0:20

Hooray for Hollywood! You

0:22

may be homely in your neighborhood, but

0:25

if you think that you can be an

0:27

actor, see Mr. Factor, he'll make a monkey

0:30

look good. Within half an

0:32

hour, you'll look like Tyrone Power. Hooray

0:35

for Hollywood! Richard

0:38

Whiting and Johnny Mercer. Hooray

0:40

for Hollywood! Welcome

0:43

to the history of the 20th century. Episode

1:18

387. Hooray

1:21

for Hollywood! I

1:24

want to talk about cinema today, a

1:27

topic I last touched on all

1:29

the way back in episode That

1:32

was a long time ago, wasn't

1:34

it? Back

1:36

then, I took the story of motion pictures

1:38

up through the early years of sound.

1:42

We're going to pick up that thread

1:44

today, and I'll note right off the

1:46

bat that although I try to take

1:48

a global outlook in the history of

1:50

the 20th century, this topic right here,

1:52

motion pictures in the 30s and 40s,

1:55

is overwhelmingly a story about

1:57

the American film industry based

2:00

Hollywood. The

2:02

United States was a world leader in

2:04

their production of films, even before the

2:06

introduction of sound. The

2:08

country got a leg up on the rest of the world during

2:10

the period from 1914 to 1917. While

2:15

European nations were engaged in a

2:17

desperate existential battle and could not

2:19

afford to spend many resources on

2:21

something as frivolous as movies, Hollywood

2:24

thrived during the period of

2:26

American neutrality. Not

2:29

from the war kneecapping the competition,

2:31

Hollywood also benefited from the fact

2:33

that the United States was a

2:36

large country with a growing population,

2:39

many of whom became avid

2:41

moviegoers. The domestic

2:43

market for American films was

2:45

enormous. When

2:49

talking pictures came on the scene,

2:51

they originated in America. When

2:54

Technicolor came on the scene, it appeared

2:56

in America. If

2:58

they're large income streams, American studios

3:00

could afford to spend lavishly on

3:02

technology and on talent. They

3:05

hired the best writers, the best

3:07

actors, the best directors, the best

3:10

everybody. Hollywood's

3:12

financial resources also meant that when

3:14

talented artists emerged from the film

3:16

industries of other countries, say

3:19

the UK or Germany, American

3:21

studios could write paychecks large enough

3:24

to convince those artists to abandon

3:26

their homelands and move to California,

3:28

where there was not only more

3:30

money, but more glamour and more

3:33

appealing climate. And here we

3:35

can see another reason why the film industries

3:37

of other countries couldn't compete. Hollywood

3:40

kept poaching their best talent. Talking

3:45

pictures first came on the scene in America in 1927,

3:47

although it took a few years to

3:51

work out the kinks in the new technology and

3:53

get it installed in every one of

3:56

America's tens of thousands of movie theaters.

4:00

You may remember that the year 1929 marks the

4:02

beginning of the Great Depression. Generally

4:07

speaking, depressions are bad for

4:09

business, but movies were an

4:11

exception, sort of. The

4:13

studios struggled during the early years of the Depression,

4:16

but movies were cheaper than any

4:18

other form of entertainment except radio,

4:20

which is free, but

4:22

then only after you pay a large

4:24

upfront cost for the receiver. Also,

4:27

listening to radio requires you to have

4:29

a house or apartment and

4:32

electricity. Movies were

4:34

the perfect entertainment for hard

4:36

times. The

4:39

swankier movie theaters downtown ran one

4:41

feature film several times a day,

4:43

usually a major new release. But

4:47

in local neighborhoods and in small

4:49

towns, you could find a smaller

4:51

and most likely dingier theater that

4:54

charged a lower admission price, as low

4:56

as 15 cents, which

4:59

might buy you two older, lesser feature

5:01

films, plus a cartoon,

5:04

a travel log, an episode of

5:06

an adventure serial, a

5:08

newsreel, and a few trailers

5:10

for coming attractions. This

5:12

combined program could run four hours

5:14

or longer, and it would be

5:16

repeated several times a day, from early

5:19

afternoon until late in the night. Some

5:22

of these theaters kept their projectors running around

5:24

the clock, 24 hours per day. Some

5:29

people, some families, virtually lived

5:31

at the movie house during the Great

5:33

Depression. It might be that

5:35

they were going stir-crazy at home and needed

5:38

to go somewhere. Theaters were

5:40

heated in the winter, and many were

5:42

air-conditioned in the summer, which made them

5:44

attractive places for the homeless, or for

5:46

those who had no air conditioning or

5:49

no heat at home. The

5:51

unemployed hung out at movie theaters because they

5:54

had nothing better to do. The

5:58

Hollywood studios of the 30s were were

6:00

well aware that their audiences were full

6:02

of people who, in one way or

6:04

another, were there to escape

6:07

the harsh realities of the Great Depression.

