I watch (and love) a lot of old movies. My tastes currently run to the “film noire” classics of the 1930’s-40’s-I consider Humphry Bogart’s stuff ( MALTESE FALCON, THE BIG SLEEP, etc.) some of the best films ever made. As I understand it, films were made in those days, by giant organizations called studios: companies like MGM, warner Brothers, Universal, etc. These studios had contracts with actors-who worked exclusively for that studio. Now, we no longer have that system-most actors are "free agents’, who sell their talent to whatever filmaker pays them the most.
Was the old studio system better at making high-quality films/ i find much of what Hollywood makes today to be too formulaic and boring-and when i read that Tom Cruise or brad Pitt is paid MILLIONS to act in amovie that bombs, I scratch my head and say “why”? :mad:
There were a lot of reasons: the rise of television; the powers of unions and of actors freelancing; the death and retirement of many of the men who “made” the system; the rise of overseas filming . . .
Also an anti-trust suit that forced the studios to sell their movie theaters. They had been able to control what went into the theaters, which allowed a lot of idiosyncratic films to get made by major studios.
The Paramount Decision did have some impact as saoirse said, but I believe that the main reason that films are worse now is that the writing is not near as good for studio films as it used to be. Back in the say the studios would spend real money and hire the best writers they could find. In the past movies were about story. Today they are about ideas.
The Past: Two people, and insurance salesman and a housewife, fall in love/lust with each other. Their love becomes so intense and passionate that they consider the ultimate betrayal, murdering her husband. After they murder him in such a way that it appears like an accident, the man’s best friend investigates the death suspecting insurance fraud. The couples passion for each other results in jealousies and distrust that leads to their eventual downfall. (Double Indemnity.)
The Present: Robin Williams on a two week vacation with his family in a RV. Hijinks ensue. (RV)
Which do you think had a better writer?
Writer? We don’t need no stinkin’ writers with an actor like Robin Williams!
I think you’re wrong about Studio System movies being generally better than today’s movies, but the only way I could prove it is to rate every movie made in each era on an arbitrary system. In general, I think the writing in the modern era (especially late 60’s and most of the 70’s) has been better.
I think we have a tendency to remember only the movies that have stood the test of time and forget 90% of the potboilers that were churned out during the studio days. What you suggest is intriguing, though, that earlier movie makers were more interested in telling a story, while modern studios are more interested in selling an idea.
Good point by PoorYorick, I thought the same when reading the OP: we think that in the old days they were likelier to make more “classics”, because what survives from the old days IS the “classics”. In that sense the studio system itself provided a self-reinforcing mechanism, in that a truly wretched failure could be made to disappear.
Now as to modern filmmakers being more interested in selling an idea, remember modern filmmakers are also interested in much more merchandising – be it commercial tie-ins to the film (album, t-shirt, action figure, comic book) or pushing the players themselves as commodities in the marketplace, or doing product placement in the film – than in the past.
Oh, please. That’s like saying 2006 was a banner year for movies because it had brilliant fare like “The Good Shepherd” while 2003 stunk because it had “Gigli”.
To balance things a bit, also appearing in 1944 were such classics as “Charlie Chan in the Secret Service”, Defective Detectives (the IMDB plot summary: "Harry is contacted by a private detective who tells him that he he has a big inheritance coming to him. The trouble is, he has to go to a dark, forbidding old mansion to claim it. "), Leave It To The Irish!, and the musical Meet Miss Bobby Socks.
Sturgeon’s Law: 90% of everything is crap, well applies to movies. As others have said, though - fifty years later, we’ve stopped paying attention to the crap, and so have the wrong impression that what happened fifty years ago was consistently great. It wasn’t.
I’m glad someone brought this up because it probably was the biggest factor in the collapse of the Studio System. At the time U.S. v. Paramount Pictures was decided in 1948, the vast amount of the major studios’ worth came from their theater chains and the real estate that went with them. When the theaters were forced to divest themselves of the theater chains, they no longer had the capital necessary to keep the studio system running.
Incidentally, if you are lucky to live in a city that still has an old Fox, Paramount, or Loew’s theater downtown, that’s a still-standing vestige of the Studio System.
Definitely the antitrust suit put an end to the system. There were other factors, of course, but as long as the studios owned the theaters, they had a captive market for their work and a steady income. Once the monopoly was broken up, they had to change their ways.
TV was also a factor, but if the studios had still owned the theaters, they would have still been able to keep up the system – especially once they caught on they could create TV content, too (as Warner Brothers did).
As for being better – first of all, that’s competely subjective. Second, there are thousand of third-rate movies that the studio systems cranked out that you’ve never heard of. Time and distance filter art: things always look better if they’re older and from far away, since only the best survives. The bad films are completely forgotten.
If you go through old newspapers during the studio days, you’ll be hard pressed to find more than one or two any given day that you’ve heard of. The rest played a week and were promptly forgotten – for good reason.
Minor diversion, our town had a wonderful Paramount theater, which was torn down in the 70’s to make way a parking lot or somesuch. A few feeble attempts were made to save it, but… I have no idea what is wrong with folks who feel the need to destroy such architectural gems.
Finishing the job Bette Davis started in 1936.
I believe you have an overly romantic view of Hollywoodland, partner. Movies aren’t now nor were they ever about story or ideas. They were always about money.
The OP’s been largely answered, so I’ll just jump in with my own thoughts on this particular matter. Star salaries are entirely the audience’s responsibility.
When Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt says they want $20million for a picture, it’s not because any acting job is worth that much, it’s because the studio asked them to take the part due to the fact their name alone, as far as their market surveys could tell, means a certain amount of astronomically big bucks, even with ticket prices being what they are. If you were Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, knowing this going in, how many of those astronomical big bucks, that come in because of your name alone, do you think should actually go to you personally?
Same goes for sports salaries.
The studios sometimes made good movies for the same reason the networks sometimes make good TV. They had to keep putting out fresh product to fill their delivery system.
Most of it was formulaic. Every once in awhile, they needed something to put in the pipeline, and by magic, someone actually had a good idea, ready to produce.
It’s really more a case of coincidence rather than creative greatness.
And if you read about the making of Casablanca, you can see how much coincidence can factor into a great movie.