That Old Hollywood Glamour

[happyfilmluvguy]

Today if you bring up the name "Hollywood", you're likely to get a grumble. The movie industry, and this is a matter of opinion, is largely taken for granted. I mean, it's just a business, right? But when the industry was still fairly new it was known as the "Dream Factory", a fantasized place that only one could dream of becoming a part of. The lights, the sounds, the glamour was something highly admired, where the rich and famous lived a life of luxury.

Why was the movie industry so highly regarded back then? And why do you think it isn't now?

 

[Dagwood]

I highly recommend "The Big Picture" by Edward Jay Epstein. It is a great, great book.

From the Synopsis: "During the heyday of the studio system spanning the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s, virtually all the American motion picture industry’s money, power, and prestige came from a single activity: selling tickets at the box office. Today, the movie business is just a small, highly visible outpost in a media universe controlled by six corporations–Sony, Time Warner, NBC Universal, Viacom, Disney, and NewsCorporation. These conglomerates view films as part of an immense, synergistic, vertically integrated money-making industry. [¶] In The Big Picture, acclaimed writer Edward Jay Epstein gives an unprecedented, sweeping, and thoroughly entertaining account of the real magic behind moviemaking: how the studios make their money. Epstein shows how, in Hollywood, the only art that matters is the art of the deal: major films turn huge profits, not from the movies themselves but through myriad other enterprises, such as video-game spin-offs, fast-food tie-ins, soundtracks, and even theme-park rides."

Publisher's Weekly also notes (in commenting on Epstein's book): "Gone are the days of studio chiefs dominating their stars with punitive contracts and controlling product from script to big screen. Writers now sell their work to the highest bidder, stars have become one-person corporations who 'rent' their services to individual productions, and the studios have morphed into what Epstein labels 'clearing houses.' These multinational corporations exist, in Epstein's description, to collect revenue from an ever-growing variety of sources-home video, overseas markets and product licensing, to name a few-and then disburse it to a fortunate minority at the top of Hollywood's food chain."

 

[LizzieMaine]

Dagwood makes a very good point -- and I'd add to it by pointing out that not only was Hollywood itself far less spread-out than it is today, so too was the whole world of popular entertainment. During the thirties there were three main forces that dominated popular culture -- movies, radio, and mass-circulation magazines. Vaudeville was a vestige of its former self, the legitimate theatre was mainly for New York swells, and the phonograph record business was staggering its way out of near bankruptcy.

But practically everyone, everywhere had access to movies, radio, and popular magazines -- and of these, movies had by far the biggest budget for publicity. Hollywood was dominant in the public consciousness because it could afford to be -- and it could afford to be because there was so little real competition for the mass-entertainment dollar. It's far different from today, where we're *drowning* in entertainment options.

 

[Miss Brill]

Why was the movie industry so highly regarded back then? And why do you think it isn't now?

Because people thought the rich were better? Because they made some effort to hide what was ugly about the people--their physical flaws, their moral flaws. They were almost always portrayed as people who'd gone from rags-to-riches. Now the uglier side is what sells. The tabloids and paparazzi don't show beauty and glamour, they show how seedy these people really are. Their sleazy lives, and their surgically deformed selves.

 

[mike]

Because people thought the rich were better? Because they made some effort to hide what was ugly about the people--their physical flaws, their moral flaws. They were almost always portrayed as people who'd gone from rags-to-riches. Now the uglier side is what sells. The tabloids and paparazzi don't show beauty and glamour, they show how seedy these people really are. Their sleazy lives, and their surgically deformed selves.

I think the recent documentary, Girl 27 backs up your point. I used to look up to LB Mayer for the films he green-lit. Now, I'll stick with King Vidor thank you very much.

 

[Twitch]

I recall that lang ago Loius Mayer wrote an open letter to the industry explaining how movie makers should not, could not portray the military or government in negative ways while the war was on.

If we can recall the visual media for the press refrained from showing FDR in embarrassing positions in his wheel chair and such.

Today anything goes no matter the consequences as long some deviant gets their prize as 1st to debauch the less aware. They bandy the word "truth" about as if they had invented it when far more dignified persona of the past had the opportunity but passed on the noteriety of making fun of the government, the office of president, the members of the military or the covert espionage apperatus which in concert make the country great.

None of the principals today will ever achieve the class, recognition and respect their Golden Era counterparts had. They're just a bunch of hippies and trailer trash basically selling dope to children.