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THERE IS ONLY ONE HOLLYWOOD in the world. Movies are made in London, Paris, Milan and Moscow, but the life of these cities is relatively uninfluenced by their production. Hollywood is a unique American phenomenon with a symbolism not limited to this country. It means many things to many people. For the majority it is the home of favored, godlike creatures. For others, it is a "den of iniquity"-or it may be considered a hotbed of Communism or the seat of conservative reaction; a center for creative genius, or a place where mediocrity flourishes and able men sell their creative souls for gold; an important industry with worldwide significance, or an environment of trivialities characterized by aimlessness; a mecca where everyone is happy, or a place where cynical disillusionment prevails. Rarely is it just a community where movies are made. For most movie-goers, particularly in this country, the symbolism seems to be that of a never-never world inhabited by glamorous creatures, living hedonistically and enjoying their private swimming pools and big estates, attending magnificent parties, or being entertained in famous night clubs. The other symbols belong to relatively small groups of people.1

Of all the symbols, sex and wealth are the most important. Every Hollywood male is supposed to be a "wolf" and every Hollywood female a tempting object easily seduced. The movie fans, worshipping their heroes, believe this. The members of a church

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missionary society in Iowa who write indignant letters to the Producers' Association also believe it. For the conservative or radical, sex over and beyond the traditional mores and codes is part of their idea of Hollywood. The other characteristic-easy Hollywood money, an enormous fortune quickly made-is the contemporary Cinderella theme for the naive youngster in Alabama who has just won a beauty contest, as well as for the sophisticated New York writer who has been asked to come for six months to a Hollywood studio. No matter what the other symbols, or for whom they have meaning, the accent is on sex and money, for the Hollywood inhabitants as well as for the world outside.

Many other communities have a symbolic character. Paris, New York, a farming community in the Midwest, a town in the Deep South, an island in the South Seas, all mean many things to many people. For some, a South Seas island is thought of as an escape from a troubled world, for others as a place where money can be made by exploiting natural resources; for some it is a place where natives live a peaceful life, for others one where savages roam about in head-hunting expeditions. The anthropologist tries to find out what the place and people are really like. In studying Hollywood, he asks: Which of the myths and symbols have a basis in reality, which are fantasy, and which are a combination? What is their effect on the people who work and live there? What are significant elements about which the world outside does not even know enough to develop a folklore or mythology?

The geographical location of any community always has important social implications, and Hollywood is no exception. The semitropical climate gives a certain soft ease to living. Beaches, desert and mountains are all within easy reach, and the almost continuous sunshine is an ever-present invitation to the outdoors. Although Los Angeles stretches in distance for eighty-five miles and has a population of approximately four million, the whole of it is dominated by Hollywood. If the center of movie production had been in New York, the metropolis would probably have influenced the making of movies, rather than being dominated by it. Its location on the West Coast successfully isolated the movie colony in the past. Today, however, this insularity no longer

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exists, since many movies are being made on location in different parts of the country and abroad. There is also among the upper bracket people considerable trekking-more literally, flying-back and forth between Los Angeles and New York. But these actors as well as the many others who do not travel have their roots in Hollywood, and the new trend has not materially changed the colony's essential character.

Hollywood's domination of Los Angeles comes out in many ways. The most trivial news about personalities in the movie world are front-page headlines in the city newspapers. Many of the local mores have been strongly influenced by the movie industry. The standard technique for a "pick-up" in Los Angeles is for the man to suggest to the desired female that he knows someone who will give her a screen test. Pretty girls, working in the popular drive-ins, live in hopes that a producer or director will notice them. Schoolteachers, doctors, white-collar workers and many others who have never shown any talent for writing, and who in another community would have quite different goals, spend their spare time writing movie scripts. Earnest little groups meet an evening a week to criticize each other's work, expecting soon to reach the pot of gold at the end of the Hollywood rainbow. The people who work at the making of movies refer to those unconnected with the industry as "private people," the implication being that such individuals are unimportant.

