Hollywood: The Golden Age Of The Hollywood Industry

Leading up until the 1940’s during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the studio system ruled the film industry. The big studios such as Paramount, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and RKO Radio Pictures owned their own theaters and controlled what was played at them. However due to many reasons, both the Golden Age of Hollywood and the studio system would come to an end. In 1948, the US Supreme Court issued a decision in the U.S. vs. Paramount Pictures antitrust lawsuit. History.com says, “The government’s case accused the studios of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act in their total control over movie distribution and exhibition.” (2009) At this time the big studios owned almost all theaters, either through their theater chains, or block booking where independent theaters would have to have contracts with the studios to show a certain number of films. The government won their case in 1948, forcing the studios to end block booking and to get rid of their theater chains. …show more content…
History.com states that, “With this decision, independent producers could finally begin to compete with the major studios for audiences and actors, marking the beginning of the end for the Hollywood studio system.” (2009) Independent movie producers during that time, including Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Samuel Goldwyn, David O. Selznick, Mary Pickford and Orson Welles, were all now able to get the finance and distribution of their films. Another direct result of this is the studios had to be more selective about the film’s they did put out, and making production budgets higher and a lot less films than they use to