Hollywood (documentary)
Encyclopedia
Hollywood is a 1980
1980 in television
The year 1980 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1980.For the American TV schedule, see: 1980-81 American network television schedule.-Events:...

 documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 series produced by Thames Television
Thames Television
Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....

 which explored the establishment and development of the Hollywood studios and its impact on 1920s culture.

Synopsis

The series consisted of thirteen one hour episodes, with each episode dealing with a specific aspect of Hollywood history. The actor James Mason
James Mason
James Neville Mason was an English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry throughout his career and was nominated for three Academy Awards as well as three Golden Globes .- Early life :Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the...

, an enthusiast of the period, supplied the narration; a lilting score was contributed by Carl Davis
Carl Davis
Carl Davis CBE is an American born conductor and composer who has made his home in the UK since 1961. In 1970 he married the English actress Jean Boht....

.

Technical quality was an important aspect of the production. Silent films had often been screened on television from poor-quality copies running at the wrong speed, usually accompanied by honky tonk piano music. Hollywood used silent film clips that were sourced from the best available material, shown at their original running speed and with orchestral scores, giving viewers a chance to see what they originally looked and sounded like.

The producers recorded the recollections of many of the period's notable artists, and illustrated their interviews with scenes from their various films, as well as production still photographs, and historical photographs of the Los Angeles environs. Subjects such as Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...

 and Clara Bow
Clara Bow
Clara Gordon Bow was an American actress who rose to stardom in the silent film era of the 1920s. It was her appearance as a spunky shopgirl in the film It that brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl." Bow came to personify the roaring twenties and is described as its leading sex...

 were represented by film scenes, but where possible the series made use of contemporary interviews by survivors of the era. Some of these interviews are notable for being among the only filmed interviews given by their subjects.

Among the notable people who contributed interviews were:

Actors - Mary Astor
Mary Astor
Mary Astor was an American actress. Most remembered for her role as Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart, Astor began her long motion picture career as a teenager in the silent movies of the early 1920s.She eventually made a successful transition to talkies, but almost...

, Eleanor Boardman
Eleanor Boardman
Eleanor Boardman was an American film actress, popular during the era of silent movies.-Early life and career:...

, Louise Brooks
Louise Brooks
Mary Louise Brooks , generally known by her stage name Louise Brooks, was an American dancer, model, showgirl and silent film actress, noted for popularizing the bobbed haircut. Brooks is best known for her three feature roles including two G. W...

, Olive Carey
Olive Carey
Olive Carey was an American film and television actress.Born as Olive Fuller Golden in New York City, she appeared in more than fifty films, mostly westerns, including Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, often playing tough tom-boy parts. In 1920, she wed actor Harry Carey, Sr., with whom she remained...

, Iron Eyes Cody
Iron Eyes Cody
Iron Eyes Cody was an American actor. He frequently portrayed American Indians in Hollywood films. In 1995, Cody was honored by the American Indian community for his work publicizing the plight of Native Americans, including his acting in films...

, Jackie Coogan
Jackie Coogan
John Leslie Coogan , known professionally as Jackie Coogan, was an American actor who began his movie career as a child actor in silent films. Many years later, he became known as Uncle Fester on 1960s sitcom The Addams Family...

, Dolores Costello
Dolores Costello
Dolores Costello was an American film actress who achieved her greatest success during the era of silent movies. She was nicknamed "The Goddess of the Silent Screen"...

, Viola Dana
Viola Dana
Viola Dana was an American film actress who was successful during the era of silent movies.- Career :Born Virginia Flugrath, Dana was a child star, appearing on the stage at the age of three. She read Shakespeare and particularly identified with the teenage Juliet. She enjoyed a long run at the...

, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. KBE was an American actor and a highly decorated naval officer of World War II.-Early life:...

, Janet Gaynor
Janet Gaynor
Janet Gaynor was an American actress and painter.One of the most popular actresses of the silent film era, in 1928 Gaynor became the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in three films: Seventh Heaven , Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Street Angel...

, Leatrice Joy
Leatrice Joy
Leatrice Joy was an American actress most prolific during the early silent film era.-Early life and career:...

, Lillian Gish
Lillian Gish
Lillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....

, Bessie Love
Bessie Love
Bessie Love was an American motion picture actress who achieved prominence mainly in the silent films and early talkies. With a small frame and delicate features, she played innocent young girls, flappers, and wholesome leading ladies. Her role in The Broadway Melody earned her a nomination for...

, Ben Lyon
Ben Lyon
Ben Lyon was an American film actor and a 20th Century Fox studio executive.-Life:Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Lyon entered films in 1918 after a successful appearance on Broadway opposite Jeanne Eagels. He attracted attention in the highly successful film Flaming Youth , and steadily developed into...

