Organization after 1931
In 1931, the film industry adopted the producer-unit
system, an organizational structure that typically
included a general manager, executive manager,
production manager, studio manager, and individ-
ual production supervisors.^10 Each studio had its
own configuration, determined by the New York
office. The producer-unit system as it functioned
at MGM in the 1930s illustrates the structure.
(Figure 11.3 indicates the basic form and responsi-
bilities of the producer-unit system. Note that the
titles of these team members are generic; the actual
titles varied with each studio.)
The general manager, Irving Thalberg, who had
been supervising MGM’s production since 1924,
continued this work in the new unit. At the time,
MGM’s annual output was some fifty films. Report-
ing directly to Thalberg was a staff of ten individual
unit production supervisors, each of whom was
responsible for roughly six to eight films per year;
the actual number varied widely because of the
scope and shooting schedules of different produc-
tions. Each producer, who usually received screen
credit with that title, was able to handle various
types of movies. Such flexibility also enabled the
general manager to assign these producers accord-
ing to need, not specialization. This producer-unit
management system (and its variations) helped
create an industry that favored standardization,
within which workers were always striving for the
ideal relationship between “cost” and “quality.”
The system produced movies that had a pre-
dictable technical quality, often at the cost of stylis-
tic sameness, or what we call the studio “look”;
it resulted in an overall output that inevitably—
since hundreds of films were produced each year—
valued profitability above all else. Yet although it
could be stifling, standardization allowed for cre-
ative innovation, usually under carefully controlled
circumstances. To help ensure such creativity, unit
producers received varied assignments.
Let’s look at a typical year for two of Thalberg’s
individual unit production supervisors: Hunt
Stromberg and Bernard Hyman.^11 (During this
period, MGM had no female producers.^12 )
In 1936, a busy year for MGM, the studio released
five movies for which Stromberg received screen
credit as producer, including W. S. Van Dyke’s After
the Thin Man(comic murder mystery), William A.
Wellman’s Small Town Girl (romantic comedy),
Robert Z. Leonard’s The Great Ziegfeld (musical
biopic), Clarence Brown’s Wife vs. Secretary(roman-
tic comedy), and W. S. Van Dyke’s Rose-Marie(musi-
cal). In other words, Stromberg produced two
musicals, two romantic comedies, and the second of
four Thin Manmovies.
Bernard Hyman, a Thalberg favorite among the
MGM unit producers, produced four films that year,
some of which were released in 1936 and some in
1937: W. S. Van Dyke’s San Francisco(1936; a musical
melodrama about the 1906 earthquake starring
Clark Gable and Jeanette MacDonald), George
Cukor’s Camille(1936; a romantic melodrama star-
ring Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor), ClarenceSystems Thinking about Filmmaking Technologies and Production
(^10) The material in this section was drawn from David Bordwell,
Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson, The Classical Hollywood
Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960(New York:
Columbia University Press, 1985), pts. 2 and 5; Thomas
Schatz, The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the
Studio Era(1988; repr., New York: Holt, 1996), pts. 2 and 3; Joel
Finler, The Hollywood Story, 3rd ed. (New York: Wallflower,
2003), pt. 2; and Douglas Gomery, The Hollywood Studio Sys-
tem: A History(London: British Film Institute, 2005).
(^11) In late 1932, because of his own ill health and Mayer’s grow-
ing dislike of his power, Thalberg took a break, returning in
1933 not as general manager but as a unit producer. The pro-
duction staff, answerable directly to Mayer, also included
David O. Selznick (Mayer’s son-in-law) and Walter Wanger,
both of whom had left their jobs as central producer at,
respectively, RKO and Columbia. And both soon left MGM:
Wanger in 1934 to become an independent producer, Selznick
in 1935 to found Selznick International Pictures, where he
produced a series of major films that were successful artisti-
cally and commercially, including Victor Fleming’s Gone with
the Wind(1939).
(^12) Good accounts of women in Hollywood include Rachel
Abramowitz, Is That a Gun in Your Pocket: Women’s Experience
of Power in Hollywood(New York: Random House, 2000); Ally
Acker, Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema, 1896 to the Present
(New York: Continuum, 1991); Jeanine Basinger, A Woman’s
View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women, 1930–1960(New York:
Knopf, 1993); and Cari Beauchamp, Without Lying Down:
Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood
(New York: Scribner, 1997).