Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

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140 DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER Reprinted from the August 15th, 1947, issue of AMERICAN OUTLOOK by kind permission of the London Editor THE ANATOMY OF HOLLYWOOD a perplexed British judge several years ago asked 'Who is this Hollywood?' A California city, now part of Los Angeles, it has come to symbolize film makers and their industry. Contrary to common assumption it has begun no major trend, except in fashions. Hollywood is a reflection— out of focus and in technicolor — of the American film-goers who cheered it with more than $1,800,000,000 at the box office last year. A wit says 'Hollywood is double Dubuque' — doubly a typical city of 44,000 souls in Iowa, as in Britain one might refer to a 'double Wigan'. Hollywood is young. The community was only a hamlet 30 years ago. Half its top executives and artists are under 40. Their customers are of an even tenderer age. Dr George Gallup, director of Audience Research, Inc., said last March: The average American movie audience is predominantly a young audience. The nineteenyear-old contributes more to the box office than any other age group. Regular movie attendance seems to begin around the age of twelve. It goes up steadily through the age of nineteen. After that it falls off sharply. Relatively few persons attend the movies with any regularity after the age of thirty-five . . . He adds that out of 143 million American, 90 million are able to go to the cinema. Only 58 million of these attend at least once every three weeks; but there are 80 million weekly admissions because of habitual 'repeaters'. Men and boys attend as frequently as women and girls. The 17,000 US theatres are in 10,238 cities and towns. Most of these are in the populous, industrialized north-eastern third of the country, which includes much of the Mid-west. Standardization is the Key to Mass-Production One reason Hollywood has 'gone over big' is that it tailors its films to fit millions of people. Some that seem shapeless are pinned together with a bit of everything that is 'box-office' — ■ i.e. that will attract crowds. Others, unadorned with substance, have been stripped of all that could offend. In short they are like American cheese: good enough to lure lovers of cheese when they can't get the best, but not rank enough to affront potential eaters. Hollywood could build on this broad foundation of appeal because so many Americans, with their high income, can afford to attend the cinema. So, like other 'opiates of the masses' — the Press and radio — Hollywood offers the mean of what is common to all. As common denominator of 'the American Way' it appeals to the young who are always anxious to follow and (in their own slang) to stay 'in the groove'. Hollywood has capitalized the American folkmyth that an individual through work, luck, and a pure heart can climb to dizzy heights. Few have reached the pinnacle, but at any rate the millions can have the next best thing: for ninety minutes of transfiguration they can become a Myrna Loy or Clark Gable, uninhibited, perfect, triumphant in life and love, lilmgoers live in an everyday environment of keen competition, monotony and frustration. Every day they struggle for supremacy in deeds and possessions. The tension thus generated is released at the theatre. On the screen, life is good, right and simple. The guy who cheats at cards, or kisses Gable's girl, is inevitably condemned 'up the river' (up the Hudson River to Sing Sing prison in New York State) or (worse) to eternal celibacy. The Menu of Film-Fare Hollywood's biggest assets are its stars. They are worshipped not as actors but as ordinarypeople who have similarly risen per aidua ad astra. The wealth and plenty lavished on them is a right and proper reward of upward struggle, as it also is for wealthy businessmen. Hollywood's deity today is singing, kidding, easy-going, average-guy Bing Crosby. Bing's 'fans' (from the word 'fanatic') go to the films to see Bing, and not the character of priest or gold prospector which he portrays. They do not see an actor or his acting. Some stars even feel slighted if they become famous as the characters they create, rather than as themselves. In a country where the unusual is usual and the impossible is always happe/iing, exaggeration is a simple colloquialism. Much of the unreality in Hollywood films is therefore taken by Americans with a laugh; but the British, who venerate understatement, are dismayed by it. Conversely, the slow, diffident, undramatized realism of good British films and their characters seems pedestrian to many an American who enjoys high-speed heroics, slapstick, and sledgehammer drama, with all the characters 'overtyped'. The least plausible of standard US film-fare are perhaps the 'Westerns' or 'horse operas'. These make up 54 per cent of Hollywood's output. They are seldom seen in the big theatres in the cities, but appear regularly in out-of-the-way places and small towns. Strangely enough they are a smash-hit in the West itself, where modern ranch hands delight in seeing cow-ponies gallop twenty miles without ill effects. But these 'sagebrush sagas' are mainly supported by the very young, who after school and even in summer don their spurs to join forces with Hollywood's brave and true cowboys. The audience is a bedlam of youngsters cheering, taking pot-shots with cap-pistols at villains and overcoming all dangers in an afternoon of hard and fast riding. Villainy never wins. Virtue always does. If this is bad for youth, it can onlj lie because adult life is never as fair! The Psychology of Realism and Escapism Millions of Americans will go to any movie. Many of them want relaxation, not entertainment; and some sit and sleep. As Dr Philip .1. Rulon, acting Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said on February 25th: 'This may prove they arc tired, but it cannot prove they are dumb." Holly w ood's success is also partly because habitual lilm-goers become dependent on films and radio for 'canned' amuse ment. Because of this, Hollywood to the delight of its youthful fans continually tries to out-do itself. American producers have made good pictures, but some of their best just turned into 'box-office poison'. One, 'The Ox-Bow Incident", an excellent drama of a lynching, barely made a box-office ripple. The screen, therefore, keeps behind the public taste. Producers prefer to use a successful idea over and over again to protect their enormous investment. Self-imitation also affects the plot. Hence the epidemic of 'animal epics' and 'psychological thrillers'. Bette Davis was neurotic yet a hit, two years ago in 'Now, Voyager'. So today, Laraine Day is a kleptomaniac in 'The Locket' and Joan Crawford, who was onK slightly disturbed mentally in 'Mildred Pierce', goes completely 'off her trolley' in 'Possessed'. Some star who went 'nuts' in celluloid will probably win the 1947 awards for acting — unless, of course, they get nosed out at the winning post by a horse, dog, or other mammal. Hollywood is subject to pressure groups and 'lobbies' ranging from political interests to the Glass Bottle Blowers Association, which complained when Gary Cooper drank canned beer (see 'The Art of Lobbying' in A.O. No 17, p. 167). Criticism has also been on moral grounds; but most of that is negative. It resulted in the Motion Picture Association's moral code, equally negative, which was devised to stave off Government regulation. But the code has not silenced vast numbers of still indignant religious, women's and educational organizations. Most of these groups attack the screen for setting a pace, whereas, if anything, it follows the public too much. They fail to see Hollywood's chief criticizable influence: its cutting of dies out of certain vulgar patterns in American life and its crushingly repetitive die-stamping of them, in reverse, on the cinema-going public. Sociologist Leo T. Rosten wrote in his study Hollywood 'Whether the movies imitate life, or whether life imitates the movies, is for others to decide; this writer believes that, like missionaries on a desert island, they begin to convert each other.' Bigger and Better Business Eight gigantic producing companies, known as the 'majors', dominate Hollywood. They are largely controlled by eastern (New York, etc.) capital. All except United Artists, Inc. are members of the Motion Picture Association of America. Inc.. o\' which Eric Johnston — former President of the US Chamber of Commerce — is president. But United Artists joins the others to help form the Motion Picture 1 \port Association. Inc.. also headed by Johnston. Todav the whole US film industry is caught between rising costs and a shrunken home market. American films grossed S2.700 million at America's and the world's box offices in 1946. a 10 per cent rise over 1945. Out of this, the seven MPA majors netted SI 20 million as compared to a $65 million net in 1945. Variety, leading entertainment magazine, reported on December ISth. 1946, that 64 percent of this gain