The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema
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Session 2

Experiments and Innovations, 1877-1900

Just as with today's evolution of the Internet, the turn of the last century brought the birth
of a new technology--the moving picture--and with it, a host of questions about how best
to exploit and apply it. Then, as now, cutting-edge entertainment media held vast economic
and artistic potential, but remained so high-tech that producers and users weren't quite sure
how to employ it to its full potential.

Just like the content on today's World Wide Web, moving pictures at the start of the
twentieth century were hit-or-miss propositions that took advantage of the entertainment
possibilities of the medium but failed to differentiate themselves from the media they grew
out of (in the movies' case, theater and photography). By tracing the development of the
American movie from its first technological advances, through the growth of a cinematic
narrative language, and into the metamorphosis of an entire industry, we see the
blossoming of the American film and the rapid-fire creation of an art form.
Inventors
The first moving pictures didn't really move--they were still Click to View Slideshow
photos projected so quickly that they appeared to be in motion.
In 1877, California governor Leland Stanford made a $25,000
bet with a colleague that when a horse trotted, at some point all
four hooves left the ground at the same moment. To prove his
theory, Stanford hired Eadweard Muybridge, who set up 12
electrically operated cameras in a row along the horse track,
rigged with wires to set off the camera as the horse went by.
When projected, the series of photos created the illusion of
movement--and won Stanford's bet. Muybridge experimented
with this multiple-camera system for years, but never jumped to
the next level: single-camera motion pictures.

It took until 1882 for Parisian Etienne Jules Marey to construct

a camera that could take multiple photos per second. Shaped Photographic History Collection,
like a gun, the camera "shot" twelve images each second. He National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution
called his invention chronophotography, and improved it six
Early experiments in
years later by using paper roll film inside, rather than the photography at the end of
original glass plate, thus allowing for faster exposures. With the nineteenth century by
this, the truly moving picture was born. Eadweard Muybridge (pictured
above) and Etienne Jules Marey
helped lay the groundwork for
Other inventors, including Thomas Alva Edison, worked on the motion picture.
short-subject films as early as 1894, but it wasn't until 1895 that
the first large-screen projector was created. On December 28 of that year, brothers Auguste
and Louis Lumire held the first public film screening. At this point, it was the novelty of
the motion picture, not the artistry, which impressed audiences. They were captivated by
the "film" Workers Leaving the Lumire Factory, a short documentation of a crowd of
people walking by the camera. The Lumires' camera was portable and not only shot and
printed but also projected pictures, allowing the brothers to create and exhibit films on the
fly. The film width they used (35mm) and speed (16 frames per second) became the

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

industry norm until the onset of sound.

Narrative beginnings
Although the films shown by the Lumires were
thrilling--one, depicting a train rushing headfirst Early Cine-Cameras
toward the camera, caused audiences to screams in
shock--they still lacked much of a narrative drive.
The brief films focused on recording scenes from
everyday life, void of storyline or craftsmanship.
Shorts remained mini-documentaries until the
involvement of Georges Mlis, a French inventor
and magician who transformed moving pictures into
moving stories.

Mlis' fascination with cinema was born of a happy

accident. While shooting, his camera jammed; when
the film was projected, an optical illusion was
created and the object being photographed seemed to
disappear instantaneously. Thereafter, Mlis
incorporated such "trick shots" into stories, including
U.S. Department of the Interior,
such cinematic devices as the fade out and fade in, National Park Service, Edison National
the dissolve, and the use of stop-motion Historic Site
photography and the origin of animation. Aside from
Louis Lumire (above) and his
the innovative uses of the camera, however, he shot
brother Auguste, were some of
his filmed narratives as one would watch a theatrical the earliest filmmakers in the
play. The camera stayed in one position, recording a history of motion pictures. In a
staged production, one full scene at a time. In 1902, related feature on Fathom, the
Mlis directed his masterwork, the psychedelic A Science Museum's Rod Varley
Trip to the Moon. Just under 14 minutes and around tells the story of the various
30 scenes, it depicts a rocket ship landing in the eye individuals who played key
of the man in the moon, and features chorus girls, roles in the development of
cinema.
space creatures that appear and disappear, and an
undersea landscape.

Mlis' narrative experiments inspired budding filmmakers worldwide. Particularly stirred

was Edison, who was in the midst of playing around with celluloid roll film in a battery-
driven camera. He incorporated more fanciful imagery into his own moving pictures, which
he showed in a peephole machine called a Kinetoscope. Kinetoscope parlors (storefront
locations) opened nationwide around 1895 to exhibit the 90-second, unenlarged pictures.

