From the late 1930s to the mid-1950s, five big movie studios-Paramount,
Warner Bros., Twentieth Century-Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), and
RKO-dominated Hollywood's film industry. This "big studio system"
operated primarily as a series of assembly-line production factories.
Ideally, each churned out fifty-two movies a year, enough to supply
showcase theaters across the country with a new lineup each week-with
profit being the overriding goal.
Of this era, veteran screenwriter Julius Epstein (Casablanca) said:
"It was not called the motion picture industry for nothing. [It] was
like working at belts in a factory."
Studios assigned the majority of the lower-tier screenplays to directors
under long-term contract and expected them to stick to the script and
keep productions within the budget. These filmmakers, known as "house
directors," often made films quickly, inexpensively, and with limited
resources. Just Making Movies: Company Directors on the Studio System
collects twelve interviews with house directors from this era, all
conducted by the author during the 1980s. These previously unpublished
interviews provide a clear picture of how the big studio system
operated, as told by those who knew it best.
Despite limitations, house directors sometimes made enduring film
classics, such as Charles Walters's Easter Parade, Henry Koster's The
Bishop's Wife, George Sidney's The Three Musketeers, and Vincent
Sherman's The Hasty Heart. In these interviews the filmmakers talk
candidly about working with such superstars as Joan Crawford, Errol
Flynn, Richard Burton, Bette Davis, Judy Garland, Cary Grant, Esther
Williams, and Lana Turner.