, Tim McCoy
Tim McCoy
Col. Tim McCoy was an American actor, military officer, and expert on American Indian life and customs.-Early years:...

, Colleen Moore
Colleen Moore
Colleen Moore was an American film actress, and one of the most fashionable stars of the silent film era.-Early life:...

, Charles 'Buddy' Rogers, Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...

, Blanche Sweet, John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...

 (in one of his last interviews), and Lois Wilson.

Directors - Dorothy Arzner
Dorothy Arzner
Dorothy Arzner was an American film director. Her directorial career in feature films spanned from the late 1920s into the early 1940s, a time period in which there were very few—if any—other women working in the field.- Biography :Born in San Francisco, California, Arzner grew up in Los...

 (in her last interview), Clarence Brown
Clarence Brown
Clarence Brown was an American film director.-Early life:Born in Clinton, Massachusetts, to a cotton manufacturer, Brown moved to the South when he was 11. He attended Knoxville High School and the University of Tennessee, both in Knoxville, Tennessee, graduating from the university at the age of...

, Frank Capra
Frank Capra
Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...

, George Cukor
George Cukor
George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...

, Allan Dwan
Allan Dwan
Allan Dwan was a pioneering Canadian-born American motion picture director, producer and screenwriter.-Early life:...

, Byron Haskin
Byron Haskin
Byron Conrad Haskin was an American film and television director. He was born in Portland, Oregon.He is remembered today for directing 1953's The War of the Worlds, one of many films where he teamed with producer George Pal. In his early career, he was a special effects artist, with a number of...

, Henry Hathaway
Henry Hathaway
Henry Hathaway was an American film director and producer. He is best known as a director of Westerns, especially starring John Wayne.-Background:...

, Henry King
Henry King (director)
Henry King was an American film director.Before coming to film, King worked as an actor in various repertoire theatres, and first started to take small film roles in 1912. He directed for the first time in 1915, and grew to become one of the most commercially successful Hollywood directors of the...

, Lewis Milestone
Lewis Milestone
Lewis Milestone was a Russian-American motion picture director. He is known for directing Two Arabian Knights and All Quiet on the Western Front , both of which received Academy Awards for Best Director...

, Hal Roach
Hal Roach
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. was an American film and television producer and director, and from the 1910s to the 1990s.- Early life and career :Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York...

, Albert S. Rogell
Albert S. Rogell
Albert S. Rogell was an American film director of more than a hundred movies between 1921 and 1958.-Selected filmography:* Mamba * Air Hostess * No More Women * The Hell Cat...

, King Vidor
King Vidor
King Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades...

 and William Wyler
William Wyler
William Wyler was a leading American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter.Notable works included Ben-Hur , The Best Years of Our Lives , and Mrs. Miniver , all of which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, and also won Best Picture...

.

Also interviewed were choreographer Agnes de Mille
Agnes de Mille
Agnes George de Mille was an American dancer and choreographer.-Early years:Agnes de Mille was born in New York City into a well-connected family of theater professionals. Her father William C. deMille and her uncle Cecil B. DeMille were both Hollywood directors...

, writer Anita Loos
Anita Loos
Anita Loos was an American screenwriter, playwright and author.-Early life:Born Corinne Anita Loos in Sisson, California , where her father, R. Beers Loos, had opened a tabloid newspaper for which her mother, Minerva "Minnie" Smith did most of the work of a newspaper publisher...

, writer Adela Rogers St. Johns
Adela Rogers St. Johns
Adela Rogers St. Johns was an American journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. She wrote a number of screenplays for silent movies and, late in life, appeared with other early twentieth-century figures as one of the 'witnesses' in Warren Beatty's Reds, but she is best remembered for her...

, press agent/writer Cedric Belfrage
Cedric Belfrage
Cedric Henning Belfrage was a socialist, author, journalist, translator and co-founder of the radical US-weekly newspaper the National Guardian...

, organist Gaylord Carter
Gaylord Carter
Gaylord Carter was an American organist and the composer of many film scores that were added to silent movies released on video tape or disks.-Early Life and Musical Beginnings:...

, cinematographer George J. Folsey
George J. Folsey
George J. Folsey, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer who worked on 162 films between 1919 and his retirement in 1976....

, writer Jesse L. Lasky, Jr.
Jesse L. Lasky, Jr.
Jesse Louis Lasky, Jr. was an American screenwriter.-Family:Jesse Louis Lasky, Jr. was the son of film pioneer, Jesse Lasky, Sr.. Jesse Jr...

