Casablanca, Industrial History and The Production Code

Name both screenings for this week, including year of release and director

• Life and Death of 9413: A Hollywood Extra (Robert Florey and Slavko Vorkapić) (1928)

• Casablanca (Michael Curtis) (1942)

Give two points of information about Industrial Film History’s approach to analysis

• Analysis that sees films as commodities

• Focuses on the history of the industries that PRODUCE films

What mode of production is The Hollywood Studio System an example of?

Fordist mode of production

Explain the producer-unit system (2 points)

• Moved away from central single producer

• Instead, team of specialized associate producers who would oversee a handful of films each

Name the Big Five studios

• MGM Studio (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayor)

• Paramount

• RKO Studio

• 20th Century Fox

• Warner Brothers

The Big Five Studios were vertically integrated. What does this mean?

Vertical integration refers to integration in which 1 company controls every aspect of the business, (production, distribution, exhibition)

What overall percentage of domestic cinemas did the Big Five own?

15%

What percentage of FIRST-RUN cinemas did The Big Five own? And what percentage of domestic revenue did these cinemas generate?

• 70% of first run cinemas

• Generated 50-75% of total domestic revenue

TRUE OR FALSE: Major studios (the big five) AVOIDED direct competition with each other at the level of exhibition

TRUE

What happened due to the 1948 Paramount Decision?

Studios were forced to divest themselves of theatre chains and stop “block booking”

Explain the term ‘block booking’ in relation to film industry

Involved selling a number of films to theaters as a package deal

Name the guy and the organisation set up by the Film Industry to offset threat of censorship, and the year the organisation is was established

• William H Hays

• Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA)

• 1922

Give 3 important dates for The Production Code

• Drawn up in 1930

• Fully enforced from 1934 to the late 1960s

Richard Maltby posits that “Hollywood’s ‘- -’ was - - about - - - of -”

“Hollywood’s ‘self regulation’ was not primarily about controlling the content of movies”

Instead of controlling/censoring the content of films, Richard Maltby suggests that “The - - was a - of - - - -”

“The Production Code was a sign of Classical Hollywood’s cultural centrality” (and therefore an attempt by the elite to control the masses etc etc)

Give three points of information about Warner Brothers during WW2

• Foreign and domestic earnings rose dramatically during the the war, (significantly more than other studios)

• Costs also rose, (but not as quickly as earnings)

• Cinema attendance rose during war (W.B. reduced number of productions and focused on first run market in response)

Give 4 points of information about Casablanca in relation to its parent studio (Warner Brothers) and the war

• Casablanca was Warner Brothers most dramatic success of the war years

• It had a budget of approximately 1 million dollars, and grossed 6.8 million

• More than half its box office revenue was generated by international audiences which was unusual at the time

• Cemented Humphrey Bogart’s status as the studios top male star

What is a ‘fordist’ mode of production? (2 points)

• A model of mass production and consumption

• Designed to produce standardised, low-cost goods (in this case films) at a high rate