With the talented William K. L. Dickson as his collaborator and George Eastman's
celluloid film as a tool, Edison created what was to become the industry norm: 35mm film
with newly perforated sides to help it roll smoothly past the shutter. In addition, Dickson
opened the first movie studio, called the Black Maria, a small, dark room with a retractable
roof that could rotate to catch the sun, necessary for lighting images naturally. For years to
come, Edison, a forceful and ambitious man, would dominate American motion-picture
development and, in effect, initiate one of the most influential American industries.

Distribution and exhibition

Between 1890 and 1910, movies moved
from technological experiments to mass
entertainment. America at the turn of the
century saw the flourishing of cities: busy,
rapidly growing urban centers characterized

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

Click to View Slideshow

by class divisions, vertical architecture and

groups of working people ready for escapist
amusement. Early movies found an
audience mainly as part of vaudeville
shows and in penny arcades, lasted only
seconds and contained very little plot. The
first American screening for a paying
audience occurred on April 23, 1896, in
New York City, and nine years later, the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Edison National
Historic Site
first nickelodeon opened in Pittsburgh, PA.
In addition to more than 1,000 patents and such
revolutionary inventions as the incandescent light
Nickelodeons, so named for their five-cent bulb and the phonograph, Thomas Edison made
entrance fee, began as crude storefront tremendous progress in the motion picttre world.
theaters in which a patron watched 10-60
minutes of filmed short skits, typically including a melodrama, a comedy and a novelty
piece. This neighborhood theater model grew wildly popular, and they numbered about
10,000 by 1908. Movies were considered strictly working-class at this time, and
accordingly featured crowded, standing-room-only accommodations and sensational topics
such as infidelity, seduction and crime.

Soon, however, the success of the moving picture

Inventing
Entertainment
The Library of Congress has
created a website dedicated to
Thomas Edison's work in film
titled, "Inventing
Entertainment: The Motion
Pictures and Sound Recordings
of the Edison Companies."
The site features 341 motion
pictures, 81 disc sound
recordings and other materials.
Users can view films such as
The Great Train Robbery online
as well as read about the life
of the great inventor.
roused the interest of businessmen, who realized that
the real money lay with attracting a middle-class
audience. Exchanges emerged, or distributors who
bought shorts and then rented them to exhibitors at
lower rates. With their profits, exhibitors upgraded,
providing such extras as pianists to accompany the
films, peanuts and popcorn for sale, and comfortable
seating. Women, with their flexible schedules and
pocket change, were specifically courted with kids-
watch-for-free specials and afternoon screenings.
With an eager audience and a system of distribution
in place, the burgeoning industry clamored for new,
improved product. In a short time, trick photography
and staged documentaries had lost their shock value.
The movies needed to evolve to the next level--a
true narrative medium.

Session 1
Session 2

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema
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Session 1 Session 3

Artistry and Business, 1900-1915

Picture this: In a movie, the first shot shows the

main character stepping into an elevator, then
cuts immediately to that character stepping out
of the elevator four floors below. Although the
camera has not stayed with the character while
riding the elevator down the four floors, the
audience understands that the activity has taken
place; the viewer, accustomed to cinematic
editing, does not feel jarred or confused by the
leap in space and time.

That type of visual shortcut did not always

exist, however. Someone had to originate the
first temporal cut, and in so doing create a
language unique to cinema. In the early 1900s, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Edison National
Historic Site
filmmakers were still treating movies like
Film still from the 1903 film The Great Train Robbery.
moving photographs. The camera position Directed by Edwin S. Porter, the film is considered by
remained fixed and there was little many to be groundbreaking for its editing and storyline.
manipulation of the images, aside from some The still shown above frightened many audience
members with a life-size image of a gunslinger firing his
rudimentary special effects. It took a few pistol at the audience. Exhibitors were told to play this
innovative minds to develop the visual separate scene at either the beginning or end of the film.
grammar that viewers now take for granted in
Hollywood films.
Cinematic language
One of the first of these pioneers was Edwin S. Porter, who is widely credited with shifting
editing from between scenes to within one scene. By placing one distinct shot against another
and devising meaning from the juxtaposition, intra-scene editing took the first step in
developing a cinematic language. For instance, in his 1903 film The Life of an American
Fireman, Porter cut between the interior and exterior of a burning house to increase the tension
and tell the simultaneous story of the fireman and the people trapped inside. (The legitimacy of
the version of the film that includes intercutting, however, has been questioned, as detailed by
David Cook in his A History of Narrative Film.)

Film still from the 1903 film

The Great Train Robbery. In
this scene two masked
robbers enter the railroad
telegraph office and compel
the operator to signal the
approaching train to stop,
allowing them to secretly
board.

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Edison National Historic Site

Later in 1903, Porter released The Great Train Robbery, the seminal early example of
crosscutting (the cinematic cutting back and forth between two simultaneous events). Here, a
gang of bandits ambushes a train, moving from the telegraph office to outside the train to its
interior in a series of interconnected shots. As Cook points out, the importance here is that each
scene is not played through to its end, but rather shows a fraction of a complete action,
allowing the audience to infer the connections between shots. Film historian Robert Sklar calls
the film "the first to unite motion picture spectacle with myths and stories about America."

