CHAPTER 5 – THE HOLLYWOOD STUDIO SYSTEM
Multiple Choice
1. What was a particularly taboo subject in American cinema in the Hollywood system?
a. optimism
b. romance
c. honest failure
d. none of the above
2. All the following were responsible for the practice of “vertical integration” except
a. Thomas Ince.
b. William Fox.
c. Adolph Zukor.
d. Marcus Loew.
3. The best American movies of this period were movies that
a. ennobled human beings.
b. made a great deal of money.
c. both a and b
d. neither a nor b
4. Which of the following is true about Paramount Studio?
a. It was responsible for 25% of the films produced in 1929.
b. It was the most sophisticated studio of the Big Five.
c. It was the most “European.”
d. all the above
5. Under the Hollywood film-studio factory system, the key to getting a movie made was the
a. director.
b. producer.
c. cinematographer.
d. star.
6. The studio whose ruling sensibility was “masculine, tough, and proletarian” was
a. Paramount.
b. Universal.
c. RKO.
d. Warner Brothers.
7. What percent of the seating capacity of theatres did the Big Five studios control?
a. 25%
b. 50%
c. 75%
d. 100%
8. Which of the following traits was not true of B-movies?
a. style, boldness, and originality
b. lurid and infantile titles
c. inclusion of a great deal of stock footage
d. testing ground of raw talent
9. All of the following made up the “Front Office” of a major studio except the
a. studio head.
b. producers.
c. production chief.
d. directors.
10. RKO, a small studio, boasted which of the following:
a. great political clout in California
b. the finest special effects unit in Hollywood
c. Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds
d. Fritz Lang and John Ford, two of the best contract directors in Hollywood
11. What two types/ titles in the studio system produced the majority of the very best films?
a. the producer
b. the director
c. both of the above
d. neither of the above
12. Top stars often had written into their contracts all of the following except
a. how much they could weigh.
b. script approval.
c. director.
d. cinematographer.
13. A personality star was an actor whose
a. screen persona and actual personality were very different.
b. screen roles were always exactly the same character.
c. screen persona and actual personality were almost identical.
d. none of the above
14. Classical narrative structure
a. begins with an implied dramatic question.
b. involves subsequent scenes that intensify action in a rising pattern.
c. suppresses any dramatic detail that does not intensify the central conflict.
d. all the above
15. What element in a script took precedence over all other elements?
a. action
b. dialogue
c. costume
d. comedy
16. All of the following are true about the use of genre to develop movie stories except:
a. Its use automatically synthesizes a vast amount of iconographic data.
b. Its use provides a very tight set of ready-made expectations.
c. Its use helps to organize and focus story materials.
d. Its conventions are mere clichés unless united with significant innovations.
True/False
(Place a T or an F in the line following the sentence.)
1. Benjamin Hampton claims that Hollywood’s greater film success than Europe’s is explained
by Hollywood’s “…willingness to give the public what it was willing to pay for….”
2. The temper of each major studio was determined in part by the personality of the person who
ran each studio.
3. The choices of movies which Bette Davis fought for made considerably less money than the
ones her Front Office favored for her.
4. Major studios often viewed their stars as valuable investments, “properties.”
5. Good looks and sex appeal have seldom been conspicuous features of most film stars.
6. Narrative structure in classical movies is linear and often takes the form of a journey, chase, or
search.
7. In the assembly-line method of making movies, action and plot did not take precedence over
character consistency and probability.
8. During the big studio era, literary properties were thought to be inferior to original
screenplays.
9. Gangster films are often vehicles for exploring rebellion myths.
10. Less realistic than slapstick comedy, screwball comedy’s characters are never serious as they
interact with one another.
Matching
1) Thomas Ince ___
2) producer ___
3) John Wayne ___
4) MGM ___
5) classical cinema ___
6) B-movies ___
7) Frank Capra ___
8) Paramount ___
9) Clark Gable ___
10) Darryl F. Zanuck ___
a. specialized in lavish spectacles
b. major studio especially receptive to comedy
c. top male star of the 1930s
d. Twentieth Century-Fox production head
e. inaugurated the era of screwball comedy
f. shaped writing the script, had say in casting, etc.
g. most popular film star in film history
h. concerns goal-oriented characters
i. over half of majors’ movies were these
j. devised the studio system
ANS:
Short Answer
1. Above all, what kind of stories did American audiences want to see after World War I?
2. What was the model for the Hollywood studio system and who was the inventor of that
model?
3. What happened to new actors/actresses (“neophytes”) who entered the star system?
4. To what is classical cinema oriented and to whom?
Essay Questions
1. What were the benefits of the studio system to the film industry itself as well as movie goers?
What were the limitations of the studio system?
2. What were the advantages to studios like MGM and Paramount that they specialized in
specific kinds of movies like spectaculars, screwball comedies etc.? What were the
disadvantages?
3. Why was the development of the classical narrative script form in Hollywood inevitable?
4. Given the fact that the system remade people into acting types, many of whom became stars,
how likely is it that personality stars like Gary Cooper were, in private life, just like their
screen personas, or was it likely that, as we learned about actors like Rock Hudson and
Marilyn Monroe, they had private selves that few knew?