Late-1940s to Mid-1950s: Hollywood in Postwar AmericaModule 4 · COMM/THEA 479W: American Film History

Historical Context

Postwar America

At the end of World War II, there were dramatic social changes: the era of suburbia, when people began to flock to the suburbs, seeking a cleaner, safer environment; and television, which became a key element in suburban life. The United States came out of the war a prosperous country. People had money and the opportunity to spend it, and the birthrate skyrocketed; this new generation was called the Baby Boom generation. (Lecture)

The Cold War

World War II ended with the U.S. as a world power. This policy of "containment" was being followed by President Truman, who sought to resist Soviet influence around the world, and thus began the Cold War between the U.S.S.R. and the United States which would last nearly half a century. Meanwhile, the U.S. government was trying to appear united against communism as the American population was increasingly divided into identifiable groups and the civil rights movement grew in strength with Dr. Martin Luther King at its helm. (Lecture)

Television and the Box Office Crisis

During the postwar period, President Eisenhower's message to Americans was to forget the suffering brought by the Depression and World War II, to work hard for prosperity, and to enjoy it. At the end of the 1950s, 9 out of 10 American homes had televisions. The suburbanization, radio and television, and increased leisure time led to an unprecedented drop of 74% in the film industry between 1947 and 1957. Because of this, the profit of the studio fell by more than 20%, from $120 million in 1946 to $31 million in 1950. The only good news was overseas: during the late 1940s, Hollywood films still dominated the world market. (Lecture)

The Film Industry

The Paramount Case

In 1948 the Supreme Court ruled in the Paramount Case, which mandated that the studios split their movie theater holdings to end the studios' monopoly control over the industry. This disrupted the "vertical" system of classical Hollywood, which had the studios control the film industry, and compelled major alterations in organization and personnel policies. In the following years industry revenues fell 20%. (Lewis, pg. 238; Lecture)

HUAC and the Hollywood Blacklist

The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) started investigating Communist influence in Hollywood in 1947. The two main questions to witnesses were: "Are you now, or at any time a member of the Screen Writers Guild?" and "Are you now, or at any time a member of the Communist Party?" The Hollywood Blacklist that ensued put artists out of jobs and instantly affected the industry as a whole. (Lewis, pg. 218; Lecture)

Film Noir

Film Noir

The dominant genre of the postwar period was film noir, which mirrored the changes in society that struck many postwar Americans. It also embraced postwar capitalism, race relations and even the blacklist itself as the subject of its genre of choice: the Hollywood Left. The French critics coined a term for these movies: "film noir," which translates to "black or dark film." Noir is a fairly modern genre; even though it is influenced by the 1930s gangster film, the criminals are smoother, not obviously ethnic and are involved in wealthier circles. (Lewis, pg. 238; Lecture)

The Noir Visual Style

Noir is highly stylized, but also very realistic. The films are lit in a style inspired by 1920s German Expressionism. Most of them take place at night in dark and foreboding urban streets, where key lights form ominous shadows. Noir's visual language was quite different from the glamorous auteur stylists of the time; noir meant the depiction of a world of moral uncertainty and fear had to be imposed upon the frame. (Lecture)

Noir Narrative Form and Ideology

The social changes that plagued America after the war are the foundation of noir films. The depressing mood, wistfulness and melancholy of film noir capture the "crisis of adjustment" of many men who return home. Most noir stories tell of crime and punishment, but in a complexity not previously witnessed on screen. The characters go on a crime spree, charmed by an impulsive move, until everything that has happened up to this point is forgotten or jumbled up. (Lewis, pg. 211–212; Lecture)

The Femme Fatale

The femme fatale is the central figure in many noir films, a woman who is always beautiful, promiscuous and will do anything to keep herself and her freedom alive. Unlike the threatening femme fatale, the noir hero is not just unappealing but is virtually unheroic; his sourness is mistaken for heroism. The femme fatale has a nightmare quality to an economically and sexually liberated postwar woman. American women had been working in great numbers during the war, and many men were uncomfortable with their loss of independence afterward. (Lewis, pg. 215–216; Lecture)