Griffith and cinematic narrative

David Wark Griffith is widely (although not indisputably)
considered the father of cinematic narrative, and the first
auteur, or a director who controls many aspects of the
filmmaking process and stamps his or her personal style on
each film. As the lead director at the Biograph studio, Griffith
spearheaded numerous cinematic advances, including varied
shot depth, such as close-ups and far shots; special effects,
such as irises and split screens; the move to high-quality
stories; expressive lighting and camera angles; longer film
lengths; traveling shots; and a more naturalistic, low-key
acting style.

Griffith understood that, regardless of the fact that the viewer

watches in a public place, cinema is an intimate medium. His
great talent was to glean the emotional center of a story and American Film Institute
then use all the tools of filmmaking to highlight that nucleus.
Through films such as The Birth of a
For instance, in 1914's Home Sweet Home, Griffith positions Nation and Intolerance, director D.W.
Lillian Gish as the angelic sweetheart of John Howard Payne Griffith is considered by many the
father of cinematic narrative.
(the composer of the title song), multiple images of whom
await Payne in the heavens when he dies. The trick photography and heart-tugging melodrama
together create metaphoric meaning: that although Payne was corrupt and degenerate, his music
substantiated and even, to an extent, absolved him.

Also highly significant was Griffith's enthusiasm for the multi-

reel film. Although Europeans had had success with feature

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films, the American industry was reluctant to switch from the

production, distribution and exhibition system that had grown
up around the single-reel film. Griffith bucked the industry
and, more specifically, his own studio, in 1913 by producing
Judith of Bethulia, an epic four-reel picture. Biograph's
executives feared the greater expense and risk of producing a
feature, and after Griffith made the picture on the sly, they
rescinded his directorial duties, prompting him to move to the
Mutual studio.

In the next few years, Griffith created his most famous films,
The Birth of a Nation (1914) and Intolerance (1916). For years
film historians have debated the attributes (mostly technical)
and drawbacks (mainly thematic) of each; for more in-depth
analysis, see the bibliography for book suggestions. Birth was
American Film Institute based on Thomas Dixon's novel The Clansmen, and extolled

Film poster for the 1914 film The the Ku Klux Klan while condemning African-Americans and
Birth of a Nation, directed by D.W. miscegenation, a position that has appalled liberal audiences of
Griffith. the past century. In terms of its technical advancements,
however, the twelve-reel film proved a brilliant accomplishment. Besides the sweeping scope
of the story and the physical sets, Birth ties together multiple story lines into one coherent
whole, highlighted with intricate editing and camera usage. The film gained international
prestige and at the same time engendered much disapproval for its content; Intolerance stands
as Griffith's response to Birth's critics. This film fared less well artistically, but stands as the
most ambitious and epic film of the silent era. The initial cut ran 48 reels, and the final version,
though shorter and tighter, still baffled audiences with a muddled message and complicated
four-story structure.

The business of art

As movie artistry evolved through the contributions of
Griffith and other early filmmakers, the business end of
the industry was also maturing. Biograph, Vitascope
and Edison soon emerged as the industry's major
studios and controlled much of the American movie
landscape. Edison's personal desire for industry
domination spurred the foundation of a monopoly.
Officially titled the Motion Pictures Patents Company,
it was commonly known as The Trust.

The Trust was formed with the 1908 merger of studios

Edison, Biograph, Vitagraph, Essanay, Lubin, Selig,
Kalem, Mlis and Path. Edison bought and pooled 16
major patents on movie machines, such as cameras and
projectors, then entered into an exclusive agreement
with Eastman Kodak for the supply of raw film stock.
With these tools under his control, he was able to
convince the other major studios to band with him and
disallow any further competition from the scores of
existing independent companies. Together, they forced
distributors and exhibitors to buy and show only films U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service,
Edison National Historic Site
made by the Trust. For about a decade, the scheme
In just a few years after his earliest
proved powerful, but soon angry upstarts challenged experiments with celluloid, Edison managed to

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

the monopoly. build a formidable monopoly in motion pictures.

Some, such as independent distributors William
Swanson and Carl Laemmle, filed suits proclaiming
The Trust illegal. Others bought film stock from
However, despite his best efforts to protect his
patents and control the film industry, Edison
and the major studios he had combined into
"The Trust" were brought down by an antitrust
ruling.

England and France and formed their own trade associations, such as the Independent Film
Protective Association in 1909. Trust producers, eager to protect their efficient model of
production, also contributed to their own downfall by insisting that actors remain nameless (and
thus powerless) and refusing to expand beyond one-reel shorts. Although The Trust continued
to produce the most technically skillful films, their inflexibility proved their ruin, and by 1918
they were dissolved as part of an antitrust suit.

