STACK #150 Apr 2017

EXTRAS FEATURE

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I Love Lucy television series, parts of Paramount, Universal, Columbia and Warner Bros. studios reverted to producing television shows, whilst cutting back on their movie production. There were still plenty of old style studio-bound Hollywood movies being made during this period, however an entire year's production now basically relied on the success of one or two big budget epics each year. Frustratingly for the studios, most of their other movie releases were either just breaking even or invariably suffering major losses. Hollywood was slow to identify that cinemagoers' tastes had changed dramatically, especially as the baby boomers came of age. One of the major problems for the studios was the rigid censorship of the self regulatory Motion Picture Production Code, run by the Breen Office and strongly supported by the Catholic Legion of Decency. Together they had virtual veto power over movie content throughout the studio system era and well into the 1960s. Producer Sam Goldwyn perfectly summed up the problem when he declared, “Most of our motion pictures have little, if any real substance. Our fear of what censors will do keeps us from portraying life as it really is. We just wind up with a lot of little fairy tales that do not have much relation to anything”. Goldwyn was right. Traditional Hollywood movies always featured stories where no character

HOLLYWOOD'S SECOND GOLDEN AGE 1950-1960

Part 1: The Influence of Post-War European Cinema on American Film

ever swore or blasphemed, crime never ever paid and good always triumphed over evil. Any moral ambiguity had to be expunged from the storyline; sinful characters, male or female, had to either die or repent their sins by the end of the movie; and romantic couples never had sex (even married couples' bedroom scenes had to portray them both in separate beds). Screen kisses were not allowed to last for more than three seconds and

Cover of a US magazine during the HUAC hearings

a toilet in a bathroom was considered an item unfit for the screen. Hollywood was turning out movies that simply did not reflect real life. Likewise, during the Cold War paranoia, Hollywood was traumatised by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC),

The Hollywood Ten and their families protesting their jail sentences

F ollowing the end of Hollywood’s golden age in the late 1950s, American film production appeared to languish in limbo with only a few dozen standout movies made during the following decade. The factory-like

production of films aligned with the studio/star system had collapsed when the studios released the last of its contracted actors. Furthermore, following RKO studios being bought by Desilu Productions and the enormous success of their

Vittorio De Sica’s neo-realistic The Bicycle Thief

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APRIL 2017

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