The Auteurs and the Directors

Auteurism

During the 1950s and 1960s a new critical framework emerged: auteurism. The auteur concept was a theory that asserted that movies were largely the work of the director, the sole author. In this system, movies were not classified in chronological order or by genre but rather by the work of a particular director. Orson Welles, Howard Hawks, Billy Wilder and Elia Kazan were some of the big names of the era. (Lecture)

Orson Welles

Welles was an important filmmaker in his day because of just one film, Citizen Kane (1941). He made a total of ten films, but generally his films were of little value at the time they were released. Welles came to Hollywood in 1939 under a contract that gave him complete creative control, a remarkable thing even then. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), his follow-up to Citizen Kane, was heavily cut by RKO and his career never really recovered; his ability to use the deep focus technique to portray his subjects was a hallmark of his filmmaking style. (Lewis, pg. 220–222; Lecture)

Howard Hawks

Hawks's films covered everything from gangster to screwball comedy to noir detective to western (Bringing Up Baby, 1938; The Big Sleep, 1946; Red River, 1948). He did this working under a variety of studios with various executives and various house styles. Though Hawks never had a flamboyant style, there is an artist's stamp on his work: Hawks always raised questions of ethics and morality in his films. He liked to shoot at eye level with invisible editing and was a master of pace. (Lewis, pg. 225–228; Lecture)

Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder's first job was as a screenwriter in Germany in the 1920s. When he came to Hollywood, he did not speak a word of English, but was hired as a writer for fellow émigré Ernst Lubitsch. Wilder did not necessarily put a distinct artistic stamp on all of his films, but there is a thematic unity to the work; what most unites his films is his dark sense of humor and sympathy for down-on-their-luck working-class characters. He went on to be nominated for around 20 Oscars and in 1987 received the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement. (Lewis, pg. 228–231; Lecture)

Elia Kazan

His notoriety for betraying fellow filmmakers during the HUAC hearings has lessened the impact of his work for many historians, but Kazan made some of the best movies of the era. He founded the Actors Studio in New York where acting coaches brought up Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Kim Hunter and Eva Marie Saint. Kazan advocated the Method, characterized by the use of the actor's genuine emotions rather than artificial gestures. His best-known film, A Streetcar Named Desire(1951), features one of the great Method performances of all time from Brando. His first movie following his appearance before HUAC was On the Waterfront (1954), which is often interpreted as a blacklist allegory. During Kazan's honorary Oscar reception in 1999, some in the audience stood and applauded, but others sat on their hands. (Lewis, pg. 231–233; Lecture)

Women in Hollywood

Women Behind the Scenes

During the postwar years, studios still lined up young women who sought to become movie stars but few had as glamorous a destiny as those of their idols. According to the textbook, "Steady work for women was more safely found behind the scenes as costume designers, hairdressers, makeup artists, set designers, and screenwriters; for every starlet who made the transition from bit player to movie star there were hundreds who were disappointed." Leading female screenwriters of the time were Leigh Brackett (The Big Sleep, 1946), Betty Comden (Singin' in the Rain, 1952), and Frances Goodrich (It's a Wonderful Life, 1946). (Lewis, pg. 235–236; Lecture)

Ida Lupino

At the time, there was just one woman moving behind the camera to make big motion pictures: the actress-writer-director Ida Lupino. By 1949, Lupino was tired of her stereotypical roles in formula genre films, so she set up her own production company to develop and produce her own movies. She was by no means conveying a feminist message; instead, she was creating nuanced female characters in her screenplays. Outrage (1950), on rape, and Never Fear (1950), on polio, were among the films she tackled that would not have been done by mainstream Hollywood. (Lewis, pg. 236–237; Lecture)