6:10

They calibrated their output accordingly,

6:13

which is why the first decade or

6:15

so of talking pictures is filled with

6:17

escapist fantasies. They didn't

6:20

call Hollywood the dream factory for

6:22

nothing. The

6:25

business end of the motion picture industry

6:28

was quite different from how Hollywood does

6:30

business in our time. The

6:32

30s and 40s were the heyday of

6:34

the studio system, and

6:36

it worked like this. The

6:39

head of studio production was lord

6:41

of the domain. Every

6:43

studio maintained a roster of

6:45

players under contract, just

6:47

like a professional sports club. Writers,

6:50

directors, actors, and the technical

6:52

people were almost always salaried

6:55

employees of the studio, and

6:57

they worked on whatever picture

6:59

they were told to work

7:01

on. Each

7:04

major studio cranked out, at a

7:06

minimum, one new feature film every

7:08

two weeks. Paramount Pictures,

7:10

the studio that turned out films the

7:13

way Henry Ford turned out Model A's,

7:15

was releasing 60 to 70 some

7:18

years. The studio's

7:20

Grade A products were literally called

7:22

A Pictures. These

7:24

films were made by the most talented

7:27

directors and the most celebrated film stars,

7:29

and were granted generous budgets and

7:31

shooting schedules. B

7:34

Pictures had much smaller budgets.

