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THE LAST TYCOONS
That this has come about is largely due to television, which has deprived Hollywood of its market for the routine entertainment. The film that served merely to kill an odd hour or two is no longer needed : watching TV is a cheaper way of killing time. To cope with the new situation, studios cut down on their production programmes and now make fewer but bigger pictures.
With vast production schedules in operation it used to be necessary for every studio to have a dozen important stars always on tap. Parts were written so that they could be played by Gable or Cooper or Tracy, according to which one happened to be available. It was the conveyer-belt system of film production, and some actors were no more than spare parts. If a musical was designed for June Haver and Miss Haver happened to be unavailable, it would simply be revamped into a water-spectacle for Esther Williams.
Today Hollywood realises that every film must be special and hand-made if it is to wrest people from their TV sets. The customers are no longer saying, "Let's go to the pictures": they are saying, "We must see such and such a film."
With far fewer films being made, there is no advantage in studios having long lists of contract players who can be used indiscriminately in whatever films chance to come up. It is more practicable and profitable to hire the star they want rather than use one they happen to have.
The outcome of all this, I think, will be that Hollywood as we know it now will have ceased to exist within a matter of five years.
Hollywood came into existence because the studios were situated there — and the stars, directors, writers, producers who worked for those studios liked to live near to their place of employment. Today, as freelances and independents, they no longer have any fixed
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