Hollywood itself is not an exact geographical area, although there is such a postal district. It has commonly been described as a state of mind, and it exists wherever people connected with the movies live and work. The studios are scattered over wide distances in Los Angeles, and are not particularly impressive-looking. They combine a bungalow and factory in their appearance, and many give the feeling of being temporary. The homes of movie people are found in Beverly Hills, Bel-Air, Westwood Village, the San Fernando Valley, the original Hollywood district, and other areas. I use the term "Hollywood" in this larger sense.
The myth of enormous and elaborate homes set in the midst of big estates turns out to be generally untrue. Beverly Hills, Bel-

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Air and the others are quite charming, conventional, well-kept, upper class suburbs, not too different from the Roland Park of Baltimore, the Shaker Heights of Cleveland, Westchester, Connecticut, or any attractive upper-class residential district near a large city. The actual Hollywood-situated homes seem less ostentatious, since many of them are in an informal, modern style. A home surrounded by an acre or less may be dignified as an "estate,"
while "ranch" is frequently used to describe any informal house with only an acre or less of land. The swimming-pool part of the popular myth has more basis for reality, and swimming pools are more common here than in the East. But they are not a Hollywood invention; their utility in the all-year-round semitropical climate of southern California is obvious.

The atmosphere of Hollywood both resembles that of a village and differs from it. There is the same extroverted cordiality, but more stress on status as determined by income and power. This is reflected in the use of first names. Those in the upper brackets call everyone beneath them by their first name, but this is not always reciprocal. Mr. Very Important will be addressed by some as "Mr. Important, sir," by others as "Mr. Important," as "V.I."
by those earning over $1200 a week, and as "Very" by only a few close associates. But Mr. Very Important calls everyone by his or her first name. As in villages, the same people are at the same parties, the same restaurants, the same clubs and the same week-end resorts. But again there is more emphasis on financial status. With rare exceptions, the people at a party are all in the same income bracket, and there is very little association with private people. The stimulus of contact with those from other fields of endeavor, which is so accessible in most big cities, is lacking in Hollywood. For the most part, people work, eat, talk and play only with others who are likewise engaged in making movies. Even physical contact with the private people is exceptional, for the
residential suburbs such as Beverly Hills and Bel-Air are far removed from the working-class and industrial districts. Each suburb has its own select shopping district, and it is relatively easy to live
within its boundaries, driving outside only to the studio, to the home of friends in other secluded suburbs, or to Sunset Strip for

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the night clubs. An occasional brief excursion beyond these is made in ones own automobile, never in a public conveyance. A woman who painted as a hobby, the wife of a successful writer living in Beverly Hills, complained that she never saw any faces there to paint, and made a comparison with New York where there is an unescapable contact with faces interesting to a painter.

This quality of isolation is regarded as a disadvantage by a few of the more thoughtful people who live and work in Hollywood. Frank Capra, in a newspaper interview on the advantage of production on location, said:

Shooting away from Hollywood also gives a producer or director a chance to get acquainted with the lives of other people. In Hollywood we learn about life only from each other's pictures.2

But this point of view is not typical. Most of the inhabitants seem to enjoy and receive a certain security from being only with people like themselves. Members of a Melanesian tribe in the South-West Pacific likewise cannot imagine living anywhere else and are fearful of going beyond their small community.

Although the proportion of gifted people in Hollywood is probably as great as, if not greater than, it is anywhere else in the world, Hollywood's cultural and social life does not reflect this group as does that of New York, London or Paris, where there is also an aggregation of talent. World-famous composers and performers reside in Hollywood, yet they almost never perform in public.

Los Angeles, a city of four million, which includes the largest concentration of actors, has been described as having a

....near absence of legitimate theater. The city's lone theater, the Biltmore, is largely a plaything of the United Booking Office, drawing today the tag end of a Broadway hit, tomorrow Blackstone, the Magician, replete with a gazeeka box. Various small groups of actors, directors and others try to irrigate this "theatrical aridity" through productions such as those of the Actor's Laboratory and the Coronet Theater.3

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To date, however, they remain "little theaters."