7:36

They were usually shot in a

7:38

week or two, using existing costumes

7:40

and sets, and relying on second

7:42

string talent. They

7:44

also tended to be shorter than an A

7:47

Picture, as short as 70 minutes. Most

7:50

B Pictures ended up as the bottom half

7:52

of a double feature, like the B side

7:55

of a record. If

7:57

anyone besides me knows what the B side of a

7:59

record is, is. The

8:03

studios bought up options on

8:05

novels, short stories, and especially

8:07

plays as potential material for

8:09

future films. Studio

8:12

writers would draft treatments, which

8:14

are detailed synopses of a proposed

8:16

film that might run to 50

8:19

pages or more. Sometimes

8:21

executives would assign more than one writer

8:23

to do a treatment of the same

8:25

film project, then choose among them, or

8:28

combine ideas they liked from different

8:31

treatments. Once

8:33

a treatment was finished and approved, a

8:36

writer would be assigned to flesh it out

8:38

into a full shooting script. Once

8:41

the script got the green light, as they

8:43

say, the studio executives would

8:45

assign a director, actors, and

8:47

technical people from among those under

8:50

contract to shoot the film. After

8:54

the film was shot, a rough

8:56

cut of the finished movie would

8:58

be shown to the producers or

9:00

studio executives, who might require changes,

9:02

including having portions of the film

9:04

reshot. Meanwhile, a

9:06

composer would be hired to compose a

9:08

score. The next

9:10

step was usually what were dubbed

9:13

sneak previews, meaning showing the

9:15

film to a test audience, and

9:17

if the reaction was good, then the film

9:20

would be released. Land

9:23

for new movies was strong, so

9:25

studio executives were always pressing the

9:27

creative people to get their work

9:29

done faster. When it

9:31

was time to show the films in theaters, the

9:34

major studios owned their own theater chains,

9:36

which gave them a ready-made market for

9:39

the picture, alongside

9:41

the studio's distribution division, which

9:43

would oversee rentals to independent

9:46

theaters. Hollywood

9:48

film studios operated in the

9:50

grand American tradition of vertical

9:52

integration. Every step of

9:55

the process, from the writer who drafts the

9:57

treatment to the price of the popcorn sold

9:59

in the theater. theater lobby was

10:01

controlled by the studio. Actors

10:05

generally were signed to seven-year

10:08

contracts, which were very

10:10

much one-sided, granting the

10:12

studio the power to terminate a

10:14

contract early for a variety of

10:16

reasons, including morals clauses that allowed

10:18

a studio to fire an actor

10:20

who got embroiled in scandal. So

10:24

what did the actors get out of this deal? First

10:28

and foremost, they got a regular

10:30

salary, guaranteed for seven years, so

10:32

long as they played ball with

10:34

the studio. That's a

10:36

better deal than most actors get, just

10:38

ask one. By

10:40

the way, studios could, and sometimes

10:43

did, loan out their actors to

10:45

other studios, or even make trades,

10:47

similar to how sports teams trade

10:49

players in our time. But

10:52

in the case of the studios, these

10:54

loans or trades of actors were one-picture

10:57

deals. The actors would return to their

10:59

home studio afterward. Why

11:02

would a studio agree to such a deal? For

11:04

money, perhaps, or as part of a

11:06

trade to borrow an actor they especially

11:09

wanted for a particular film. But

11:11

actors were also loaned out to

11:13

other studios as a disciplinary measure

11:15

after they did something to displease

11:17

their own studio management. It

11:20

served as a reminder of who was

11:22

boss. These

11:26

contracts came with other benefits, apart from

11:28

the steady paycheck. The

11:30

studios would often pay for singing

11:32

or dancing or acting lessons, and

11:35

the studio's formidable publicity departments would

11:37

work hard to make

11:39

their contract actors into celebrity film

11:41

stars. A newly hired

11:44

actor might be put through a

11:46

carefully planned publicity campaign that would

11:48

unfold over several years, beginning

11:50

with smaller roles and

11:52

working up to stardom. These

11:56

actors' personal lives were also managed

11:58

by their studio's publicity department. departments,

12:01

they might be sent on carefully

12:03

selected publicity appearances, or

12:05

to do interviews with a magazine

12:07

or columnist thought likely to provide

12:09

a favorable story. They

12:12

even assigned actor couples to do

12:14

appearances together or go on dates

12:16

together as a way of

12:18

getting their names into the gossip columns. It

12:22

was not for nothing that the immortal

12:24

showman P.T. Barnum famously declared, say

12:26

anything you like about me, but spell my

12:29

name right. I

12:32

told you in episode 274 about

12:34

how the introduction of sound

12:37

changed filmmaking. It

12:39

was said that when pictures started

12:41

talking, they stopped moving. Actors

12:44

had to stand close to the microphones, and

12:46

the noisy camera had to keep its distance,

12:49

resulting in scenes with small groups

12:51

of actors standing still in a

12:53

small space and filmed from

12:55

a static camera at a middle distance. Critics

12:59

derided these films as teacup

13:01

dramas. Early

13:04

musicals required an orchestra on

13:06

set, just off screen, to

13:08

play the music the actors sang and

13:11

danced with. Over

13:14

the course of the 1930s,

13:16

technological improvements brought movement back

13:19

into film. Boom

13:22

mics allowed the crew to follow an

13:24

actor with a microphone overhead to make

13:26

sure every line of dialogue came through.

13:29

This allowed the actor to move around the

13:31

set. Musical

13:33

numbers were filmed silently, with the

13:35

singing and the orchestra added later.

13:39

Once film soundtracks became standard,

13:42

technology developed that allowed picture and

13:44

sound to be edited separately. Scenes

13:47

of dialogue that didn't come through properly

13:50

could be re-recorded and spliced into the

13:52

film later, a process called

13:54

dubbing. In

14:00

2005, the first feature film in

14:02

Technicolor appeared. Technicolor,

14:05

the company, became the

14:07

industry leader in color film and

14:10

jealously guarded its privileges. If

14:13

a studio wanted a film to be shot

14:15

in Technicolor, they had to

14:17

use cameras owned by Technicolor and

14:19

camera crews who worked for Technicolor,

14:22

and they had to employ

14:24

Technicolor's in-house color coordinator, as

14:26

she was called. Her

14:29

name was Natalie Kalmus, the wife

14:31

of Herbert Kalmus, one of the

14:33

company founders. Natalie

14:35

would supervise filming, and

14:37

if she didn't approve of the director's

14:39

creative choices, she had the power to

14:41

terminate the deal then and there, pack

14:44

up the Technicolor equipment, and

14:47

take it and the film crew right

14:49

off the project. Natalie

14:52

Kalmus's main concern was that the

14:54

film made the Technicolor process look

14:57

good, no matter what the film

14:59

was about, and this accounts

15:01

for the vivid color palettes in Technicolor

15:03

films of the era. Think

15:06

of The Wizard of Oz, or Gone with

15:08

the Wind. So

15:12

which studios are we talking about

15:14

when we speak of the major

15:16

Hollywood studios and the studio system?

15:19

There were eight studios generally regarded

15:21

as the majors, and

15:24

between them they controlled 95% of the market.

15:28

These eight studios were further divided into

15:31

what was called the Big Five and

15:33

the Little Three. In

15:36

descending order of size and influence, they

15:38

run like this. First,

15:41

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, or MGM for short,

15:43

which was at the time

15:45

the premier Hollywood studio. Next

15:49

would come Paramount Pictures, then

15:51

Fox Film Corporation, which in 1935

15:53

merged with

15:55

the smaller 20th Century Pictures to

15:57

become 20th Century Fox

15:59

Film. Corporation, a

16:02

mouthful of a name usually shortened

16:04

to 20th Century Fox. The

16:06

new company gradually edged out Paramount and

16:08

became number two in the industry. In

16:14

fourth place we come to Warner Brothers,

16:16

a smaller studio that made the leap

16:18

into the Big Five when it introduced

16:20

the first talking pictures. And

16:23

bringing up the rear is RKO

16:25

Radio Pictures. I already

16:27

told you the story of the founding

16:29

of RKO in episode 309. Behind

16:34

the Big Five come the Little Three,

16:36

all of which were similar in size,

16:39

Universal Pictures, United

16:41

Artists, and Columbia Pictures.

16:44

Behind the Little Three were a

16:47

number of smaller studios known collectively

16:49

as Poverty Row, a reference

16:52

to Gower Street in Hollywood where most

16:54

of them were based. Today's

16:57

episode will be the first in a series

17:00

in which I'm going to talk about each

17:02

of these studios and look at

17:04

the most notable films they released in the

17:06

30s and 40s. During

17:09

this era each of these studios

17:11

had its own identity as a

17:13

purveyor of certain kinds of films

17:16

and all were run by executives who were

17:18

notable in their own rights and we'll talk

17:20

about them as well. I'm

17:24

not going to say a lot about

17:26

the Poverty Row Studios, most

17:28

of them you never heard of anyway. The

17:32

one you are most likely to have

17:34

heard of is Republic Pictures, the

17:36

most prominent of them, which was created in 1935

17:38

by the merger of six, yes you heard me

17:43

six, Poverty Row

17:45

Studios. These were majestic

17:48

pictures, invincible pictures, Chesterfield

17:51

pictures, monogram pictures, mascot

17:53

pictures, and Liberty pictures.

17:57

These six Poverty Row Studios are

18:00

had one thing in common. They

18:02

were all on the brink of bankruptcy by 1935. So were

18:04

Fox and

18:07

Paramount, but we'll get to them. The

18:10

six also had in common that

18:12

they were all heavily in debt

18:15

to a film processing laboratory called

18:17

Consolidated Film Industries. The

18:20

owner of Consolidated, Herbert J.

