At the beginning of the decade:
BIG 3:
Paramount/Famous Players-Lasky (A. Zukor)
Loew’s Inc.
1920 – buys Metro P ictures and First National
1924 emerges as MGM (Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pix and LB Mayer Productions under Loews)
First National Pictures
(becomes part of Loew’s)
LITTLE 5
Fox Films - lower budget popular fare including Westerns
PDC Producers Distributors Corporation
FBO – Film Booking Office (Joseph Kennedy)
Universal –(Carl Laemmle) Produced low-budget films aimed at smaller theatres. Had strong distribution wing, but few theatres.
Warner Bros. -- Had neither theatres nor distribution wing.
1924 - WB begins major expansion, acquiring assets including theatres, more production space and radio station.
INDEPENDENT
UA – fd. 1919 by Chaplin, Griffith, Pickford and Fairbanks
Transformed
Post-Sound to:
BIG 5
MGM
Paramount
Warner Bros
Fox
RKO (created by RCA: included FBO, PDC & Keith-Albee Orpheum chain of Theatres
*All are vertically integrated. Film receipts split 60% producer/distrubutor- 40% exhibitor
LITTLE 3
UA
Disney
Universal
These 8 theatres account for 75% of all US feature film production
POVERTY ROW
Monogram
Republic
Produce “B” pictures – cheapie westerns, thrillers, serials
You should know:
Vertical Integration
Picture Palaces
MPPDA and the Hays Office
Style and Tech changes
Films for African American Audiences
Mainstream Films Stereotypes
Buffoon "Coon"
child "pickaninny",
"Tom", or "good Negro" character
"Buck" violent younger man
Mulatto/a - lighter-skinned person often seen in melodramas about "passing"
"Mammy" older, self-sacricing woman, usually servant/nanny to white family
Use of Blackface
Films for Black Audiences
Colored Players Company - owned by white theatre owner Donald Starkman
produced Scar of Shame for African-American audiences
Micheaux Book and Film Company, founded 1918 by Oscar Micheaux
*Produced 30 films on black-related topics
He made his last film in 1948