Nor does social life have the brilliance and sparkle that is found among talented people in other cities. A number of such people coming to Hollywood for the first time from Europe, or New York, have commented on the dullness of Hollywood parties. There are, of course, the usual exceptions; a few homes where intelligent and gifted people, regardless of their financial status, gather for good conversation and fun, not dependent on elaborate food, heavy drinking or ostentatious entertainment. But Hollywood is not dominated by the artists, or even influenced by them, any more than is the larger community of Los Angeles. Social influence seems to lie with many of the big executives and producers, and some but not all of the stars, whose social life away from the studio consists mostly of horse racing, gambling, yachting and big parties, which are reported the next day in the gossip columns. A "sunny Siberia" is the phrase used to describe it by some of the more critical inhabitants. The weekly show-business trade paper, Variety (May 21, 1947), has a headline Hollywood May Be Heaven to Yokels but Thesps Want to Live Elsewhere, followed by a story of actors who prefer to make their homes in the East and "commute" to Hollywood when they are doing a picture.
There are, of course, the exceptions-small groups of people who live much the same kind of life as they would in New York or Philadelphia: a few musicians meet weekly in each other's homes for chamber music; a group of actors' most of whom knew each other in New York, play charades until two A.M.; three or four writers, whose friendships date back to New York, and their wives, have an evening together in the rather simple style they enjoyed in the East. There is also a lively political activity, with lines drawn between left, right and center. For a few there is guild activity. Prominent actors give their time to try to settle a jurisdictional strike between two sets of rival carpenters, and are busy on negotiating committees for their own guild. The writers have preliminary caucusing, and a big turnout for the annual election of their guild officers. But these are not the dominating themes of Hollywood social life.
The majority revel in the sunshine and lush climate, enjoy a

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middle-class comfort or an upper-class luxury they never knew before; live in the intense hope that success is around the corner, if they have not already achieved it; bask in the excitement of the current studio crises; and think and talk only about movies with other movie people. The world outside is considered by them mainly in terms of box office, domestic and foreign. One successful man, who still retained a remembrance of another existence, said that Hollywood was like a "sealed chamber," and that one gradually accepted its standards and values, forgetting about others. There are many there who seem never to have had any other standards and for whom Hollywood was and is the ultimate, for whom the glamour is real. Rupert Hughes in an article in the annual New Year edition of Variety (January 7, 1948), describes his picture of the attitude towards Hollywood three hundred years from now. He writes:

What if, three hundred years from now, the people of Los Angeles should make shrines of the graves and birthplaces of moving picture writers, actors and directors? Pay tens of thousands for their scenarios?
What will people three hundred years from now say of us who lived next door to the great geniuses who have created and perfected the world-shaking art of the cinema? . . .

For most people, successful and unsuccessful and regardless of their background, the tendency is to get caught in the Hollywood maze.

The emphasis upon sex in the popular mythology about Hollywood has perhaps more influence on the attitudes and conversation of the inhabitants than on their behavior. They have a standard to live up to. There is much talk about sex, and direct or indirect allusions to it are frequent in the gossip columns. Around the studios are more beautiful young women and handsome young men than can be found probably in any other place in the world. Nor are they just beautiful or handsome. Having a screen personality usually means that the actor or actress has a sex appeal obvious enough to come through on the screen. Sex and sexiness are in the

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air. Pretty young girls who come to Hollywood hoping for careers as actresses are prepared and ready to use sex as a means of getting ahead. It is part of the prevailing attitude of manipulation of people for career purposes, and sex is just one of several techniques. This attitude seems more common than the Bohemian one of sex for fun or pleasure. Among some of the group who have already achieved success, there does exist the attitude of bored rich people who hunt for new sensations and variations in sex patterns. But those same unconventionalities are found in New York and in Paris.

