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This chapter shows that classical norms were not fixed rules or structures, but set particular boundaries within which innovation could take place. In essence, classical film style rejected formal techniques that were purposely disruptive or jarring to the audience. While it is sometimes implied that classical norms emerged simultaneously with the studio system, it is important to note that the aesthetic principles of classical Hollywood cinema preceded the studio system. The development of film style in this sense (classical norms) did not emerge in the very same historical instant as the mode of production that gave it institutional shape (the studio system). Instead, the relation between the two would develop a gradual symbiosis, such that classical norms would become synonymous with the studio system as it emerged more fully after the First World War. The chapter also includes the study, ‘Mass-produced Photoplays: Economic and Signifying Practices in the First Years of Hollywood’ by Janet Staiger, which examines how production practices in the early 1910s influenced the way that films were developed and made.

The introduction presents an overview of Tanaka’s life and career vis-a-vis the history of twentieth-century Japan, emphasising how women participated in and were affected by legal, political and socio-economic changes. Through Tanaka’s professional development, it revisits the evolution of the Japanese studio system and stardom, and explains the importance of women as subjects within the films, consumers of the industry, and professionals behind the scenes. This historical overview highlights Japan’s negotiation of modernity and tradition, often played out through symbolic dichotomies of gender and sexuality. By underscoring women’s new routes of mobility, the authors challenge the simplified image of Japanese oppressed women. The second part of the introduction posits director Tanaka as an outstanding, yet understudied, figure in the world history of women filmmaking. Her case inspires compelling questions around labels such as female authorship, star-as-author, and director-as-star and their role in advancing the production and acknowledgement of women filmmaking.

This chapter describes the rise of the Hollywood studios and advent of sound technology. The Hollywood Studio System would properly take hold by 1930 once five companies — Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, RKO, Fox (later Twentieth-Century Fox), Warner Bros. and Paramount — had emerged victorious from increasing competition and a scrimmage of mergers and takeovers of production and distribution companies. By 1930 it is estimated that there were around 24,000 cinemas in the US with the five major studios controlling at least 50 per cent of the total industry output. By 1931, D. W. Griffith had made his last film and the film industry was primed to establish the classical Hollywood era with the new technology of sound. In fact, the era from the coming of the sound film to the end of the 1940s is often called Hollywood's ‘Golden Age’. The chapter also includes the study, ‘Translating the Talkies: Diffusion, Reception and Live Performance’ by Mark Jancovich and Lucy Faire. Their study of spectatorship and film consumption in a single British city, Nottingham, at the moment in which the talkies came to Nottingham's Elite cinema in June 1929, is significant in its interrelation of the local with a global phenomenon — the coming of sound.

The film technicians who used and managed the technology within the Hollywood studios themselves, such as cameramen and electricians, take center stage in this chapter, focusing on how the technical work of motion picture production was understood, managed, and promoted within the new “factory” system of Hollywood. The primary case study here is the cameramen, who used their organization, the American Society of Cinematographers, and its publication, American Cinematographer, to establish their status as the chief technicians in motion picture production in the silent period, often by resisting unionization and by touting their special knowledge of the tools of the trade. The cinematographers positioned themselves as “engineers” within the studio, a position that the incursion of trained sound engineers into Hollywood challenged.

This chapter focuses on what many film historians refer to as the “classical period” of the studio system. Not coincidentally, it was also the “golden age” of the composer biopic, both classical and popular. The American film industry was dominated by the vertically integrated “Big Five” studios, namely, MGM, Paramount, Warner Bros., RKO, and Twentieth Century-Fox; by the “Little Three” studios, namely, United Artists, Universal, and Columbia; and by smaller, independent studios, such as Republic and Disney. Under these studios, a “consistent system of production and consumption, a set of formalized creative practices and constraints, and thus a body of work with a uniform style, a standard way of telling stories, from camera work and cutting to plot structure and thematics” was established.