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema
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The Hollywood System and the Golden Age of Silents, 1915-1920

Classical Hollywood conjures visions of lavish, technically

accomplished movies, magnificent movie idols, moguls
chomping cigars and handing down edicts, and parties in the
Hollywood hills. The world that seems to have sprung up fully
formed in the 1920s actually grew slowly out of several
elements that emerged during the 1910s. By 1920, the movies
had acquired a patina of glamour, derived from a change in
focus from working-class to middle-class patrons and the
birth of the star system. The industry had regularized, due to
the now-standard feature-film format and three-tiered system
of production, distribution and exhibition. And finally,
Hollywood and its multiple studios had formed the official
heart of American filmmaking.
"Go West, Young Industry"
The first element of the Hollywood system was Hollywood
itself. The movies' move from the East Coast center of New
York and New Jersey to the West Coast took place between American Film Institute
1908 and 1912. Eager to shed their poor, blue-collar origins, Actress Lillian Gish on the cover of
moviemakers sought a less urban hub. Southern California Motion Picture magazine. Moving from
offered many incentives, including distance from Edison's stage to screen, Gish began her film
career in 1912 with the director D.W.
Trust lawyers, almost constant sunshine for shooting, the Griffith in his film An Unseen Enemy.
proximity of the mountains, ocean and desert for location
shooting, and a cheap, non-union labor force. By 1915, over 60 percent of American film
production occurred in Los Angeles.

As movies brought in more profits and gained more widespread recognition, moviemakers
eagerly courted not only their newly middle-class audience but, further, an upper-class status.
Theaters progressed from storefront locations to playhouses to luxurious movie palaces. These
extravagant spaces included such attributes as orchestral accompaniment, up to 6,000 plush
seats and live pre-show entertainment. As producer/exhibitor Marcus Loew stated, "We sell
tickets to theaters, not movies."

More stars than there are in the sky

In addition, they were selling tickets to stars. Although The Trust avoided identifying specific
actors in movies, for fear that their fame would allow them to demand exorbitant salaries,
audiences clamored to know the names of their favorite personalities. Independent exhibitors
recognized that popular stars would sell tickets, and accordingly furnished their names in lobby
advertisements. The Hollywood star system developed rapidly, propelled by new publicity
departments and fan magazines. Beloved celebrities like Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish
afforded Hollywood an aura of glamour and excitement.

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

American Film Institute American Film Institute

Often called "America's Sweetheart," Mary
Pickford began her career in film in 1909 with
D.W. Griffith and the Biograph company.
Pickford helped form United Artists in 1919
with Griffith, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas
Fairbanks.
Gish was one of the biggest film stars of her
day. She starred in dozens of D.W. Griffith's
films, including The Birth of a Nation. Gish
worked in the film industry for 75 years; her
last film, The Whales of August, was released
in 1987.

With increased exhibition spaces and a new pool of stars came an ever-increasing audience,
hungry for new, improved movies. Feature-length films began to appeal to studios because they
allowed for more complicated narratives, allowed higher ticket prices and were easier to
advertise than multiple titles. Europe led the way in the conversion to features, producing such
multi-reel epics as Quo Vadis (1913), a lavish two-hour spectacle directed by Enrico Guazzoni
that enthralled American audiences. Its success reassured the studios that a longer film could
recoup its costs, and soon the industry reorganized around the feature.

The production factory

As films quadrupled in length, crews became larger, stars commanded higher salaries, and
production costs soared. In order to stay profitable, the industry tightened its organization and
developed a cost-effective, factory-based production system, embodied by the studio system
and its moguls. Adolph Zukor, Carl Laemmle, William Fox, Samuel Goldwyn, Louis B.
Mayer, Jesse L. Lasky, and a handful of other Jewish immigrants formed the competing but
symbiotic studios Paramount, Metro Pictures (later MGM), Fox Film Corporation, Warner
Brothers, United Artists, Famous Players-Lasky and First National. Each studio soon
developed a distinctive style and often concentrated on a few specific genres, thus allowing
them each a share of the profits. For instance, MGM was known for its lavish productions
filled with stars; Paramount dominated comedy and sophisticated, European-flavored films;
and Warner Brothers tended toward realistic, socially conscious pictures.

Lillian Gish and movie

producer Louis B. Mayer. In
1924, Mayer formed Metro-
Goldwyn-Mayer, merging his
Louis B. Mayer Cororation
with the Metro Pictures
Corporation and the Goldwyn
Pictures Corporation.