In studying peoples of different cultures, the social anthropologist is usually more concerned with attitudes towards sex than with a statistical enumeration of the frequency of the biological act. To those who know life in Mississippi or Vermont villages, in New York, or in any European capital, there seems, without statistical data, to be no more or less sexual activity in Hollywood than anywhere else. Those who talk most about the greater amount of sexual "goings-on" in Hollywood are either puritanical or ignorant of sex life in other places. Actually, a large number of Hollywood people live more or less "normal" family lives, and it is the current studio policy to do everything possible to publicize this. Publicity and fan magazines have been concentrating on pictures of "normal" family life. The April 1950 number of Modern Screen showed the following: Shirley Temple bringing up her young daughter, Susan, with five pictures of mother and daughter playing together; Olivia de Havilland in "She Knew What She Wanted," with pictures of her in an affectionate pose with husband, and other poses with her baby, serving lunch to her husband, playing croquet with him, and reading a script on her patio; John Derek and his wife in "Bluebird on the Window Sill," with seven pictures showing their domesticity. June Haver was featured in another story, "Winning a New Peace in Her Unselfish Devotion to Others." Gail Russell and Guy Madison were in a story called "They Don't Belong" (because they are just small-town folks wanting the simple things of life). Another tale was about Gene Kelly and his wife Betsy Blair; this was called "It Must Be Love," and described them as "the plainest, simplest, most unaffected couple in Hollywood. They don't even own a swimming pool." Still another was about the "exceptionally happy

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marriage" of Jeanne Crain and Paul Brinkman. Some of the Hollywood stars have themselves been infected, and among these there is a cult for the "normality" of upper-class suburbia-which, of course, need not preclude extramarital relations. The myth of Hollywood's greater sexuality, however, still prevails; its symbolism runs strong and deep both inside and outside of Hollywood. Attitudes there are primarily those of an adolescent type of boasting about sexual power and the use of sex to farther careers, which of course is not confined to Hollywood, but is merely more open and frequent there.

The myth of easy and big Hollywood money also has considerable basis in fact, but there is much that is not correct about it. Statistics may be published about the number of unemployed; the public remembers only the headlines about the enormous annual earning of stars and executives. In Hollywood itself the myth is completely believed. A man may be unemployed for years, or employed in very minor jobs, but his strong belief that a fortune is just around the corner does not weaken. Since many of the fortunes are made by men with little training or special ability, the idea that they can be made by anyone persists.

Actually, the truth underlying the myth of easy money is that everyone in Hollywood is paid more than his counterpart outside whether he be actor, writer, producer, publicity man, cameraman, carpenter, or electrician. Salaries are very high. This makes the fact that there is only one Hollywood in the United States and in the world particularly significant to anyone who loses his job. There is then almost no place for him to go to find the equivalent of Hollywood money.4 This strengthens the existing structure in Hollywood.

While Hollywood represents a monopoly there is, unlike other monopolies, competition among its members-the "big five" studios -for stories, stars, directors, producers and others. This competition makes for some flexibility in the structure and occasionally

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permits an outstanding individual to influence it. The independent producer is another anomaly in this monopolistic structure, although his independence is by no means complete.

Perhaps the most fundamental and striking characteristic of the motion picture as an institution is that the making of movies is both a big business and a popular art. Certainly its financing, its relationships with banks, boards of directors and stockholders, its distribution and advertising, its problems of markets, domestic and foreign, and its labor relations are all the well-recognized parts of any big business. But its product is not like those of other businesses. The product of the movie industry is a story, told primarily in visual imagery and movement, and, since the introduction of the sound track, with dialogue. The movie shares the function of all storytelling, of all literature, of all theater: that of a comment on some phase of existence. Artists-including directors, writers, actors, photographers, musicians, cutters-are necessary to fulfill this function.

The general attitude in Hollywood, and out of it too, is to try to escape this essential dualism: Making movies must be either business or art, rather than both. For most people in executive positions it is a business, where, according to the folklore, "for a nickel you get a dollar." The goal is profits, large and quick ones. They call themselves "showman," and any talk about the movies as art is for them the height of absurdity and unreality. Their problem is to find the least common denominator that will please the most people, and therefore bring in the most profits. For them there is a search for a "sure-fire" formula which will always work, in the same way that a certain formula for steel can be counted on to produce the best steel.

