Film Industry

[edit] The American Film Industry in the 1950s

The movies of the 1950s did not nearly reflect the changes America was experiencing. As society began to see rising issues of race, youth culture, and gender stereotypes, studios relied heavily on musicals and melodramas. A focus on personal conflict allowed for controversial political and social themes to remain outside movie theaters. Darryl Zanuck of 20th Century Fox noted that the route to pleasing 1950s audiences was to provide fantasies far removed from any harsh realities. The traditional genre system provided a foundation for the studios to plan productions, leading to the sensational, sappy musicals and romantic comedies so many people relate with 1950s films.

MGM was the leading studio for musicals, already having established resources available. Arthur Freed headed the "Freed Unit" at MGM, which produced some of the most successful and celebrated musicals of all time, such as Singin' in the Rain, It's Always Fair Weather, Royal Wedding, Meet Me in St. Louis, and On the Town. Since MGM filled the musical niche so well, it weathered the decade much easier than other studios.

On the Town 1949, MGM Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munchin

Seven Brides For Seven Brothers1954, MGM Howard Keel, Jane Powell

Here's a Warner Brothers musical. As you might be able to tell, they were a little less sophisticated than Freed musicals, but definitely still over the top and entertaining. Doris Day plays an excellent gender-flopped cowboy [first video], but reforms herself for society's comfort with the familiar, in the end [second video].

Calamity Jane 1953 Doris Day and Howard Keel

Some movies, such as The Marrying Kind, actually dealt with relevant issues like the tribulations of marriage and divorce, in realistic ways. The Marrying Kind is still considered one of the most true to life representations of marriage on screen. The movie was directed by the famed George Cukor, and starred Judy Holliday and Aldo Ray.

Here is a video about director George Cukor and actress Judy Holliday's work together, from the PBS documentary On Cukor.

[edit] The 1948 Paramount decision

The Supreme Court ruled that the studio monopoly that had controlled the entire film industry since the late 1920s was illegal. This was important for a few reasons. First, studios had had the comfort of controlling all aspects of their films, from the script to the theaters. The top five studios (MGM, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, and RKO) thrived on what is known as vertical integration. Vertical integration allowed the top studios to work together and control all major theater circuits in the country, and made it impossible for any production or distribution company to show a film in a first-run theater (premier houses). The Supreme Court's ruling was long overdue, having been fought for by many congress members since the 1930s. By 1954, all five major studios were detached from the exhibition profits and theater chains.

Also, the Paramount decision banned "block booking" by the studios. This had been another key profit factor for the majors. Block booking had involved selling a bulk of, or all of the studio's yearly output to exhibitioners. This guaranteed exhibition for all the studio's productions, no matter how bad they turned out to be (exhibitioners had no preview of the films in the block they bought). The exhibitioners had no choice but to buy these blocks, because they needed to show the studio's A-list, big-budget movies to stay in business and attract audiences. After the Paramount case in 1946, blocks were restricted to a maximum of FIVE films, and there were previews of those films provided for the buyers, to smaple what exactly they were paying for. In the 1948 ruling, all blocks were banned.

After this major power loss to the studios, control of the industry continued to fade. Movie attendance had been steadily dropping since 1948, television was becoming more widely available, and censorship of studio films was not relaxing as quickly as the tide of society's demand. As books like Peyton Place became sensations, the film industry rushed to keep up. The movie version of the book came out in 1957, and excluded the majority of scandal (the movie includes discussion of the abortion, marriage outside of sex, and that's about it). Even so, movies of the late 1950s lie in some contrast to the early 1950s. The Production Code Administration, in charge of censoring and approving studio productions, relaxed as the studios lost power. The Production Code itself was revised in 1956 to allow portrayal of more controversial issues like abortion (the reason Peyton Place included any scandal at all), and drug addiction. In 1957, the Production Code Review Board was created to allow even more controversial subjects through the censoring process, by means of appeals to overturn initial PCA ruling.

That is a movie ad, obviously, for Some Like it Hot (1959), which featured full drag performances by Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. Marilyn Monroe is probably the biggest reason people pay attention to this movie, but it rides on the acting of Lemmon and Curtis, and also features actor George Raft as a mobster, a role he had specialized in since 1932's Scarface. The best part of this movie is arguably the final scene, in which Lemmon rides off in a boat with the rich old man he'd been dating (disguised in drag). He confesses that he's a man, and his sugar daddy replies, "Nobody's perfect." The fluid, free sexuality implied throughout the film is one definite result of the relaxing censorship in the industry.

The 1950s hosted even more changes than these to the film industry, but hopefully this presents a good overview to prove how vital the decade was to the industry. With so many major shifts and changes, the 1950s allowed film to progress to the "everyone's game" arena we experience today. There are still blockbusters (the majority of them over-budgeted and over-advertised), but not nearly the quantity or quality America was still experiencing while talent was still confined within studio production.

EXCELLENT SOURCES EVERYONE SHOULD READ/WATCH:

Bernstein, Matthew, ed. Controlling Hollywood: Censorship and Regulation in the Studio Era. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999.

Harpole, Charles, ed. History of the American Cinema. 10 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1990. [Specifically vol. 7, The Fifties]

Ross, Steven J. Working Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1998.

---, ed. Movies and American Society. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2002.

Staiger, Janet, ed. The Studio System. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1995.

Stanley, Robert H. The Celluloid Empire. New York: Hastings House, 1978.

(Information and credits for all these films can be found on http://www.imdb.com - The Internet Movie Database)

An Affair to Remember (1957)

The African Queen (1951)

All About Eve (1950)

An American in Paris (1951)

Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

Another Time, Another Place (1958)

The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

Auntie Mame (1955)

The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)

The Bad Seed (1956)

Ben-Hur (1959)

Born Yesterday (1950)

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

Broken Arrow (1950)

The Caine Mutiny (1954)

Carmen Jones (1954)

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

Cheaper by the Dozen (1950)

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

The Defiant Ones (1958)

Dial M for Murder (1954)

From Here to Eternity (1953)

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Giant (1956)

Gigi (1958)

The Girl Can't Help It (1956)

Glen or Glenda (1953)

Guys and Dolls (1955)

Harvey (1950)

Houseboat (1958)

How to Marry a Millionre (1953)

Indiscreet (1958)

The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Julius Caesar (1953)

The King and I (1956)

Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955)

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Marjorie Morningstar (1958)

Marty (1955)

My Man Godfrey (1957)

North by Northwest (1959)

Oklahoma! (1955)

The Pajama Game (1957)

Picnic (1955)

A Place in the Sun (1951)

Rashomon (1950)

Rear Window (1954)

Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

The Red Badge of Courage (1951)

The Reluctant Debutante (1958)

Rio Bravo (1959)

Roman Holiday (1953)

Run Silent, Run Deep (1958)

Salt of the Earth (1954)

The Searchers (1956)

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)

Seven Samurai (1954)

The Seven Year Itch (1955)

Shane (1953)

Singin' in the Rain (1952)

Some Like It Hot (1959)

Strangers on a Train (1951)

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

Teacher's Pet (1958)

The Ten Commandments (1956)

The Tingler (1959)

To Catch a Thief (1955)

Vertigo (1958)

Viva Zapata! (1952)

The War of the Worlds (1953)

The Wild One (1953)

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957)