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

American Film Institute

The outbreak of World War I created an economic boom and at the same time wiped out the
European film market, which cleared the path for American moguls to gain predominance over
filmmaking. The Hollywood studio grew into an entertainment factory, churning out formulaic,
consistently engaging wares and breaking production into a series of jobs. For instance, on one
part of the studio lot were the writers' quarters, while down the street stood the costume
department, then the equipment warehouse and the makeup trailers, each filled with specialized
professionals. Together, they collaborated to produce entertainment seen around the world, a
mass medium that both reflected and shaped American customs, opinions and mythologies.

Session 3
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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

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Fun, Games and the Morning After, 1920-1927

Newly standardized to facilitate mass production, the motion picture studios of the 1920s
attracted an influx of capital from Wall Street that allowed them to grow in scope and
influence. The excesses of Hollywood, projected onto screens nationwide, soon fed both
off of and into the excesses of the Jazz Age as a whole. If in real life flappers, speakeasy
patrons and the supposedly amoral upper class were bit players, in the movies these
characters stole the show. The era's "new morality" showed up onscreen in spicy yarns
about infidelity, wild parties, sexual hijinks and criminal pursuits. The American public,
tired of World War I-era sentimentality, sobriety and morality, clamored to let loose, if
only vicariously through their onscreen idols.
Scandal
Drunken orgies aren't all glamorous, however, and the Hollywood revelry soon revealed its
dark side. The 1920s were plagued with entertainment scandals, some of which derived
from the permissive environment and others of which were perhaps disproportionately
magnified by a press and public eager for tawdry gossip. First, popular comedian Roscoe
"Fatty" Arbuckle was arrested in 1921 for rape and murder. In one of his infamous days-
long parties, teeming with chorus girls and bootleg whiskey, a minor actress named
Virginia Rappe died in a hotel room of peritonitis. Her ripped clothing and other
circumstantial evidence suggested rape and murder, and pointed to Arbuckle as a possible
suspect. He was indicted for manslaughter and the public convicted him at once, especially
after newspapers revealed that the Massachusetts district attorney had received a
suspiciously generous $100,000 donation after one of Arbuckle's earlier parties in that state.
After three trials, the actor was acquitted, but public opinion remained so low that he was
hired for only one more film after the trials.

American Film Institute American Film Institute

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle got his start on Like Roscoe Arbuckle, Mabel Normand's
the stage, but made a name for himself in film career blossomed after coming under
film working under the king of slapstick, the wing of Mack Sennett. Normand

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

Mack Sennett. Arbuckle acted in dozens of
films, and eventually moved into directing
and producing. Unfortunately, Arbuckle's
career was cut short after he was arrested
for the rape and murder of Virginia Rappe,
who died shortly after one of Fatty's
parties. Despite an eventual acquittal,
Arbuckle was never able to resuscitate his
scarred career.
starred in numerous films, working with
comic actors such as Charlie Chaplin and
Arbuckle. However, like Arbuckle,
Normand's career was damaged after she
too became linked to several publicized
crimes.

Next, actress Mabel Normand became linked to three criminal cases. First, her close
friendship with Arbuckle put her reputation at risk. Then her lover, millionaire William
Desmond Taylor, was murdered, and it was soon revealed that Normand was the last to
have seen him alive. When Taylor's affair with actress Mary Miles Minter was discovered,
the press speculated that a lovers' quarrel had erupted. That case was never solved, nor was
the non-fatal shooting of Courtland S. Dines, which occurred after Normand visited the oil
tycoon's apartment in 1924. Allegedly, Normand's chauffeur argued with and then shot
Dines with Normand's pistol, but since Dines did not press charges, Normand did not go to
trial. Her career, however, suffered a fatal setback.

In addition, at this time it was made public that actor Wallace Reid, known for portraying
conventional, upright citizens, had died of a drug overdose after years of addiction to
narcotics. Then, powerful producer Thomas Ince died under mysterious circumstances on
the yacht of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst (director Peter Bogdanovitch
presented one version of the events surrounding Ince's death in his 2002 film The Cat's
Meow).

Censorship
he more conservative portion of society, and set off the reform and censorship movement
of the late 1920s. Although it eventually culminated in the 1934 creation of the Production
Code Administration, in the 1920s the movement remained nascent, a mere tightening of
the self-regulating mechanisms initiated by the National Board of Review of Motion
Pictures in the early 1900s. David Cook suggests in his book, A History of Narrative Film,
that the predominantly Jewish moviemakers were eager to cater to their mainly Christian
audience, so when church boards and officials called for reform, the moguls responded.
Hollywood set up a trade organization called the Motion Pictures Producers and
Distributors of America (MPPDA) in March 1922, and hired archconservative Will Hays to
head it. Despite a published list of strictures, commonly referred to as the "Don'ts and Be
Carefuls," the Hays Office remained essentially toothless until the mid-1930s.

