Word: studio
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...bosses would love a return to the studio system of the '30s and '40s, when the front-office men were first-generation shtarkers, fresh from the rag trade, who ran movie production like an assembly line, up to 50 features each year, and never took no for an answer. (The biography of Darryl Zanuck, production chief at Warners and then 20th Century-Fox, was titled Don't Say Yes Until I Finish Talking.) Today's executives must look back on that so-called Golden Age with the lost-Eden ache of an antebellum plantation master or ball club owner from...
...James Cagney machine-gunned his way to stardom with The Public Enemy and other gangster movies in the early '30s. Immediately he agitated his studio, Warners, for more varied roles. Twice he took a voluntary suspension to make his point, returning each time for a higher salary and a tad more creative input. He left Warners again in 1936 and put himself on the open market. Though Cagney was a major star, the big studios stayed away from him, fearful that if one actor could dent the system, anarchy would ensue. He made one picture for tiny Grand National...
...contract; that she could be called upon to play any part within her abilities regardless of her personal beliefs; that she could be required to support a political party against her beliefs; and that her image and likeness could be displayed in any manner deemed applicable by the studio. (This is from Wikipedia.) The barrister for Warners sneered at this list, saying "that this is rather a naughty young lady and that what she wants is more money." Davis lost the case and returned to Warners, where she remained until...
...Someone had to break this monopoly, and it wasn't a movie tough guy or tart. Olivia de Havilland, yet another Warners contract artist, had specialized in doe-eyed darlings, notably as Melanie in Gone With the Wind- again, a loan-out, this time to the Selznick Studio. And again, she wanted to expand her range. When Warners kept casting her in all-sugar, no-spice roles, de Havilland balked and was suspended. She then challenged the studio in court, arguing that since the period of suspension was routinely added to the length of the contract, an actor...
...fact, the studios did protect their assets. The publicity machines saw to that. They assured that the stars looked beautiful, and spoke decorously, in public. Whispers of alcoholism, drug addiction or homosexuality stayed out of the press through studio pressure and payoffs. The only times an indiscretion got out was when it became a police or judicial matter...