142 ChaPter 3
double on her films because she was so widely-loved. Other Hollywood pro-
ducers and investors jumped on the lurid bandwagon, with films such as
Forbidden Fruit, The Golden Bed, Ladies of Pleasure, and Women Who Give. They
promised “beautiful jazz babies, midnight revels, petting parties in the purple
dawn” and “pleasure-made daughters, sensation-craving mothers.” When
more puritanical critics called on Hollywood to show cleaner films, Cecil B.
DeMille, the biggest filmmaker of the era, produced The Ten Commandments,
where he could show scantily-clad women and sexual revels, but in a biblical
setting. Hollywood was now a huge money-maker, and other actors such as
Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin made over $500,000
a film plus a large percentage of the profits.
In 1927, the film industry changed forever, and with it so did America.
Warner Brothers, which was then in decline and in danger of closing its doors,
released the nation’s first full-length feature film with sound, The Jazz Singer,
starring Al Jolson. “Talkies” quickly became the rule of the day, as the public
could not get enough of them. As Warner Brother’s profits soared—their
stock rose from $21 to $132 a share—all of the other major film companies
began producing in the new medium. Talking movies made stars out of JeanFIGuRE 3-5 “It Girl” Clara Bow