Comic release
As liberated and extravagant as the day's mores were its comedies. Silent film was a
perfect vehicle for visual slapstick gags, which required no dialogue to convey their shock
value. The king of slapstick, Mack Sennett, reigned with his roster of comedians, including
the Keystone Kops, W.C. Fields and Harry Langdon. Historian Carl Sklar notes that the
comic aggression portrayed by Sennett's clowns had a cathartic effect on its viewers.
Through these figures, one could criticize politics and sexuality, the rich and the poor,
dignity and pretension. Sennett relied on improvisation to set up his gag-heavy sketches
and parodies, and, as writer Gerald Mast states, "set a comic standard for zaniness, non
sequitur, and physical activity."

Charlie Chaplin. Born in Britain, Charlie Chaplin traveled

with a vaudeville show that highlighted his acrobatic abilities
until he began his American career with Sennett. By 1915 he
left to direct his own shorts with the Essanay studio, in which
he added a vital and distinctive note of pathos to his comedy.

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

By 1921 Chaplin joined First National and made his first

feature tour de force, The Kid, which portrayed the attempts of
his autobiographical character, The Little Tramp, to save an
orphan child. Mirroring Chaplin's own underprivileged youth,
its sympathetic portrayal of the working class proved a huge
hit. The tramp figure, a man with so little to lose that he could
aspire to be anything and everything, appealed to viewers by
representing all-potential. He not only allowed Chaplin to
pursue virtually any storyline, he also served as the perfect
blank slate onto which viewers could project their own
dreams.

While fulfilling his contract with First National, in 1919

Chaplin also co-founded United Artists, the first talent-run
studio, with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W.
Griffith. Six years later, he produced what is widely American Film Institute

considered his masterpiece (and his personal favorite), The Film poster for the 1921 film The
Gold Rush. Again, here Chaplin blended comedy and tragedy, Kid, starring Charlie Chaplin as
the Tramp.
stranding his Lone Prospector character in frozen Alaska
where he pines after an (almost) unattainable dancing girl. The Gold Rush includes two of
Chaplin's most famous gags: the scene in which the starving prospectors eat the tramp's
leather shoe as if it were a delicious turkey dinner, and the scene in which the tramp
entertains his beloved by performing a "dance" with two rolls on forks.

Over the years, Chaplin continued to champion the

poor in movie after movie, leveling unabashed social
criticism wherever he saw the need. Although he was
one of the most popular stars in the world, this frank
censure may have marked the beginning of his
problems with American politicians. His tribulations
intensified due to political speeches Chaplin gave
during World War I in support of the Soviet Union, as
well as a series of scandals involving underage lovers
and former protge Joan Barry, who embroiled
Chaplin in a paternity suit. In September 1952, Chaplin
and his family were granted six-month exit visa to
attend the London premiere of Limelight; while away,
he discovered that his re-entry permit to America had
been rescinded. He moved to England and then lived
out the rest of his life in Switzerland.

American Film InstituteMany scholars have traced the evolution of Chaplin's

Charlie Chaplin in a publicity photo for the comedy, from the pure physicality of his shorts to the
film City Lights. inspired machinations of Modern Times to the
mawkishness of Limelight. Most agree that, although a
brilliant performer, Chaplin was limited as a director, preferring linked sketches with a
fixed camera to intricate storytelling or inventive photography. David A. Cook calls
Chaplin "a competent, conventional director with some unconventional ideas."

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

Buster Keaton. According to Walter Kerr in the book The Silent Clowns, Buster Keaton's
comedy is, in contrast to Chaplin's, "a specifically cinematic comedy" that derives its
humor directly from the use and unreality of the camera. The most famous example of this
occurs in his renowned 1924 feature Sherlock, Jr., in which his character, a movie
projectionist, steps into the world of the film he is showing. The film's villain repeatedly
throws him out, forcing him to step in and out of the movie frame as it rapidly switches
locales. (Woody Allen mirrored this conceit in his 1985 film The Purple Rose of Cairo.)

In addition, Keaton's comedy always remains strictly

credible. Each gag derives painstakingly from its
narrative circumstances, rather than occurring as a
series of unrelated sketches. While Gerald Mast asserts
that Keaton's The General (1927) "is possibly more
even, more unified and more complex than any
individual Chaplin film," Keaton's persona--the
deadpan, hapless, determined Everyman--lacks
Chaplin's mutability and range. Unlike The Tramp,
Keaton's character is strikingly similar from one film to
the next, and generally reacts to circumstances rather
than drives them. His protagonist changed little from
its inception, when he started in films with Arbuckle in
the teens. By late 1919, he had formed his own
production company, which afforded him complete
authority over writing, directing and acting.

