STUDIO YEARS

Studio Years

Studio Years

The studio system, erected on a foundation of rapidly produced, formulaic pictures for mass audiences, was drawn toward a variety of easily identifiable genres: Westerns, thrillers, horror films, musicals, comedies, dramas, and so forth. This Hollywood synthesis lasted from the 1920s until well into the 1960s. Filmmakers employed narrative traditions taken from literature and drama wedded to technical and managerial techniques that were integral to American capitalism. By the 1930s, Hollywood cinema had become the largest popular entertainment form in the United States, spreading to the rest of the globe during the post-World War II years—a trend later ...