, cinematographer Lee Garmes
Lee Garmes
Lee Garmes, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer. During his career, he worked with directors Howard Hawks, Max Ophuls, Josef von Sternberg, Alfred Hitchcock, King Vidor, Nicholas Ray and Henry Hathaway, whom he had met as a young man when the two first came to Hollywood in the silent era...

, special effects artist A. Arnold Gillespie
A. Arnold Gillespie
Albert Arnold Gillespie was an American cinema special effects artist.-Early years:Gillespie joined MGM as a set designer in 1925, a year after it was founded. He was educated at Columbia University and the Arts Students League. His first project was the silent film Ben-Hur, released that same year...

, Lord Mountbatten
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS , was a British statesman and naval officer, and an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...

, agent Paul Kohner
Paul Kohner
Paul Kohner . The native of Bohemia in Austria-Hungary came to Hollywood in 1920 after having been a news reporter in Prague...

, producer/writer Samuel Marx, editor William Hornbeck
William Hornbeck
William Hornbeck was an American film editor.He was nominated four times for the Academy Award for Film Editing, and won the award for A Place in the Sun . Other important credits include It's a Wonderful Life , Giant , and I Want to Live!...

, stuntmen Yakima Canutt
Yakima Canutt
Yakima Canutt , also known as Yak Canutt, was an American rodeo rider, actor, stuntman and action director.-Biography:...

 and Harvey Parry, and Rudolph Valentino's brother, Albert Valentino.

Episode list

  • "The Pioneers" - The evolution of film from penny arcade curiosity to art form, from what was considered the first plot driven film, The Great Train Robbery, through to The Birth of a Nation
    The Birth of a Nation
    The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Griffith also co-wrote the screenplay , and co-produced the film . It was released on February 8, 1915...

    , films showing the power of the medium. Early Technicolor footage, along with other color technologies, are also featured. Interviews include Lillian Gish, Jackie Coogan and King Vidor.

  • "In the Beginning" - Hollywood is transformed from a peaceful village with dusty streets and lemon groves to the birthplace of the industry in California. Silent film transcends international boundaries to become a worldwide phenomenon. Interviews include Henry King, Agnes de Mille, and Lillian Gish.

  • "Single Beds and Double Standards" - Fast success in Hollywood brings a cavalier party lifestyle, which led to shocking scandals such as Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle's trial and subsequent acquittal for manslaughter. To tone down the image of Hollywood and curtail films with footage unsuitable to all audiences, Will H. Hays
    Will H. Hays
    William Harrison Hays, Sr. , was the namesake of the Hays Code for censorship of American films, chairman of the Republican National Committee and U.S. Postmaster General from 1921 to 1922....

     is appointed and introduces Hollywood's self regulated Production Code, which would be enforced well into the 1960s, while filmmakers still found creative ways to present 'adult' situations. Interviews include King Vidor and Gloria Swanson.

  • "Hollywood Goes To War" - The outbreak of World War I provides Hollywood with a successful source for plots and profits. Peacetime curtails the release of war movies, until the release of King Vidor's The Big Parade
    The Big Parade
    The Big Parade is a 1925 silent film. It tells the story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.The film was...

    in 1925. Wings
    Wings (film)
    Wings is a silent film about World War I fighter pilots, produced by Lucien Hubbard, directed by William A. Wellman and released by Paramount Pictures. Wings was the first film, and the only silent film, to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Wings stars Clara Bow, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, and...

    (1927) earns the first Academy Award for Best Picture
    Academy Award for Best Picture
    The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...

    . As movies transition to sound, Universal releases Lewis Milestone
    Lewis Milestone
    Lewis Milestone was a Russian-American motion picture director. He is known for directing Two Arabian Knights and All Quiet on the Western Front , both of which received Academy Awards for Best Director...

    's All Quiet on the Western Front, showing the German side of the conflict, becoming a powerful statement of war by the generation that fought it. Interviews include Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., King Vidor and Lillian Gish.

  • "Hazard of the Game" - Silent films are often remembered for slapstick gags and dangerous stunts. Stuntmen took anonymous credit for very little pay and could not reveal their involvement. Stuntmen Yakima Canutt, Harvey Parry, Bob Rose and Paul Malvern tell hair-raising and humorous stories, and reveal the secrets behind many famous stunts.

  • "Swanson and Valentino" - Two of the great romantic legends of the silent screen are profiled. Rudolph Valentino's on-screen persona is remarkably different from his real personal life, as recounted by his brother, Albert, and Gloria Swanson recalls her meteoric rise - and fall - with remarkable candor.