18:22

Yates, settled their debts

18:24

by taking control of all six

18:26

and combining them to create Republic

18:29

Pictures. Westerns

18:32

were Republic's bread and butter. Westerns

18:35

were very popular in the silent

18:38

film era because they favored action

18:40

and beautiful scenery and their

18:42

plots had little in the way of nuance.

18:44

You knew right away who were the good

18:46

guys and who were the bad guys, so

18:49

they didn't require much dialogue to keep the

18:51

audience up to speed. The

18:54

introduction of Talking Pictures changed this.

18:57

Talking Pictures were better at telling stories with

19:00

dialogue and drama and

19:02

of course music. So Busby

19:04

Berkeley and the Marx Brothers were in, Cowboys were out. But this

19:06

was good news for Republic Pictures.

19:09

Westerns were cheap

19:11

and easy for

19:16

a small studio to make as the costumes,

19:18

props and sets were all readily available and

19:21

could be used over and over.

19:25

Republic even owned its own ranch for location shooting.

19:30

Republic and its predecessor studios even found

19:32

a way to reconcile Westerns with Talking

19:34

Pictures. They discovered and

19:37

developed the Singing Cowboys, Gene Autry

19:39

and Roy Rogers. The studio also

19:41

picked up John Wayne for a

19:43

time during a low point in

19:46

his career and tried to make

19:48

a Singing Cowboys out

19:51

of him, but that didn't work out so well.

19:54

I will have more to

19:56

say about John Wayne in

19:58

a future episode. Apart from

20:00

feature-length westerns, Republic was also

20:02

notable for its serials. Serials

20:05

were a story divided into a

20:08

series of short films, often twelve,

20:10

and typically each episode ended on

20:12

a cliffhanger. Theaters would

20:15

run one episode of a serial for a

20:17

week, then change over to

20:19

the next episode, hoping the cliffhangers would

20:21

help draw last week's audience back this

20:23

week to see more of the story.

20:27

Many of Republic's serials were

20:30

based on comic strips, comic

20:32

books, or radio shows. Examples

20:35

include Zorro Rides Again,

20:38

Captain America, The Lone

20:40

Ranger Rides Again, Dick

20:42

Tracy's G-Men, and The

20:44

Adventures of Captain Marvel. No,

20:47

not that Captain Marvel. This

20:49

Captain Marvel was Shazam. Don't

20:52

ask, it's a complicated story. I

20:56

once attended a science fiction convention at which

20:59

I had the opportunity to catch a few

21:01

episodes of Republic Pictures' 1935 serial, The

21:05

Phantom Empire, starring Gene

21:07

Autry, as a singing cowboy

21:09

who discovers on his ranch a

21:12

portal that leads to a

21:14

technologically advanced underground civilization called

21:17

Murania. The

21:19

Phantom Empire is widely regarded

21:21

as the first science fiction

21:23

western, if indeed that is a

21:25

thing. In fact, it's

21:28

the first musical science fiction western,

21:31

possibly also the last musical science

21:33

fiction western, I don't know. Who

21:36

would have thought to make a

21:38

musical science fiction western? Republic Pictures,

21:40

that's who. Actually,

21:43

Mascot Pictures, which was one of Republic

21:45

Pictures' predecessor studios, if you want to

21:47

get technical on me. Thanks

21:55

for watching! Moving

22:35

on from Poverty Row, we come to

22:37

the little three. And

22:40

here we begin with Columbia

22:42

Pictures. Columbia

22:44

got its start as a Poverty

22:46

Row studio run by Harry Cohn,

22:48

one of its founders. Cohn

22:51

became head of the studio in 1932

22:54

and held that position until his death in 1958.

22:58

And during that time, he gradually built

23:00

Columbia into one of the major studios.

23:05

Two years into his tenure, Cohn

23:07

signed a vaudeville team that billed

23:09

themselves originally as Ted

23:12

Healy and his Stooges. But

23:14

after a few years, the Stooges

23:17

parted ways with Ted Healy and

23:19

became the Three Stooges. The

23:22

act consisted of Mo Howard,

23:24

born Moses Horowitz, the child

23:26

of, say it with me,

23:28

Jewish immigrants from what was then the

23:31

Russian Empire. Mo

23:33

also acted as the team's business

23:35

manager. The second

23:37

Stooges was Larry Fine, born

23:40

Louis Feinberg, a comedian and

23:42

violinist who was the child of, I

23:45

don't really have to say it again, do I? The

23:49

third Stooges was originally Mo's

23:51

older brother, Shemp Howard, born

23:53

Samuel Horowitz. Shemp

23:55

left the team in 1932 and they

23:58

replaced him with Mo's year-old brother.

24:01

younger brother, Jerry Howard, born Jerome

24:03

Horowitz. The younger Howard

24:05

shaved his head for the role

24:07

and became known as Curly, because

24:10

he had no hair, get it? After

24:13

ending their association with Healy, the

24:15

three Stooges signed a deal with

24:17

Cone in 1934 to appear in

24:20

a series of comedy shorts for

24:22

Columbia. They would continue to

24:24

work for Columbia for 23 years until 1957. Their

24:30

short films consisted of farcical plots

24:32

filled to the brim with outbursts

24:35

of slapstick. The

24:37

190 shorts they made

24:39

for Columbia are today

24:41

considered comedy classics. Curly

24:44

Howard, with his childlike persona and

24:46

his gift for improvisation, is generally

24:49

regarded as the best comedian of

24:51

the group, but his health

24:53

began to decline in 1944. He

24:56

had a stroke in 1946 and had to leave the group. He

25:01

died in 1952. They

25:04

replaced him with his predecessor, Shemp Howard,

25:06

until his death in 1955. Afterward

25:10

came Joe Besser and then

25:12

Joe Dorita. The

25:15

three Stooges typically released eight or

25:18

nine new shorts every year. Cone

25:20

paid them $2,500 each per short, which was darn good money

25:23

in 1934, and they were worth

25:29

every penny. Three

25:31

Stooges' shorts were among the most popular

25:33

shorts of the time, so

25:35

popular that Columbia was able to

25:37

demand that theaters book some of

25:39

Columbia's feature films in exchange for

25:41

the right to exhibit three Stooges'