In 1928, Keaton produced his last independent film, American Film Institute
Steamboat Bill, Jr. It contains perhaps his most famous Starting his career in vaudeville, Buster
stunt, in which, although a house topples directly on Keaton's first role in film was in the 1917
top of him, he is saved by the fact that he is standing film The Butcher Boy, with Fatty Arbuckle.
squarely in its open doorway. As always, Keaton performed this physically breathtaking
feat without a stunt man, and achieved it in a single take. The next year, however, when
studios adapted en masse for sound, Keaton's company was bought out by MGM, which
precipitated the end of his career. Unable to work within the confines of the studio system,
he turned to alcohol, which eventually caused his dismissal.

The Epic: Cecil B. DeMille

Another auteur whose work came to define 1920s cinema was Cecil B. DeMille. His films
managed to both reflect and shape contemporary ethics even as those ethics changed. For
instance, when audiences desired patriotic films during Word War I, he delivered The Little
American (1917) and Till I Come Back to You (1918); when the Jazz Age demanded
decadence, he served it up in films such as Why Change Your Wife (1920) and The Affairs
of Anatol (1921). With vivid stories and extravagant production values, DeMille's pictures
reaped profits regardless of their lavish budgets.

One such extravagance was The Ten Commandments (1924), which had a budget of over
$1.5 million and went on to define DeMille as the master of the epic film. Brimming with
sex and violence, the Biblical retelling featured glorious Technicolor and special effects.
(DeMille remade the film in 1956 in order to take advantage of improved color processes
and widescreen photography.) In every genre he tackled, DeMille excelled in presenting
grand spectacles guaranteed to awe the audience with the magic of the movies--a magic
that was gearing up to take off.

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

Session 4
Session 3 Session 5

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema
Fathom
Sessions
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Sound and the Fury, 1927-1939

Although inventors had experimented with sound since cinema's inception, the drawbacks of
the early models--expense, clumsiness and poor quality, among others--had prevented them
from succeeding. In the late 1920s, however, an improved sound-on-film process took hold of
the industry. First, Warner Brothers and Fox embraced sound, followed by the rest of the
studios, necessitating a multi-layered transformation. From the method of shooting a film, to
the stars featured, to the equipment used to exhibit, the movies would never be the same.
Sound
The first experiments with sound concentrated on trying to synchronize music played on a
phonograph with the film as it was projected. The two media, naturally, were very difficult to
synch, and in addition phonographic sound was difficult to amplify. The only solution was to
record sound directly onto the film strip by converting sound waves into patterns of light--an
objective that was not achieved until after World War I. In 1925, Bell Telephone researchers
developed the first sound-on-film process, called Vitaphone, but the studios were reluctant to
try something so untested and expensive. In 1926, however, Warner Brothers, a small,
struggling studio with little to lose, financed a series of sound shorts.

Thomas Edison's Kinetophone, pictured

here in 1913, attempted to
synchronize sound with film. The
synchronization was achieved by
connecting the projector with the
phonograph with a pulley system.
Although Edison produced 19 talking
pictures in 1913, the kinetophone
system proved to difficult to operate
precisely and didn't catch on.

U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Edison National Historic Site

At first, sound was mainly used just to provide music to otherwise silent pictures. Soon,
however, filmmakers tried out more sophisticated applications. Fox, eager to compete with
Warner Brothers, developed a similar process called Movietone and employed it in newsreel
shorts accompanied by synchronized narration, called Fox-Movietone News. These news
updates, which allowed audiences to hear such historical events as Lindbergh's plane taking off,
proved hugely popular, and spurred Warner Brothers to produce a feature film with sound.

In April 1927, Warners built the first sound studio and began shooting The Jazz Singer.

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

Conceived as a silent picture, The Jazz Singer included a few sequences in which star Al Jolson
not only sang but ad-libbed some dialogue, and the result was sensational. According to David
A. Cook, "the effect was not so much of hearing Jolson speak as of overhearing him speak,"
and audiences thrilled to the intimacy of the new device. Sound swept the industry, and
Warners' profits escalated from about $2 million in 1928 to $14 million the following year.

Image Image

American Film Institute American Film Institute

The 1927 film The Jazz Singer is Al Jolson is best known for his role in The
considered by many to be the first Jazz Singer where audiences were able to
"talkie," and featured several sequences hear Jolson sing and speak, including the
with Al Jolson singing and speaking. famous line, "You ain't heard nothin' yet."

Although the studios chiefs balked at the expense of full-scale conversion to sound, by the end
of the decade, Vitaphone's popularity could not be ignored. On May 11, 1928, eager to avoid a
patent war, Paramount, Loew's, First National and United Artists signed agreements with
Western Electric to standardize a sound system. In response, weekly movie ticket sales shot up
from 60 million in 1927 to 90 million in 1930.