  • "The Autocrats" - Two of Hollywood's greatest directors, Cecil B. DeMille
    Cecil B. DeMille
    Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...

     and Erich von Stroheim
    Erich von Stroheim
    Erich von Stroheim was an Austrian-born film star of the silent era, subsequently noted as an auteur for his directorial work.-Background:...

    . One worked with the Hollywood system, the other against it. DeMille's pictures, lavish in detail and cost, made his studio a fortune, while Von Stroheim's similar ways, albeit to excess in footage and expense, resulted in films that were often either excessively cut by the studios or never released, leading to his being fired on several occasions. Interviews include Agnes DeMille, Gloria Swanson and Henry King.

  • "Comedy - A Serious Business" - Hollywood learned very early how to make people laugh. Comedy was king, and battling for the throne were stars like Harold Lloyd
    Harold Lloyd
    Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. was an American film actor and producer, most famous for his silent comedies....

    , Buster Keaton
    Buster Keaton
    Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...

    , Harry Langdon
    Harry Langdon
    Harry Philmore Langdon was an American comedian who appeared in vaudeville, silent films , and talkies. He was briefly partnered with Oliver Hardy.-Life and career:...

     and Charlie Chaplin
    Charlie Chaplin
    Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...

    . In a purely visual medium, their comedy was a work of genius. Interviews include Hal Roach, Sr., Jackie Coogan, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd

  • "Out West" - 'The Old West' was still in existence in the silent days. Old cowboys and outlaws re-lived their youth, and got paid for doing it, by working in films. The 'western craze' really begins with stars like William "Buffalo Bill" Cody
    Buffalo Bill
    William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody was a United States soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was born in the Iowa Territory , in LeClaire but lived several years in Canada before his family moved to the Kansas Territory. Buffalo Bill received the Medal of Honor in 1872 for service to the US...

     and Tom Mix
    Tom Mix
    Thomas Edwin "Tom" Mix was an American film actor and the star of many early Western movies. He made a reported 336 films between 1910 and 1935, all but nine of which were silent features...

    . Interviews include Yakima Canutt, Colonel Tim McCoy, Harvey Parry and John Wayne.

  • "The Man With the Megaphone" - Silent film directors were flamboyant pioneers, making up their technique as they went along. Filming 'indoor' sets on open outdoor lots and combating the elements, communicating with actors in spite of overwhelming distraction and deafening noise, directors (male and female) fashion great films out of chaos and confusion. Interviews include Bessie Love, Janet Gaynor, and King Vidor.

  • "Trick of the Light" - Skilled cameramen had the ability to turn an actress into a screen goddess, and were valuable assets to studios and stars. With the aid of art directors, they achieved some of the most amazing and dangerous sequences captured on film, pioneering photography effects used through the remainder of the 20th century. Interviews include William Wyler and Lillian Gish.

  • "Star Treatment" - Producers discovered the effect of 'star power' on their box office bottom line. Creating Hollywood stars becomes its own industry, resulting in the Hollywood Star System, from which came Clara Bow, Lillian Gish, and John Gilbert, successor to Rudolph Valentino as "The Great Lover". But as easily as they made them, studios could break them. Interviews include Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Louise Brooks and King Vidor.

  • "End of an Era" - Silent films had universal appeal, simply by replacing intertitles and dialogue cards for the foreign markets. Sound film was experimented with in many forms since the 1890s, but did not become commercially successful until The Jazz Singer
    The Jazz Singer (1927 film)
    The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. The first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. Produced by Warner Bros. with its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system,...

    in 1927. Hollywood movie making was transformed and ultimately shattered, taking the careers of many silent film stars, directors and producers with it, victims of the emerging technology. Interviews include Lillian Gish, Mary Astor, Janet Gaynor, George Cukor and Frank Capra, Sr.

Merchandise

Uniquely for a relatively specialised programme, Thames Television invested in a series of tie-in products: a book accompanying the series, written by Brownlow, Gill and John Kobal
John Kobal
John Kobal was an Austrian-born British based film historian responsible for The Kobal Collection, a commercial photograph library related to the film industry....

, a soundtrack LP featuring Carl Davis' music, a 7" single of the main theme, a pictoral newspaper-style publication featuring many of the stills used in the production and several posters bearing the Hollywood logo, licensed from various picture libraries.

Home video and DVD releases

In North America, the series was released in 1990 by HBO Video on VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

 and laserdisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...

. Attempts to release the series on DVD in the UK in 2006 were met with legal entanglements of copyright issues and clip clearances, due to the overwhelming number of participants and film clips involved in the series, although it had been briefly made available in a few online stores in the UK before being quickly pulled.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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