25:43

shorts. This

25:46

being Hollywood, Cone took

25:48

care to ensure the Stooges themselves

25:51

were not fully aware of how

25:53

popular and lucrative their shorts had

25:55

become. They had

25:57

signed to a one-year renewable contract.

26:00

and Cone renewed that same contract 22

26:02

times. He

26:05

never offered the Stooges a raise. To

26:08

the contrary, he kept telling them that

26:10

the market for shorts was getting weaker

26:12

every year, which was the truth, but

26:15

didn't acknowledge how successful the Stooges' shorts

26:17

were. Good

26:20

pay in 1934 was not

26:22

so good by 1957, the

26:24

year Colombia ended their relationship

26:26

with the Stooges. It

26:29

was only afterward that they learned how much

26:31

money their work had actually been worth. In

26:35

the 1960s, Colombia made even more

26:37

money from these shorts by syndicating

26:39

the three Stooges on television, mostly

26:42

in children's programs. I

26:44

grew up watching three Stooges' shorts, although

26:47

it is debatable, and indeed was

26:49

debated at the time, whether

26:52

their brand of slapstick is appropriate

26:54

viewing material for children. The

26:58

Stooges themselves made some money from

27:00

residuals and from licensing. Larry

27:03

Fine suffered a serious stroke in 1970, and that

27:05

ended his career. He

27:08

died in 1975. Mo

27:11

Howard sold real estate later in his

27:13

life and also passed away in 1975.

27:19

The three Stooges made a lot of money

27:21

for Colombia, but the one

27:23

person most responsible for lifting Colombia

27:25

out of poverty row and

27:28

into its new status as a major studio

27:31

was a film director named Frank

27:33

Capra. Frank

27:36

Capra was born in a small

27:38

village outside Palermo, Sicily in 1897.

27:43

His parents brought him along to the

27:45

United States in 1903 when he was

27:47

just five years old. He

27:49

grew up in Los Angeles. He earned

27:52

a degree in chemical engineering at the

27:54

California Institute of Technology in 1918, and

27:58

soon after became a lieutenant in the U.S.

28:00

U.S. Army during the First World War. He

28:04

became a U.S. citizen in 1920, moved

28:07

to San Francisco, and worked

28:09

a variety of odd jobs until he

28:11

was able to talk a movie studio

28:13

startup in San Francisco into

28:15

giving him a job as a director. He

28:18

moved on to writing silent comedy

28:20

films for Mac Senate in Hollywood.

28:24

In 1928, he took a

28:27

job at Columbia, where his

28:29

engineering background proved valuable as

28:31

the studio transitioned to talking

28:33

pictures. He directed

28:35

a string of pictures for Columbia that did

28:37

well at the box office and impressed Cone.

28:40

Soon he was Columbia's top director.

28:43

Cone raised his salary to $25,000 per year, a

28:46

luxurious income during the Great Depression, and

28:51

put his name above the title on

28:53

his films, making Capra the

28:55

first Hollywood director to be awarded

28:58

that honor. In

29:02

1934, Capra directed a screwball

29:04

comedy titled It Happened One

29:07

Night. I

29:09

should explain this term screwball comedy.

29:11

We've come across it before. This

29:14

was a popular type of film in the 30s.

29:17

A screwball comedy is a type

29:19

of romantic comedy in which the

29:22

romantic relationship itself is played for

29:24

laughs. Typically, it is

29:26

the woman in the relationship who drives the

29:28

plot, which involves putting

29:30

the leading couple into awkward situations.

29:33

The dialogue in these films is filled

29:35

with witty repartee, usually bickering between the

29:38

two principles, and often delivered at a

29:40

pace so rapid it can be hard

29:42

for the audience to follow. The

29:46

name comes from a baseball term for

29:48

a type of pitch that behaves in

29:50

an unexpected way, and

29:52

screwball comedies can be seen at some level

29:55

as a sort of comic parody

29:57

of more traditional romance stories. It

30:02

happened one night, starred Clark

30:04

Gable and Claudette Colbert as

30:06

the lead characters. Clark

30:10

Gable was one of the most popular

30:12

and most bankable stars of the time.

30:15

Bankable being a Hollywood term for an

30:17

actor so popular that their mere presence

30:19

in the film guarantees the picture will

30:21

earn a lot of money. Gable

30:25

was under contract to MGM

30:27

at the time, but MGM

30:29

chief Louis B. Mayer loaned

30:31

him out to the much

30:33

less prestigious Columbia Pictures as

30:35

a punishment for his uncooperative

30:37

attitude. Mayer felt

30:39

that MGM had made Gable a

30:41

star and he was insufficiently grateful.