This point of view is well expressed in the following editorial by W. R. Wilkerson in the Hollywood Reporter (September 29, 1947):

The drawing-room set is yelling: "Stop making pictures for
Glendale. Stop catering to the morons and bring pictures up
to an intelligent level."...
We believe the majority of men at the head of this business

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-showmen that they be-are possessed of as much intelligence as the drawing-room set. We feel that they too would like to lift our pictures up to a higher plane but every time they have shouldered that load they have found it too much to carry. As a consequence, they move down into the bracket that most of our theater customers patronize-shooting stories without too much of a problem, yarns that are easy to understand, making pictures that WILL entertain instead of making their audiences unhappy.
Pictures are essentially for entertainment. That's what has built thus great industry-ENTERTAINMENT. Pictures are made for Glendale, for Kansas City and New York. Our pictures are made for the whole world, and that whole world has been buying them, which affords the tremendous pay checks handed out here every week and makes it possible for tremendous story costs....
Glendale has been good enough for us for thirty years. It should be good for another hundred.

For the artist there is another traditional goal. He tries to give his interpretation of a segment of experience he has either known or observed, which he wants to communicate to others. This need for the individual artist to communicate his ideas to an audience seems far removed from the need to accumulate large profits. But the contradiction is not a true one. If the audience is large and the artist succeeds in communicating with it, profits follow naturally. Much money has been made by successful artists fulfilling their functions in the theater, and in literature, music and painting. The artists and the executives in the studios are both unrealistic in insisting on an
"either . . . or" point of view. Movies are a mass medium and to remain as such in our society they must make a profit. In the end this may be desirable, since otherwise they might become esoteric There can, however, be a considerable difference of opinion on what constitutes a fair or good profit and on the amount of experimentation desirable within a profitable business.

The producers and executives seem somewhat unbusinesslike in not recognizing the true nature of their medium and exploiting it to the utmost. To be sure, they employ artists and pay them high salaries, but instead of permitting them to function as such, they

insist that the work be done according to the businessman's formula. For this reason the studio frequently does not get its money's worth from the artist. The chemist working in industry is allowed to function more within the framework of his training and background than is the artist in the movies. The most independent people in the latter industry are the cameramen, sound engineers and technicians, who can experiment and follow through their own ideas.

The position of the "expert" who is called in for temporary consultation on a picture is frequently like that of the artist. He is usually paid a high fee, and then very little or no attention is paid to his opinion. A psychoanalyst used as a consultant on a picture with a psychiatric theme is disturbed because his name appears in the list of "credits" for the picture, and contrary to his previous understanding with the studio. After seeing the picture, it is easy to understand this psychoanalyst's anxiety about his professional reputation. On the other hand, the movie Snake Pit clearly showed that there the expert's advice had been followed. As a result, the picture rang true and, it might be noted, was a far bigger box-office attraction than the phony one.

The conflict between business and art is not confined to different groups of men, but may be found within the same individual. The most businesslike executive is pleased when a reviewer praises his picture in terms other than box-office, and as drama. But in almost the same breath an important producer likens the product of the industry to cans of beans, pointing to some rolls of film lying in his office to make his allusion more striking, and a minute later says that he feels "like a god" with the capacity to make men laugh or cry. He then extols the movies as a combination of all the art forms, and talks of their world-wide significance.

For some men there seems to be continuous conflict, repeated for each picture, between making a movie which they can respect and the "business" demands of the front office. It is assumed, although there are many examples to the contrary, that a movie which has the respect of the artist cannot make money. The fact that a number of pictures-such as Snake Pit and Best Years of Our Lives- is regarded by most critics as good from a dramatic point of view have also been big box office has not yet ousted front-office beliefs and

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traditions. Thus in a primitive society many natives may still cling to their magical cures after modern medical practices have been introduced. Their conservatism may be due to lack of understanding of the new medicine, and to resistance to change, and to fear, on the part of medicine men and elders, of losing prestige and power. Technically, this is called "cultural lag," more colloquially known as "not keeping up with the times."

The domination of the business executive over the artist in Hollywood is not surprising either in view of the history of the movies or in terms of American culture. Movies began as small business, an extension of the Coney Island type of entertainment. The men who started them-some still in control-were usually small entrepreneurs, some from the field of cheap entertainment some from other small businesses. The artist was not even present. Later, when he arrived on the scene, he came as the employee of those men, who by this time were big business and who still remain firmly in control.

