actors Guild passed some new labor initiatives which raised the budget of films about $1,000 in 1937. -This eventually killed many of the Poverty Row studios.

Minority B Film Production

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-We’ve discussed the “race” films, but there were films that were made for Jewish audiences (Yiddish language films) and Spanish language films. -Many of these films were made on the East coast with little time for rehearsals, or retakes. -Shooting time usually lasted two weeks with completed films usually running six reels in length -While there were imported films for Hispanic communities, there were Spanish speaking films made in the US as well. -US also imported many films from Poland, the Ukraine and Armenia.

New Industry Specialists with rise of Studios 1915: art directors are created because of more elaborate and specialized sets

-Scenic work was seen now as “structural” or architectural -Studios build workshops

The Cinematographer

-1919 they were officially organized as the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC)

Editing

-Each day the director and the editor would screen the “dailies” -Most often made the final cut based on studio continuity script -Sometimes enormously complex: the film Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had fourteen cameras running simultaneously

Film Color

1915-1928 Three types of color film 1. tinting—film immersion: 80-90% of all films 2. hand coloring (painstaking process of hand coloring individual frames - 8 seconds of film required 30 hours of labor) 3. stenciling (rarely seen after 1915) when Pathe quit the process a sort of a mimeograph-like system that mass produced release prints

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“Natural color” developed by Kinemacolor (1913), Prizmacolor, Trucolor were not especially successful Technicolor

Technicolor Corporation founded in 1915 by Herbert Kalmus and Daniel Comstock

Natalie Kalmus First key development: Two-strip process (1922)

-Process of film printing that skipped every other frame which printed the blue-green frame and then the red-orange frame. -The prints then toned to balance colors -Cemented back to back and formed a release print. -The cemented film strips often buckled under the heat of projection -The Black Pirate (1926)—Douglas Fairbanks in library

Three-strip process (1932)

-A dye-transfer saturation system. -Provided a smooth, grainless image. -Special cameras were needed and specially trained camera-people as well. -Extra-wide camera that could expose three negatives simultaneously -Each recorded one of the primary colors then welded together to make full color prints

First full-length feature: Becky Sharp (Mamoulian) Major success: Gone With Wind (1939) Now a success: The Wizard of Oz (1939) The threat of Communism

-As early as the late 1930s, the US government conservatives began their search for communist “subversives” in Hollywood -Many Hollywood people joined anti-fascist organizations as the war began in Europe (i.e. the American Jewish Committee)

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-There were people (artists, writers, actors, etc.) that had joined the Communist and/or Socialist movements (also time of depression) -The government investigation of subversives is put on hold as World War Two begins

The War sees Hollywood become intimately involved with the government

-Studios turn over their production to the US government for approval and production ideas -Office of War Information regulates Hollywood film industries at this time -production costs are drastically cut (often the reason why film noir look the way it looks) -OWI and Hollywood see it as their mission to prepare the spectator for the “realities” of war -Memphis Belle—funded through the government

Hollywood as propaganda machine:

-Disney sends their pro-US films to the heavily German-populated South America to turn Nazi sentiment around -Hollywood stars go on Bond Raising Tours -Everyone does their Patriotic Duty! Carole Lombard is killed in a plane while traveling cross country to sell bonds -International Propaganda: Mrs. Miniver (1942 -1945—War Ends!—beginning of Cold War but beginning of Boom time in the US 1946—Biggest Box Office Year 1947—it will all turn around

Don’t forget the Communists

-Government feels determined to squeeze out the subversive (that includes Communists, Jews and Homosexuals)

-Senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin (after consulting some priests) finds it his mission to get these people

-1947—forms a sub-committee called The House Committee on Un-American Activity

-He said that Hollywood was sneaking in communist propaganda into the movies through the covert activity of the screenwriter (in the first instance)

-Actors like John Wayne and Ronald Reagan took his side

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-so did the Movie Moguls

-McCarthy calls seventeen screenwriters to Washington to say if they are communists or not and to name names of other communists they know

Ten refuse to do both, go to prison They are called the Hollywood Ten

-Hollywood stars try to support them (Bacall and Bogart fly to Washington— nothing happens) -Hollywood freaks out! Anyone could lose their job -Most of the moguls (maybe Zanuck and Dore Schary might be omitted from the list) sign a document at the Waldorf Astoria creating an unofficial black list -Hundreds of people were refused work. They went broke—actors, writers many fled the US (Joseph Losey, Gene Kelly because of his wife Betsy Blair)

The Red Channels Book is published listing names of “communists” in Hollywood -Any suspicion could lead to dismissal an extremely conservative time in the US -Not until the late 1950s does the black list begin to fade away Another governmental intervention Trust-busting Vertical integration was a monopoly the gov’t wanted to dissolve in Hollywood The Paramount Decrees

-1938-the Dept of Justice sued all Hollywood studios because their practices were that of a Trust -1948-Hollywood had to face the fact that the government would not let up on their suit. The gov’t demanded the break-up of vertical integration

1948-the studios signed the Consent Decrees that stipulated that they would dissolve the ownership of their theaters Paramount and RKO sign first MGM holds out the longest—They finally sign in 1955.

-This eventually proved detrimental to MGM because they continued operating under the old system while the other studios diversified operations

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(TV, etc). The Decrees signified the following: -no longer Big Five and Little Three because no theater chains -no longer a guaranteed market for the studios -films had to be sold on an individual basis -great reduction in production, bottoms out in the 60s and 70s -B-film production (western, detective films, etc.) end in the late 50s -star contracts with the major studios come to an end

-Hollywood begins productions in Europe because it was seen as cheaper (labor, actors, etc) and the locations were seen as new and different...(LA is now seen as dull and over-used).