30:45

Columbia was willing to pay MGM

30:47

a hefty fee to use Gable,

30:50

and Mayer agreed to the arrangement. It

30:54

happened one night, swept the

30:56

Academy Awards that year, winning

30:58

all the major categories. Best

31:01

picture, best director for Capra,

31:04

best adapted screenplay, best

31:06

actress for Colbert, and

31:08

best actor for Clark Gable, the

31:11

guy for whom working on this picture was

31:13

supposed to be a punishment. Gable

31:16

would be nominated twice again for best

31:18

actor, but the only

31:21

time he took home the golden statuette

31:23

was for It Happened One Night, and

31:26

this film made him a bigger star than

31:28

ever. It

31:31

Happened One Night was the first movie to

31:33

win all five major awards, and this will

31:35

not happen again for 39 years until 1975's

31:37

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Capra

31:45

followed up It Happened One

31:47

Night with 1934's

31:49

Broadway Bill, another screwball

31:52

comedy, and then

31:55

1936's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,

31:58

starring Gary Cooper and Jean-Claude.

32:00

Arthur. This was

32:02

a more serious film about a

32:04

humble man living in a village in Vermont

32:06

during the Great Depression who

32:09

suddenly and unexpectedly inherits a

32:11

twenty million dollar fortune. This

32:15

film illustrates Capra's evolution from

32:17

mere comedy to stories with

32:19

a certain theme, an

32:21

ordinary man from a humble background who

32:24

defeats corrupt and scheming elites

32:26

by virtue of his working-class

32:28

values. These

32:32

distinctively Capra-esque films

32:35

may have been sentimental. Capra

32:37

himself dubbed them Capra Corn,

32:41

but they were just what the

32:43

Depression-era audiences in America wanted to

32:45

see. Mr. Deeds

32:47

goes to town, Juan Capra his

32:50

second Academy Award for Best Director.

32:55

Capra's next film was a

32:58

departure from this formula. It

33:00

was 1937's Lost Horizon, a

33:03

fantasy adventure about Westerners who survive

33:05

a plane crash in the Himalayas

33:08

and discover Shangri-La, a

33:10

mystical valley hidden in the mountains. The

33:13

film was based on a 1933 novel with the same title

33:16

by British writer James Hilton. Lost

33:21

Horizon was not a financial

33:23

success and undid much

33:25

of the good Capra's earlier successes

33:27

had done for Columbia. But

33:30

he recovered with 1938's You Can't

33:32

Take It With You, adapted

33:34

from a 1936 play by

33:37

George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart about

33:40

a young man from a very proper

33:42

upper-crust family who falls in

33:44

love with a woman from, shall we

33:46

say, a less proper background. The

33:49

story was much more in line thematically

33:51

with Capra's best work. It

33:53

starred James Stewart and Gene Arthur and

33:56

was a critical and commercial success, and

33:59

it won best and gained

34:01

Capra his third Academy Award for

34:03

Best Director in five years.

34:09

James Stewart proved to

34:11

be the ideal everyman

34:13

actor to portray Capra's

34:15

idealized everyman protagonists and

34:18

the two collaborated again on Capra's

34:20

next film, 1939's

34:23

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington in

34:26

which Stewart plays a naive man

34:28

appointed to the US Senate by

34:30

a corrupt state governor who

34:33

believes the innocent Mr. Smith will be

34:35

easy to manipulate. Senator

34:37

Smith instead uncovers the corruption

34:39

in his home state and

34:42

takes up a quixotic political battle to

34:44

destroy it. The

34:48

release of this film was controversial. It

34:50

was October 1939 just as the

34:54

Second World War had begun. Many

34:57

condemned the film for its depiction

34:59

of an American political system riddled

35:01

with corruption. Senate

35:03

Majority Leader Albin Barkley called the

35:05

film silly and stupid.

35:07

The Washington Star newspaper complained

35:10

that the film portrayed American

35:12

democracy in exactly the same

35:14

colors as Hitler,

35:16

Mussolini, and Stalin did.

35:20

But the American public loved it.

