Early film, continued

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• Reaction to Birth of a Nation
  • "It is like writing history with lightning, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true." --Woodrow Wilson
  • Riots broke out in major cities (Boston and Philadelphia); denied release elsewhere (Chicago, Ohio, Denver, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Minneapolis)
  • Gangs of whites roamed city streets attacking blacks
  • In Lafayette, Indiana, a white man killed a black teenager after seeing the movie

The 1920s

• Begin to create and recognize genres: Westerns, comedies most common
  • Comedy: Chaplin [the table ballet], Laurel and Hardy
  • Chaplin's tramp character became a staple of early comedic film
    • Baggy pants, tight coat, oversized shoes, small hat toothbrush mustache, bamboo cane
    • Manners of a high-class individual, dress of a vagrant
• Typecasting introduced
  • Audience quickly recognized the persona of the star by the role played
  • Modern typecastings? Jason Alexander, Mark Hamill
• The movie palace (or picture palace)
• Replaces the nickelodeon during the period between the two World Wars
• First, the Regent in NYC (1913)
• Much larger structures, often with Art Deco architecture, capable of seating 2,000
• Sound introduced
  • Much of the 20s was part of the silent era of film that preceded recorded sound
  • But, The Vitaphone by Warner Brothers allowed recorded sound to be heard during films (1926)
    • Sound-on-disc technology
  • The Jazz Singer (1927) was the first successful sound feature film
    • Featured lip-synched songs and some dialogue
  • By 1930, sound was largely adopted
  • Silent film actors often casualties of this technology
    • Vilma Banky -- Hungarian accent
    • Norma Talmage -- Brooklyn accent
    • John Gilbert -- the "great lover," whose high-pitched voice was ridiculed by audiences and in press

Censorship

• The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) founded (1921)
  • Standards known as the Hays Code, after its first president
  • Three primary guidelines:
    1. "No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.
    2. Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented.
    3. Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation."
  • Result of backlash toward Hollywood scandals
• Fatty Arbuckle -- acquitted but career ruined
• Unsolved murders of William Desmond Taylor; public addictions by other actors
• Production Code of the Hays Office tightened (1934)
  • All scripts required to be submitted
  • Condemned "all motion pictures except those which did not offend decency and Christian morality"
    • Prohibited profanity, nudity, sexual perversion, miscegenation, child birth scenes
    • Required respect for flag, no sympathy for criminals, no man and woman sharing bed
    • Films withheld or reconceived
• Betty Boop victim of the code due to immorality
  • Watch: Minnie the Moocher (1932)
    • Named for song by Cab Calloway and His Orchestra
  • Made to tone down "sexiness

Material

Chaplin's tramp character

 

Fatty Arbuckle, the first $1 million film star

 

Cab Calloway in a later movie