At the end of the 1920s, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) harnessed its role in the transition to sound to shift leadership of technical research to Hollywood. At the same time that it began the Sound School, the Academy established a Producers-Technicians Committee designed to pool knowledge of universal production practices. This chapter argues that AMPAS was able to establish itself as the authority over everyday technology in Hollywood through this committee and by absorbing the AMPP’s Technical Bureau. Through their collective scientific activities, the studios were able to take advantage of the knowledge and skills of their workers to solidify Hollywood’s dominance over the motion picture industry. At the same time, several new journals and publications for the dissemination of technical knowledge were established, including the International Photographer, Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, and the Academy Technical Digest, determining who disseminated knowledge, generated definitions, and created standards. The institutional structure established by the start of 1930 would remain stable throughout the golden age of Hollywood, making AMPAS both the clearinghouse and the gatekeeper that determined what the basic standards for technology would be and who would have access to this knowledge.

Serious scholarly attention to Gunga Din(1939) has largely been neglected as allegations of condescending and one-dimensional depictions of its Indian characters have disrupted its reputation as one of the greatest epics of the studio era.However, George Stevens’ adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s poem extends its source text’s colonial ambivalence to American anxieties stemming from the death rattle of Manifest Destiny and the traumas of the Great Depression. Seizing upon the popularity of late Victorian Empire narratives, Hollywood integrated its own ideology into a final product that was a hybrid of imperial narrative and American western. This chapter argues that the film’s loose resemblance to its source material demonstrates a fissure in the American valorization of British culture. Gunga Din completely dismantles Kipling’s poem, recreating it as an example of a uniquely American form: the seamless studio system product that led to Hollywood’s international dominance in cultural production. While the politics of the adaptation resemble textual strategies of resistance common in postcolonial texts, the film’s retention of colonial literature’s representations of its native characters addresses an America beginning to assert a distinct national culture while positioning itself as a future imperial power in the tradition of the faltering British Empire.

This chapter discusses the ambivalent relationship between horror and mainstream cinema. Despite horror's niche status, mass audiences are drawn to supernatural elements and themes of peril as a matter of course. However, it is relatively rare for the major studios to fund and distribute out-and-out horror films. This is not to say that the studio system has not colluded to generate financially successful horror and horror that was 'approved' by the industry through sanctioned awards. Nevertheless, it is instructive to note that horror, in general, exists mainly outside the mainstream, and is generally the province of independent production. The chapter then looks at Lionsgate and the marketing of SAW (2004) as a horror text. It also considers the type of horror in SAW, as well as the concept of 'torture porn'.

This chapter is the mirror image of the previous one. It looks at narratives about has-been female stars in the context of the studio system’s demise during the 1950s and 1960s. These somewhat later backstudios depict the agency and sexuality of an older female star, who no longer has the safe haven of the studio to control or at least cushion her excessive behavior, as a “monstrous” perversion of femininity. In these films the mature female star personifies the incoherence of the Hollywood brand as a result of the studio system’s implosion, just as her excessive figure is treated as its cause, not its symptom. The chapter closes with a glance at the millennial backstudio, S1m0ne (2002), which takes as its premise the possibility of a computer-generated star and which registers the same anxieties about powerful female actors that these midcentury backstudios enact.

This chapter evaluates Guru Dutt's Kaagaz Ke Phool (Paper Flowers, 1959). A hymn to the golden age of the studio system, actor/director Guru Dutt's greatest achievement was dismissed on its initial release. One of the first Indian films to be shot in cinemascope, the melancholic story of an alcoholic film-maker (Guru Dutt) and the actress he discovers (Waheeda Rehman) makes for a poetic critique of the film-making process. The chapter focuses on the director's status as one of Indian cinema's pre-eminent auteurs, thematic dimensions, and ground-breaking technical aspects. It also looks at the role of lyricist Kaifi Azmi, gender representations, and the unmistakable brand of poetic fatalism that has come to define much of Dutt's cinema.

This chapter describes the decline of the Hollywood studio system in the in 1950s and 1960s, and with it the decline of Hedda Hopper's career. The studio system provided Hopper with regular and consistent products as subject matter for her column, with the “behind-the-scenes” access to films and film stars that gave her column cachet and made it more than just another studio press release, and with a large, national movie audience potentially interested in reading it. With the decline of the studio system Hopper's subject matter and potential readership narrowed. Her power and relevance worked in tandem with the major studios, and she saw her power and relevance shrink over time. By the 1960s Hopper was no longer seen as all-powerful within the film industry or celebrity journalism. The placement of her column in newspapers became less prominent over time, with some papers dropping her column altogether.

