CHAPTER 10 – AMERICAN CINEMA IN THE 1940s
Multiple Choice
1. All of the following contributed to Hollywood’s fiwaning” in the 50s except?
a. a lack of stars
b. a maturing of tastes
c. a vast increase in production costs
d. none of the above
2. Each of the following is from MGM’s golden age of musicals except?
a. On the Town
b. Bells Are Ringing
c. Pennies from Heaven
d. The Band Wagon
3. Gene Kelly was
a. the outstanding actor of his day
b. the outstanding musical performer of his day
c. the outstanding romantic director of his day
d. none of the above
4. Cinemascope made which of the following cinema techniques difficult if not impossible?
a. close ups
b. deep focus
c. wide depth of field
d. all of the above
5. To combat TV’s growing influence, the movie studios did all of the following except
a. used color film
b. used European actors
c. used stereo sound
d. used a wider screen
6. The Production Code finally began to allow all of the following except:
a. sexual deviance
b. drug addiction
c. kidnapping
d. words like fivirgin”
7. Which of the following is characteristic of social realism?
a. authentic people
b. shot on location
c. focus on people near the bottom
d. all of the above
8. All of the following is true of Norma Jean Baker except
a. was married at 16
b. was trained at the Actors Studio
c. was not considered a serious actor
d. was Marilyn Monroe
9. Each of the following is true about fimethod acting” except?
a. a character’s spirit must be fused with the actor’s own emotions
b. actors don’t do research in order to play characters they don’t know
c. the text is the 10% that shows; the rest is subtext
d. none of the above
10. Method acting is especially good when
a. creating a surface impression of character.
b. delivering spoken language really effectively.
c. showing the emotional intensity of non-verbal working class characters.
d. avoiding what may be in the actor’s subconscious.
11. Stanislavsky believed
a. you must live the part every moment you are playing it.
b. the tradition of acting by emphasizing externals helped actors to get to internals.
c. in discovering feelings that are analogues to those of a character.
d. individual virtuosity and the star system ought to condemned and did so.
12. Subtext is
a. a minor story.
b. the meaning interpreted from words.
c. a calendar of intentions and feelings.
d. the true story.
13. Fred Zinneman is noted for which of the following revisionist westerns
a. High Noon
b. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence
c. The Searchers
d. High Plains Drifter
14. To what studio owner did director Elia Kazan say fiHe was always a man of the people. If
something was being felt, he felt it”?
a. Louis B. Mayer
b. Warner
c. Samuel Goldwyn
d. Darryl Zanuck
15. Particular to Elia Kazan’s films are
a. repressive families.
b. effects of social pressure.
c. conflicts of loyalties.
d. all of the above
16. Which of the following did Alfred Hitchcock believe to be fithe kiss of death at the box
office”?
a. analyzing the audience for a film
b. too little action in a film
c. symbolic interpretations of a film
d. all of above
17. Alfred Hitchcock precut his scripts, meaning he
a. bought scripts that were already edited
b. used storyboarding
c. minimized camera setups
d. hooked studio financing in advance
True/False
(Place a T or an F in the line following the sentence.)
1. Filmmakers continued to use the studios’ expensive–to-maintain backlots for their films which
began to be directed at more mature audiences.
2. The Production Code’s censorship standards slowly gave way to new ideas and language
before the onslaught of such directors as Otto Preminger.
3. Henri Chretien created the anamorphic lens which fisqueezed” nearly 180 degrees of sight and
compressed it by 50%, thus helping to develop the widescreen.
4. Lack of characterization is the norm in social realism where the social problem being
examined is all consuming.
5. Subtext, especially important to method acting, involves what’s beneath the language of the
script: not what people say, but what they really want.
6. Since the 1950s, stylized acting which emphasizes externals has been the dominant form of
acting in American films.
7. Elia Kazan, and not Fred Zinneman, introduced the most famous method actors like Julie
Harris and Marlon Brando.
8. James Dean was a popular symbol of misunderstood youth, struggling to define his identity.
9. As musicals like Gigi show, even musicals darkened and matured in the 50s.
10. Alfred Hitchcock was so pure an artist that he did not believe that a filmmaker needed to be
realistic about his public to keep making movies.
Matching
1) social realism ___
2) Some Like It Hot ___
3) Dalton Trumbo ___
4) Singin’ in the Rain ___
5) Alfred Hitchcock ___
6) The Band Wagon ___
7) The Moon Is Blue ___
8) Bwana Devil ___
9) High Noon ___
10) Marty ___
a. starred that muscular dancer, Gene Kelly
b. early 3D movie
c. filmmakers assume reformist perspective on story
d. revisionist western
e. made the Production Code blue
f. made for television movie won Oscars
g. director who relied heavily on storyboarding
h. Marilyn Monroe stars, Billy Wilder directs
i. writer blacklisted as a result of refusing HUAC
j. musical spoof on fihard boiled” fiction
ANS:
Short Answer
1. What were some of the short comings of Cinerama?
2. What are some of the characteristics of American social realism as seen in movies like Stanley
Kramer’s The Defiant Ones?
3. What were some of the things that method acting helped actors achieve in their performance?
4. What were some of the ways Alfred Hitchcock promoted himself to make sure that the public
knew who he was and to further guarantee his success?
Essay Questions
1. What were the effects of the fired scare” and the HUAC investigations on Hollywood?
2. Why was Otto Preminger’s challenge to the Production Code important to Hollywood movies?
3. Why did many genres like the mystery and the western experience firevisionism” at the hands
of directors like Fred Zinneman, and what was the effect of such revisionism?
4. How did Alfred Hitchcock shock audiences out of their safety zones and complacency and
further guarantee his success?