The recent announcement that The Walt Disney Company was planning to buy 20th Century Fox wasn’t a huge surprise to most people these days. After all, The Walt Disney Company is a behemoth when it comes to entertainment. During the golden age of Hollywood, however, such a deal wouldn’t have just been unthinkable; it would have been impossible. This week, Blind Kiyomi will look back at the Hollywood that was, how decisions made in the 1950’s affected the entertainment landscape of today and what the future might hold for the entertainment capital of the world. Today we’ll focus on the stratification of the studios in Hollywood during the golden age and the driving forces behind motion picture production at the time- the Hollywood moguls.
During Hollywood’s Golden Age, there were four types of studios competing for the public’s entertainment dollars- the majors, the mini majors, the independents and “Poverty Row”. The majors were all controlled by powerful leaders whose power and influence touched every corner of their studio empires. The five major studios were:
MGM, controlled by Louis B. Mayer
Paramount Pictures, controlled by Adolph Zukor
20th Century Fox, controlled by Daryl Zanuck
Warner Bros, run by Jack Warner
RKO, run by David O. Selznick in its heyday.
The major studios typically controlled all facets of production, including distribution and even exhibition. The king of the majors was Louis B. Mayer’s MGM, which turned film production into an assembly line process. MGM kept hundreds of actors under contract, staffed full production facilities on its sprawling studio lot and even boasted a “security” office more powerful than the LAPD. While the other majors were no less powerful, none had the sheer top to bottom capabilities of MGM.
The “mini-majors” were rather large themselves, but had less prestige than the upper tier. These studios were:
United Artists, which was a consortium of the biggest names in early Hollywood
Universal Pictures, which was run by Carl Laemmle
Columbia Pictures, run by Harry Cohn.
The mini-majors produced some of Hollywood’s biggest films, but were not considered to be in Hollywood’s upper tier. United Artists was setup by Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin at the height of their careers. The idea was to break free from relying on the Hollywood system which would give them greater creative freedom and a larger portion of the box office grosses. Its revolutionary ideas limited its power in Hollywood, thus placing it in the lower tier. Universal had an enviable studio lot and facilities, but it always seemed to have cash flow problems during this time. Columbia found itself here because it had previously existed on “Poverty Row” and dug itself out to become a major player.
The next tier of studios were the “Indies”. These operations were typically niche studios who weren’t classified as being on Poverty Row due to their popularity and the high quality of their output but did not have elaborate infrastructure. They often relied on the majors to distribute their productions. While there were a lot of these studios, three of the best known were:
Walt Disney Productions, controlled by the Disney Brothers- Walt and Roy.
British Pathé, which was the English language arm of the French film company, which mostly produced newsreels.
The Rank Organisation, which was the American arm of the British entertainment conglomerate, which mostly co-financed larger productions so that it would gain the British Distribution rights. It also distributed British productions in America.
Then there were the many “Poverty Row” studios. These studios produced low quality films and rarely ran their own studio lots. These production companies often leased unused sound stages and equipment from the majors and ran with very little overhead. Their films often ran as “B” or even “C” features and struggled to stand out. They were often located on Gower Street in Los Angeles and among the many such studios were PRC Pictures, Republic and Monogram. While the heads of these studios often mocked the majors for having bloated budgets, most of them would have had no problems moving on up and out of Poverty Row. However, only Columbia Pictures would make that leap.
Looking at the way things were might bring up a lot of questions. Why did MGM fall out of favor? How could Disney, a mere indie, get to the top of the heap? What happened to RKO? Stay tuned!
