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The Rise of Hollywood

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By 1911 an estimated 60 to 70 percent of 

films imported into Great Britain were

 American films. The United States wasalso doing well in Germany, Australia and

New Zealand. In other markets, however,

the American share was much smaller.

Without the war, Hollywood might not have

gained a preeminent global position.

1916 ± American exports had risen

dramatically.

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The MMPC (Motion Picture Patents

Company) dominated American cinema

from 1908 to 1912. It lost its power after 

1912.

Carl Laemmle - Universal Film

Manufacturing Company (1912)

- Universal City (1915)

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 Adolph Zukor - Famous Players in

Famous Plays (1912)

- One of the most powerful

studios

W.W

. Hodkinson banded 11 local

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1913 ± Sam, Jack and Harry Warner moved from exhibiting to distributing,

founding Warner Bros.

1918 ± they began producing butremained a relatively small firm until the

1920s

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William Fox ± Fox Film (1914)

Metro (1914), Goldwyn and

Mayer (1917) ± MGM (1924)

Paramount - 102 features a year 

- theatres were required to showall of them

- ³block booking´

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Hollywood stars like Mary Pickford, Charlie

Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, Douglas

Fairbanks were making tens of thousandsa week.

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D.W. Griffith - most famous of this era

- Birth of a Nation (3 hours

long)1915

- Intolerance (3 ½ hours) 1916

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1922 to 1930 ± 78 million dollars

850 million dollars

United Artists ± Mary Pickford, Charles

Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks.

1920s ± MPPDA (Motion Picture

Producers and Distributors Association) to

avoid censorship and to clean the imageof Hollywood.

William Hays - first president of the

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1927 - Introduction of sound

- Warner Bros released The Jazz Singer 

Some critics and directors feared thatextensive dialogue scenes in adapted plays

would eliminate the flexible cameramovements and editing of the silent era

Most filmmakers realized that sound could be

used imaginatively, it offered a valuable new

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US was the first to move successfully into

sound production

³I was greatly interested in music and films

in the silent days, and I have always

believed that the coming of sound opened

up a great new opportunity. The

accompanying music came at last entirelyunder the control of the people who made

the picture.´ ± Alfred Hitchcock

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During the silent era Hollywood film

industry had developed into an oligopoly.

The Hollywood studio system was formed

(1930-1945)

Big Five or ³The Majors´ - Paramount

(Famous Players), Loew¶s (MGM), Fox(which became 20th Century Fox in 1935),

Warner Bros., and RKO (Radio-Keith-

Orpheum)

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To be a Major a company had to bevertically integrated, owning a theatrechain and having an internationaldistribution operation.

³The Minors´ or the Little Three ±Universal, Columbia and United Artists

Smaller with few or no theatres formed