STACK April 2017 Issue 150

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22 APRIL 2017
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
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
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
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),
Following 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
HOLLYWOOD'S
SECOND
GOLDEN AGE
1950-1960
visit EXTRAS FEATURE
Cover of a
US magazine
during the HUAC
hearings
Vittorio De Sica’s neo-realistic The Bicycle Thief
The Hollywood Ten and
their families protesting
their jail sentences
Part 1: The Influence of Post-War
European Cinema on American Film