35:24

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington stands as

35:26

the third highest-grossing film of the 1930s,

35:30

topped only by Gone with the Wind

35:32

and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

35:35

And it represents the peak of Capra's

35:37

career, although it is not the

35:39

film he is best remembered for today. We'll

35:42

get to that one. Now

35:45

Columbia was a major studio and Capra

35:48

was one of the biggest directors in

35:51

Hollywood, but this film

35:53

marks the end of their relationship. Capra

35:56

would jump ship to Warner Brothers where

35:58

he made two films. 1941's Meet

36:02

John Doe, another comedy

36:04

drama about a humble man who

36:07

becomes a political force, and

36:10

1944's Arsenic and Old Lace,

36:13

a black screwball comedy, if that's

36:15

a thing, starring

36:17

Cary Grant, who discovers that two

36:20

elderly sisters are in fact serial

36:22

killers, and no, I am

36:24

not making this up. After

36:28

the United States entered the Second World War,

36:31

Capra enlisted in the U.S. Army

36:33

and was assigned to produce and

36:35

direct a series of films to

36:37

educate soldiers about the reasons the

36:39

U.S. was fighting the war against

36:41

the Axis. This

36:43

ultimately became a set of seven

36:45

films in a series titled, Why

36:48

We Fight. Capra

36:51

prepared for this project by viewing

36:54

Lenny Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will,

36:56

which I talked about in episode 293. Capra

37:01

found that film terrifying, that's

37:03

the word he used, and

37:06

resolved that his films would

37:08

be a cinematic counterattack. Capra

37:10

made use of the words and

37:12

propaganda films of the Axis powers,

37:15

including Triumph of the Will, in

37:18

an effort to condemn America's enemies

37:20

using their own words. Capra

37:24

brought all his cinematic talents to

37:26

bear, and the Army was

37:28

pleased with the resulting series of films. President

37:31

Roosevelt liked the first one,

37:33

Prelude to War, so

37:36

much that he ordered that the

37:38

Why We Fight series be made

37:40

available to movie theaters to show

37:42

to American civilians as well as

37:44

soldiers. The

37:48

Army also used Capra to

37:50

produce a recruitment film specifically

37:52

intended for an African American

37:55

audience called The Negro Soldier.

37:58

Capra himself himself an immigrant

38:01

and a member of a disfavored ethnic

38:03

group, threw himself into

38:05

this project. He

38:07

consulted with a number of experts

38:09

to make sure the film's depiction

38:12

of African-Americans was accurate as possible

38:14

and avoided stereotypes. The

38:18

film is framed as a sermon by

38:20

an African-American preacher, who reviews

38:22

the contributions of African-Americans to building

38:25

the United States, beginning

38:27

with the Boston Massacre, through the

38:29

Revolution, and America's other wars.

38:33

It extols the accomplishments of

38:35

African-American teachers and lawyers and

38:37

scientists, and shows scenes of

38:40

African-American soldiers in training and

38:42

in combat. The

38:44

preacher also reads a quote from

38:46

Mein Kampf, dismissing black

38:49

people as half-ape, and

38:51

cites Jesse Owens at the Berlin Olympics

38:54

and World Heavyweight Champion boxer Joe

38:57

Lewis, who had defeated German

38:59

Max Schmeling, and who had

39:01

enlisted in the army after Pearl Harbor. Capra

39:05

was nervous about how the film

39:08

would be received by African-Americans, but

39:10

it was welcomed with enthusiasm and

39:13

shown at recruitment centers around the country.

39:16

Virtually every African-American who served in

39:18

the army during the war saw

39:21

this film. So did

39:23

many white soldiers, many of

39:25

whom hailed it and encouraged the army to

39:27

show it to more white soldiers. Today,

39:31

the film is regarded as

39:33

a landmark in the history

39:35

of American cinema for depicting

39:37

African-Americans more realistically and with

39:39

more dignity than previous

39:41

films had typically done. The

39:44

U.S. Navy later produced its own

39:46

film titled The Negro Sailor, which

39:49

highlighted African-American naval heroes of

39:51

the war, including Doris Miller,

39:53

whom we have already met.

39:58

In April 1945, Capra

40:00

co-founded an independent production company

40:03

called Liberty Films, and

40:06

it was through this company that Capra

40:08

produced and directed the film he is

40:10

best known for in our time. The

40:13

1946 Christmas-themed film,

40:16

It's a Wonderful Life, again

40:18

with James Stewart as the everyman hero.

40:23

Loosely based on Charles Dickens' A

40:26

Christmas Carol, It's a

40:28

Wonderful Life tells the story of George

40:30

Bailey, a small town resident

40:32

who in his youth had abandoned his

40:34

own dreams in order to help others

40:37

in his hometown of Bedford Falls. Just

40:40

before Christmas, as he is on

40:43

the brink of suicide, his guardian

40:45

angel visits him and illustrates

40:47

to him how important he was to

40:49

his community by showing him

40:51

an alternate version of Bedford Falls

40:53

in which he never existed. The

40:57

film ends with George being celebrated by

40:59

his family and neighbors. It

41:03

was the same sort of sentimental

41:06

exaltation of homespun American values that

41:08

Capra loved to explore, but

41:11

the post-war world was a different place. The

41:14

film did reasonably well at the

41:16

box office and was nominated for six

41:19

Academy Awards, but it

41:21

lost money because it cost over three

41:23

million dollars to make, which was a

41:25

hefty budget for the time, and

41:28

the box office receipts did not recoup

41:30

its costs. Capra's

41:32

film was overshadowed by The Best Years

41:34

of Our Lives, a drama

41:37

that was the hit in 1946. It

41:40

was about three American servicemen trying to

41:43

readjust his civilian life after the end

41:45

of World War II, produced

41:47

by Samuel Goldwyn and released through

41:50

RKO. It won

41:52

seven Academy Awards that year,

41:54

including Best Picture. The

41:58

failure of It's a Wonderful World, life, doomed

42:01

Liberty Films, which was bought out

42:03

by Paramount, and the

42:06

film itself was largely forgotten. In

42:09

1974, when the film's copyright was

42:11

up for renewal, no

42:13

one renewed it, owing to a clerical

42:16

error. That gives you an

42:18

idea of how highly regarded the film was.

