AMERICAN CINEMA & THE GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD

AMERICAN CINEMA AND THE GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD

The cinema of the United States has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period. Since the 20s, the American film industry has grossed more money every year than that of any other country.

Golden Age of Hollywood

In The so-called Golden Age of Hollywood, thousands of movies were issued from the Hollywood studios. The start of the Golden Age was arguably when The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, ending the silent era and increasing box-office profits for films. as sound was introduced to future films. The most popular Hollywood genres were adhered closely to a formula - Western, slapstick comedy, musical, animated cartoon, biographical picture a.k.a Biopic. And the same creative teams often worked on films made by the same studio. At the same time, one could usually guess which studio made which film, largely because of the actors who appeared in it; MGM, for example, claimed it had contracted "more stars than there are in heaven." Each studio had its own style and characteristic touches which made it possible to know this.

Yet each movie was a little different, many of the people who made movies were artists. For example, To Have and Have Not, is famous for being written by two future winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature: Ernest Hemingway, the author of the novel on which the script was nominally based, and William Faulkner, who worked on the screen adaptation.

The American theaters also were an important factor for the industry. By the 30s, all of America's theaters were owned by the Big Five studios - MGM, Paramount Pictures, RKO, Warner Bros., and Twentieth Century Fox.

Throughout the 1930s, MGM dominated the film screen and had the top stars in Hollywood. Some MGM stars included "King of Hollywood" Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Greta Garbo, Spencer Tracy, Judy Garland, and Gene Kelly. Another great achievement of US cinema during this era came through Walt Disney's animation company. In 1937, Disney created the most successful film of its time, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Also in 1939, MGM would create what is still, when adjusted for inflation, the most successful film of all time, Gone with the Wind.

Among the other films from the Golden Age period that are now considered to be classics: Casablanca, It's a Wonderful Life, It Happened One Night, the original King Kong, City Lights, Red River, Ben – Hur and The ten Commanments.

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