Golden Age Of Hollywood Essay

The Paramount decision and the Hollywood blacklist were two major events that took place in the Golden Age of Hollywood. These events ultimately forever altered the direction of the film industry in the United Sates. These two historical events were part of what was viewed as the beginning of the fall of the old studio system. In the 1920s to the late 1940s there were 5 very powerful and influential Hollywood film studios which were commonly known as the ‘Big 5.’ These studios were made up of Fox, Paramount Pictures, Loew’s Incorporated, Warner Brothers, and RKO. These studios became known primarily as the Big 5 because according to American Film, “The Big Five held interest in 3,137 of the 18,076 theaters nationwide. And the 92 cities with a population exceeding one hundred thousand over 70 percent of the first-run theaters were affiliated with the Big Five.” (American Film: A History).

As television became more popular, the studios planned to expand their market. The Paramount decision, however, complicated those plans as studios struggled to compete with television. Ultimately, the studios developed synergies in order to obtain some of the television market share. Disney was one of the first studios to arrange for a cross media agreement, specifically by making a deal with ABC that would air a Disney television show once a week on the network station. However, even as television and film studios were learning how to work cooperatively together, the studios still needed to find a way to draw film audiences back into theaters. While visual and audio quality in films continued to have quality improvements, these changes alone were not enough to bring back floundering audience numbers. The studios decided to offer content that would not be available for viewing on home