In spite of its obvious monetary windfall, sound caused myriad artistic, technical and
commercial problems in its first few years of existence. Bulky equipment made it difficult for
the camera to move freely, and cuts within a scene became rare once again. Actors, shouting to
ensure that they could be heard by a single microphone hidden in a prop, were often reduced to
deliberate, static performances. In addition, the newly necessary spoken dialogue was
awkward, conveying either too much or too little and not yet well adapted to the needs of
cinema narrative. As depicted in 1952's Singin' in the Rain, the movies turned to the stage for
help, hiring diction coaches, theater actors and playwrights to smooth the transition.

Color
Adding to the confusion was another important technological advance, that of color. Although
tinting, hand-painting and other primitive forms of color had been experimented with, none
had proved particularly realistic. The Technicolor Corporation formed in 1915 and immediately
developed a two-strip color process that was used sporadically. The Gulf Between, the first two-
color Technicolor production, was produced in 1917. This system, however, proved too
cumbersome to earn widespread approval, as did Cinecolor's competing two-color process.

Becky Sharp, released in

1935 by Pioneer Pictures,

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

Becky Sharp

served as the first example of a

feature to use the three-color
Technicolor process.

The film, based on Thackeray's

Vanity Fair, was directed by
Rouben Mamoulian, and starred
Miriam Hopkins in the title role.
(0:30)

By 1932, Technicolor perfected a three-color process that used two prints as a medium to
transfer dyes to a third print, a system that produced richer, more uniform hues. The film Becky
Sharp, released in 1935 by Pioneer Pictures, served as the first feature example of the process,
and its clear, vibrant color dazzled audiences and filmmakers alike. Despite necessitating
special makeup, cameramen, consultants and processing, Technicolor maintained a monopoly
on color systems for 20 years.

A whole new world

Just as the addition of sound and color to film engendered new genres to take advantage of the
technologies, the economic demands of the Great Depression also precipitated new attractions
to lure the poverty-stricken public to part with their quarters. Although the Depression initially
had less of an effect on movies than on most industries (because customers remained eager for
escapism and entertainment), by 1933 admissions had noticeably decreased. Studios were
quick to respond with reorganizations, layoffs, mass theater closings and requests for
government aid, as well as with special attractions to lure in reluctant patrons. For instance,
two-for-one features became popular, as did gambling games and contests held between
screenings. By 1935, profits swelled once again, and by 1938, approximately 65 percent of the
American population saw a movie each week.

In accordance with the desire for distraction, moviemakers initially provided their audience
with lighthearted comedies, sophisticated romances and musicals; realistic gangster and
journalistic films that reflected the days' values; and inexpensive revues and series. The earliest
"talkies" were actually "singies," musical sketches that displayed not only the ability of sound
recording but also the supposed talents of the studio's roster of stars, many of whom were
forced to sing and dance regardless of their aptitude.

The genre of social realism flourished during the Depression because of its economical
production costs, its reliance on clever, tough dialogue and its expression of the era's focus on
gritty honesty. Films in the genre varied from James Cagney's gangster flicks to prison dramas
and numerous screenplays based on reporters tracking down criminals. Warner Brothers is
commonly considered the chief producer of this cycle of films, typified by Mervyn LeRoy's
Little Caesar and William Wellman's The Public Enemy.

The Hays Office grows teeth

This wave of more complex, often rougher depictions aroused the notice--and wrath--of more
conservative society, especially in the religious community. In 1934, the Roman Catholic
Church introduced an organization designed to oversee and rate movies to determine if they
were morally acceptable, called the Legion of Decency. Fearful of government censorship, the
Hays Office tightened its self-regulating methodology by creating the Production Code
Administration (PCA). The code put forth a series of conservative, cautious and repressive
rules under which films could not include sexual promiscuity, brutality, illegal or immoral
lifestyles, or words such as "God," "hell," "nuts" or "louse." By denying "unacceptable" films a

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The First Fifty Years of American Cinema

seal of approval, without which most theaters would not show a film, the PCA would influence
the content of movies for over 20 years to come and presage our modern film rating system.

Conclusion
Regardless of the pressures of censorship, technological hiccups or the upcoming world war,
the 1930s marked the last full decade of the American studio system's reign. Although profits
didn't reach their peak until 1946, two years later a massive antitrust suit, U.S. vs. Paramount,
would force studios to sell off their theaters, and as a result the studio structure began to
crumble. At the same time, television emerged as a competitor that enabled mass audiences to
obtain their entertainment from the living room couch instead of from the theater seat.

In the 1930s, however, the movies still served as the world's paramount entertainment medium,
and Hollywood remained its capital. In its first 50 years, the industry had grown from a handful
of unknown businessmen to a swelling community of artists to a full-fledged mass enterprise,
and yet the golden age of Hollywood film had only just begun. A handful of filmmakers had
laid the foundations--commercial, artistic and narrative--that would shape the industry, and the
society from which it sprang, for decades to come.

Session 5
Session 4

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