This chapter details Ann’s 1936 lawsuit against the Warner Bros., in which she attempted to secure an early release from her long-term contract. Ann set the stage for Bette Davis and James Cagney, who also took Warner Bros. to court in 1936, though their cases have been discussed often while Ann’s has been largely ignored. Also covered is the aftermath of the court’s decisions and Ann’s continued battles with her studio as well as the early cancelation of her contract.

The introduction explores reasons for the relative scholarly neglect of Lewis Milestone and his films: his diverse body of work, his troubles during the Blacklist period, the serious nature of most of his films, his difficulty getting along with studio bosses, his distaste for the “star system,” changing Hollywood tastes. It provides an overview of his career, from the silent to the sound era, and his huge early success with All Quiet on the Western Front, which came to haunt him in later years. Milestone was drawn repeatedly to the theme of war, especially its impact on ordinary soldiers. Also discussed is how Milestone’s life embodies the “rag-to-riches” American dream of millions of immigrants.

While the early years of Hollywood are usually seen in light of legendary figures such as Adolph Zukor, it is the engineers, technicians, and bureaucrats who supported the system that were responsible for every frame Hollywood produced. This introduction reorients the reader away from stars and producers and toward these technical workers and their organizations. It discusses the role of concepts such as creative industries, Hollywood’s invisible style, scientific management, technological determinism, scientific progressivism, engineering history, and trade organizations in the broader arguments presented throughout the book. When we look at Hollywood motion picture production as a technology business, rather than an anomalous industry, the studio system takes its place within its proper historical context of the American economy and culture as a whole.

This chapter evaluates the teen years of cinema, which roughly corresponds to World War I, 1914–1918. Many of the changes were under way before the war and only reached full development afterwards. Thus, the Hollywood studio system had its roots at the start of the teens, and it is only considered fully developed with the arrival of M-G-M in 1924. It was in these years that Hollywood first became synonymous with ‘the movies’ for the large majority of filmgoers, at home and abroad. The development and increasing sophistication of Hollywood film-making are clear subjects of study. In terms of film-makers, D. W. Griffith and Cecil B. De Mille are key examples; both directors can be studied in order to understand the development of Hollywood's narrative and continuity system. While this was not fully developed until the end of the teens, the conventions on which it is built can be clearly identified in the work of both directors. Outside the USA, there are many interesting developments and changes. However, it is quite difficult to access copies of the films from this period.

This chapter details Ann’s sudden departure from Los Angeles to New York, and ultimately to Europe, for an extended honeymoon. Included in the discussion are the reactions of Warner Bros. and Anna Lehr to Dvorak walking out on her contract, along with the immediate media backlash to Ann publicly disputing her salary and the studio system in general under the advisement of Leslie Fenton and her agent Charles Feldman. Also included are Dvorak’s justifications for her actions, many of which came retroactively.

Traditional histories of studio-era Hollywood contend that the film industry offered little more than acting and secretarial jobs to women; however, industry trade papers and syndicated press of the time reveal a different picture. Women worked as producers, executives, writers, script readers, production and costume designers, film and sound editors, set dressers, make-up artists, publicists, agents, researchers, actors, and directors. They worked for their unions and on industry committees. Although they didn’t always agree politically, Hollywood’s women shared a commitment to the Equal Rights Amendment and often helped each other’s careers. This chapter provides an overview of the diverse professions open to women in the Hollywood studio system and challenges the “great man” theories of authorship and female disempowerment that have driven conventional histories of old Hollywood.

This chapter illustrates some of the untapped riches of Preston Sturges’s unproduced screenplay for the musical Song of Joy, both in terms of its pivotal timing in his filmmaking career and its unappreciated achievements in screenwriting. When compared with Sturges’s other written-and-directed films, Song of Joy often shows less restraint and more exuberance in testing the boundaries of the Hollywood studio system, especially in terms of plotting, meta-cinema, and dialogue. Tracing these extremes clarifies why the script was so disliked and why so many studios rejected it. These analyses also illustrate the intensity of Sturges’s creative ambitions at this point in his career—that period between his roles as playwright and writer-director when he took an even more over-the-top approach to screenwriting.