Birth of the Hollywood Studio System

• "During the 1910s, the successful companies, led by Famous Players-Lasky, developed a system by which to manufacture popular, feature-length films."
• Vitagraph in 1909 released 4-part serial of Les Miserables
• Foreign companies such as Milano exported to the U.S. the earlies feature films in 1911, such as Dante's Inferno and Homer's Odyssey
• George Kleine in 1913 made 4 features such as Quo Vadis? and "the investment in a feature film required a special and individualized promotional effort."
• Carl Laemmle hired "the Biograph Girl" Florence lawrence and promoted her as a movie star.
• Adolph Zukor's Famous Players filmed popular Broadway plays and stars such as James O'Neill and Sarah Bernhardt and Mary Pickford, who formed United Artists in 1919 with Chaplin and Fairbanks.
• "Thomas Ince set in motion a standard working procedure" of a producer and script and buildings and sets and backlots and editors and music and stars such as William S. Hart and Charles Ray and Sessue Hayakawa.
• "If Thomas Ince pioneered the Hollywood studio system, it was Adolph Zukor and his Famous Players' Company which taught the world how to fully exploit it."
• Zukor with funds from Kuhn Loeb bought theaters for Paramount, developed block booking, merged with Balaban & Katz to form the Publix circuit.
• Paramount created by W. W. Hodkinson out of 11 regional states rights exchanges.
• Thomas Tally in 1917 created First National Exhibitor's circuit from 26 powerful independent theater owners.
• Will H. Hays led the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association of America.
• Samuel "Roxy" Rothapfel founded the Strand movie palace in 1914, and the Radio City Music Hall in 1932.
• Sic Grauman built the first movie palace in Los Angeles in 1917, the Million Dollar Theatre
• Balaban & Katz built the Central Park Theatre in 1917 with air conditioning.
• Big 3 studios of Famous Players, Loews, First National.
• United Artists in a catagory of its own.
• Mid 5 studios were Fox, Universal, Producers Distributing, Warners, Film Booking Office.
• independent studios made cheap serials and westerns.
• "One filmmaker seemed to symbolize Hollywood's success and excess: Cecil B. deMille, who after the First World War led the way to a different type of image of morality on film, openly portraying the material and sensual pleasures which would become known as the 'Roaring Twenties'," in films such as Old Wives for New.

Source:

• Gomery, Douglas. Movie History: a Survey. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1991.

Links:

• Birth of the Movies
• Evolution of Hollywood Studios

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