The Hollywood Studio System

The Five Majors

MGM

• Known For: glitz and glamour
• In Charge: Louis B. Mayer, Irving Thalberg
• Directors: George Cukor, Frank Borzage
• Actresses: Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow
• Actors: Clark Gable, Robert Taylor, William Powell, Walter Pidgeon, Melvyn Douglas, Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney, James Stewart
• Typical Films: Camille, Grand Hotel, Dinner at Eight, Mutiny on the Bounty, Thin Man series of films, The Wizard of Oz

Paramount

• Known For: European sophistication
• In Charge: Adolph Zukor, Barney Balaban
• Directors: Cecil B. DeMille, Ernst Lubitsch, Josef von Sternberg, Rouben Mamoulian, Mitchell Leisen, Dorothy Arzner
• Actresses: Marlene Dietrich, Mae West, Claudette Colbert, Sylvia Sidney
• Actors: Maurice Chevalier, Marx Bros, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Ray Milland, George Raft
• Typical Films: Trouble in Paradise, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Death Takes a Holiday, Easy Living

Warner Brothers

• Known For: Working-class grittiness; also, musicals and biopics
• In Charge: Jack & Harry Warner, Hal Willis
• Directors: Michael Curtiz, Mervyn LeRoy, Busby Berkeley
• Actresses: Bette Davis, Joan Blondell, Barbara Stanwyck
• Actors: James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Muni, Erroll Flynn, Humphrey Bogart
• Typical Films: Little Caesar, Public Enemy, I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, The Roaring Twenties, 42nd Street, The Life of Emile Zola

20th Century Fox

• Known For: John Ford films, Shirley Temple films
• In Charge: Darryl Zanuck
• Directors: John Ford
• Actresses: Shirley Temple, Loretta Young
• Actors: Henry Fonda, Charles Boyer
• Typical Films: Young Mr. Lincoln, Drums Along the Mohawk, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, Shirley Temple films, Charlie Chan films

RKO

• Known For: stylish and sophisticated musicals; literary adaptations, King Kong; this is also the studio that allowed Orson Welles to make Citizen Kane
• In Charge: kept changing through the 1930s
• Directors: most often on loan from other studios (e.g. John Ford, George Cukor, Howard Hawks)
• Actresses: Katherine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers
• Actors: Fred Astaire
• Typical Films: King Kong, Astaire and Rogers musicals

The Three Minors

Universal

• Known For: Horror and melodrama
• In Charge: Carl Laemmle, then various others
• Directors: James Whale, Todd Browning, Karl Freund, John Stahl, Lewis Milestone
• Actresses: Deanna Durbin
• Actors: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi
• Typical Films: Frankenstein, Dracula, All Quiet on the Western Front, Imitation of Life

Columbia

• Known For: Frank Capra films, screwball comedies
• In Charge: Harry Cohn
• Directors: Frank Capra
• Actresses: Jean Arthur (plus many on loan from the majors)
Actors: Ronald Coleman (plus many on loan from the majors)
• Some Typical Films: It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, His Girl Friday

United Artists

• Charlie Chaplin (part owner of United Artists)
  • City Lights
  • Modern Times
• Samuel Goldwyn (classy features)
  • Stella Dallas
  • Wuthering Heights
  • other William Wyler films
• Alexander Korda (British; costume dramas)
  • The Private Life of Henry VIII
  • Rembrandt

Others

• David O. Selznick (blockbusters)
• A Star Is Born (through United Artists)
• Gone With The Wind (with MGM)
• Walt Disney
• Pioneer in sound and color cartoons
• Silly Symphonies (shorts; 1928-1933)
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
• Pinocchio (1940)
• Fantasia (1940)

"Poverty Row" and Ethnic Cinema

• B-Studios
• Republic, Monogram, Grand National PRC, Eagle-Lion
• B-films for the bottom halves of double bills
• Sold at flat rate (little risk, but little profit)
• African American films
• Oscar Micheaux (Within Our Gates, Body and Soul, A Murder in Harlem, Lying Lips)
• Spencer Williams (Blood of Jesus, Go Down Death, Dirty Gertie From Harlem USA)
• Yiddish-language films
• Sidney Goldin (Mayn Yiddishe Mame, His Wife's Lover)
• Joseph Green (Yidl Mitn Fidl, The Dybbuk)
• Edgar Ulmer (Green Fields, The Singing Blacksmith, The Light Ahead)