42:22

When television stations across America

42:25

realized there existed a Hollywood

42:27

Christmas film that they could

42:29

show without paying anybody any

42:31

royalties, It's a

42:33

Wonderful Life began appearing regularly

42:35

on American TV at Christmas

42:37

time. This presented the

42:40

movie to a whole new generation

42:42

of Americans previously unfamiliar with it,

42:45

and it became far more popular than it ever

42:47

had in 1946. Happily,

42:52

Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart

42:54

both lived long enough to

42:56

see their picture achieve its

42:59

status as a classic Christmas

43:01

film, perhaps THE classic Christmas

43:03

film. Both of them

43:05

acknowledged the film as one of their personal

43:07

favorites. In

43:09

our time, It's a Wonderful Life

43:11

remains a Christmas favorite, universally

43:14

known, universally celebrated,

43:17

and I have to add universally

43:19

parodied. In

43:21

1998, the American Film

43:24

Institute placed it at number 11

43:27

on its list of the greatest American

43:29

films of all time. We'll

43:36

have to stop there for today. I thank

43:39

you for listening, and I'd especially

43:41

like to thank Jay and Avril for

43:43

their kind donations, and thank

43:45

you to Jean for becoming a patron of

43:47

the podcast. Donors and

43:49

patrons like Jay and Avril and Jean

43:51

help cover the costs of making this

43:54

show, which in turn keeps

43:56

the podcast available free for everyone

43:58

always. So my thanks. to them and

44:00

to all of you who have pitched in and helped

44:02

out. If you'd like to

44:04

become a patron or make a donation, you

44:07

are very welcome. Just visit the website, historyofthe20thcentury.com,

44:10

and click on the PayPal or Patreon

44:12

buttons. As

44:14

always, the podcast website also contains

44:16

notes about the music used on

44:19

the podcast, which is sometimes my

44:21

own work and sometimes licensed, but

44:23

many times the music you hear here

44:25

is free and downloadable. If

44:27

you hear a piece of music on the podcast

44:29

and you'd like to know more about it, including

44:32

the composer, the performers, and a link to where

44:34

you can download it, that would be the place

44:36

to go. While you're there, you

44:38

can leave a comment and let me know what

44:41

you thought about today's show. The

44:44

end of year holidays are upon

44:46

us, so it's that time of

44:48

year when I remind you that

44:50

donations to and patronages of the

44:53

History of the 20th Century podcast

44:55

make the perfect holiday gift for

44:57

me. You never have to

44:59

worry about it being the right size or the

45:01

right color or if it's to my tastes, and

45:04

I can absolutely guarantee you it will

45:06

never be returned. I

45:10

recognize that not everyone has a patronage

45:12

or a donation in the budget, and

45:14

if that's the case, might I suggest

45:16

a rating and review that would help

45:19

the podcast find new listeners? That

45:21

would make a nice present too. Or

45:24

maybe you can find a new listener

45:26

yourself, someone in your life who might

45:28

enjoy listening to this podcast. And

45:31

as always, I thank you for being

45:33

a listener. And

45:36

I hope you'll join me next week here in

45:38

the History of the 20th Century as

45:40

we continue our look at American cinema. Next

45:43

time we'll consider the other two

45:45

smaller studios, Universal and United Artists,

45:48

and the smallest of the biggest

45:50

RKO radio pictures. Woman

45:53

of the Year, next week

45:56

here on the History of the

45:58

20th Century. Oh,

46:03

and one more thing. I said

46:05

that the film, It's a Wonderful Life, fell into

46:07

the public domain in 1974, and it's a

46:11

principle of copyright law that once

46:13

a work enters the public domain,

46:15

that status is permanent. But

46:18

as you may be aware, a copyright

46:20

claim on the film re-emerged in

46:22

1993. So

46:25

how did that happen? Well,

46:28

after the failure of Capra's Liberty

46:31

Films, the company was sold to

46:33

Paramount Pictures. Paramount sold

46:35

the rights to many older films, including

46:38

It's a Wonderful Life, in 1955. These

46:42

rights ended up with a

46:44

company called National Telefilm Associates,

46:47

the principal business of which was

46:49

syndicating old movies to TV

46:51

stations. National Telefilm

46:54

also acquired the rights to the

46:56

film library of Republic Pictures, after

46:58

Republic went out of business. In

47:01

1984, National Telefilm renamed

47:04

itself Republic Pictures, effectively

47:06

reviving the old studio. In

47:10

1993, with the 50th anniversary of

47:12

the release of It's a Wonderful

47:14

Life pending, the CEO

47:17

of Republic was reminded of how much

47:19

money his company was not getting due

47:21

to the lost copyright of the film.

47:25

But all it took to fix that

47:27

little problem was some creative lawyering. I

47:31

said that the film was

47:33

loosely based on Charles Dickens'

47:35

A Christmas Carol, but it

47:37

is explicitly based on a

47:39

1943 self-published short story titled

47:41

The Greatest Gift. The

47:44

film might be in the public domain,

47:46

but the short story is not. And

47:49

Republic, as successor to

47:51

Liberty Films, owned the

47:53

film rights to the story. Therefore,

47:56

Republic and its lawyers concluded,

47:58

since then. held exclusive film

48:01

rights to that story, no

48:03

one else could market a film based

48:06

on that story, not even a

48:08

film in the public domain. The

48:11

rest of the industry decided not to fight

48:14

it. So for the

48:16

past 30 years, the television network

48:18

NBC has been broadcasting It's a

48:20

Wonderful Life every year at Christmas and

48:23

paying a hefty fee for the privilege

48:25

of showing a film technically in the

48:27

public domain. Pray

48:29

for Hollywood. The

48:32

story, the greatest gift, will itself

48:34

enter the public domain in another

48:36

15 years or so. We'll

48:39

see what happens then.