American filmmaking during its golden age, con -
currently influencing the mode of film production
worldwide. The studio system also established an
industrial model of production through which
American filmmaking became one of the most pro-
lific and lucrative enterprises in the world. Further-
more, although its rigidity ultimately led to its
demise after some forty years, the system contained
within itself the seeds—in the form of the independ-
ent producers that would replace it—to sustain
American film production until the present day.
Organization during the Golden Age
By the mid-1930s, Hollywood was divided into four
kinds of film production companies: majors,
minors, “B” studios, and independent producers
(Table 11.1).^13 The five major studios—Paramount,
MGM, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and RKO—
were all vertically integrated companies, meaning
that they followed a top-down hierarchy of control,
with the ultimate managerial authority vested in
their corporate officers and boards of directors.
These managers were in turn responsible to those
who financed them: wealthy individuals (e.g., Cor-
nelius Vanderbilt Whitney or Joseph P. Kennedy),
financial institutions (e.g., Chase National Bank in
New York or Bank of America in California), corpo-
rations related to or dependent on the film industry
(e.g., RCA, manufacturers of sound equipment used
in movie production), and stockholders (including
studio executives and ordinary people who pur-
chased shares on the stock market). Controlling
film production through their studios and, equally
important, film distribution (the marketing and
promotion of a film) and exhibition (the actual
showing of a motion picture in a commercial the-
ater) through their ownership of film exchanges
and theater chains, they produced “A” pictures,
meaning those featured at the top of the double bill
(ordinarily, for the price of a single admission,
moviegoers enjoyed almost four hours of entertain-
ment: two feature films, a cartoon, a short subject,
and a newsreel).
The three minor studios—Universal, Columbia,
and United Artists—were less similar. Universal and
Columbia owned their own production facilities but
no theaters, and thus depended on the majors to
show their films. By contrast, United Artists (UA)—
founded in 1919 by Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin,
Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith—was consid-
ered a “studio” even though it was essentially a dis-
tribution company established by these artists to
give them greater control over how their movies
were distributed and marketed. During the 1930s,
however, UA was distributing the work of many
other outstanding producers, directors, and actors.
Although UA declined during the 1940s, it was
revived in the 1950s and today is part of MGM.
The five B studios (sometimes called the poverty
row studiosbecause of their relatively small budgets)
were Republic Pictures, Monogram Productions,
Grand National Films, Producers Releasing Corpo-498 CHAPTER 11FILMMAKING TECHNOLOGIES AND PRODUCTION SYSTEMS
(^13) See David A. Cook, A History of Narrative Film, 4th ed. (New
York: Norton, 2004), pp. 239–255.
TABLE 11.1 Structure of the Studio System until 1950
Major Studios
- Paramount
- Metro- Goldwyn- Mayer
- Warner Bros.
- 20th Century Fox
- RKO
Minor Studios- Universal Studios
- Columbia Pictures
- United Artists
Most Significant “B”
(Poverty Row) Studios- Republic Pictures
- Monogram Productions
- Grand National Films
- Producers Releasing
Corporation - Eagle- Lion Films
Most Significant
Independent Producers- Samuel Goldwyn
Productions - David O. Selznick
Productions - Walt Disney Studios