In the values of our culture as a whole, business has always been regarded as more important than art. To say someone is "arty" is a term of opprobrium, while to say he is businesslike is a compliment. Art and artists belong to the extravagances and to the periphery of society. Business and businessmen are the essentials which make the wheels go round. Intellectuals in general occupy much the same role as the artist, unless they can contribute directly to technological improvements or to the business of making money.

From an anthropological point of view, this order of importance has no God-given sanctity; nor is it necessarily valid to make such a clear-cut separation between the two. It is possible at least to conceive that the artist, who enriches our imagination, deepens our understanding of our fellow men, broadens our experiences and sharpens our sense of moral values, is as important as the businessman. Actually the whole problem-which is the more important- is a false one. Man is a complex creature and differs from other animals in that he cannot live by bread alone. For him the spirit, whether it is called imagination, ideas, morals, or goals, is necessary for survival. While there is some general awareness of this point of new, it is usually relegated to small esoteric groups.

The conflict between business and art in Hollywood is a reflection of the conflict within our culture, but it is more sharply focused there than elsewhere. It is not inherent or necessary in the production of movies, but rather a point of view culturally determined and exaggerated there.

Since the making of movies is a highly collaborative enterprise, in which no one works alone, a study of the relations between the people who share the undertaking is essential. The writer's situation cannot be understood unless his relationship with the producer is known; and the actor's problems are unintelligible without a knowledge of his relationship with directors; all these are interrelated with front-office executives, agents, publicity writers, and many others. While each group recognizes the collaborative nature of the medium, and gives it frequent verbal obeisance, each thinks its own function the most important. There is an obvious dependency of each group on the other, and at the same time a constant struggle for control and domination.

The overt verbal behavior in all these relationships is that of love and friendship. Warm words of endearment and great cordiality set the tone. But underneath is hostility amounting frequently to hatred, and, even more important, a lack of respect for each other's work. To the casual observer all relations seem to be on a remarkably personal level. But this is merely a sugar-coating for a deep impersonality. This impersonality comes out in two important ways. People are property in no uncertain terms, usually valuable property, and everyone has his price. Underlying the endearing terms of every conversation are the questions: "What can I get from him?" . . . "What does he want from me?" . . . " Will I need him in the future, if not now?" Human relationships are regarded as basically manipulative and are lacking in all dignity.

There is a constant "jockeying" for a superior position and power. But while the competition is hard and severe, there is among the competitors a great need for each other. In the struggle and competition for power within the industry, no one can knock his opponent completely out, because in the end all of them are needed to produce a movie. Another reason for not permitting hostilities to

go too far is that status positions are transitory. One never can be sure how long any individual will remain at the top, middle, or bottom of the ladder. There is always the fear of antagonizing someone who may be important tomorrow. This could characterize only a relatively new industry. In an older one, power and status are more firmly entrenched and there is less questioning of it. The movies represent a last frontier in industry, with quick and sudden shifts. This intensifies competition, but at the same time makes it necessary to keep the adversary in a position of dependency, rather than to oust him.

The shifting nature of relationships in Hollywood is also seen in the relatively few stable partnerships. The relationships between writer and producer, director and actor and producer, usually last only for the duration of one picture. It is this situation which makes the gossip column in the daily trade paper, the Hollywood Reporter, and other similar columns, important and widely read; for it is in the gossip column that the news and intimations of new alignments may be first given. If two people are reported as dining together, that may mean they are making a deal of some kind. It was reported in one of these columns that the three-year-old girl of a producer was playing with the four-year-old child of a star who lived across the street. On the day this item appeared, the producer had some twenty-odd calls, including one from his lawyer, asking whether he was making some kind of deal with the actor.

Accompanying the transitoriness of personal relationships is the impermanence of friendships. Associates for evenings and week ends are drawn from the working companions of the day at the studio. Three months later there is a new set of associates. A man out of a job is usually a man out of friends. There seems to be a belief that success or failure is contagious through contact, a sort of sympathetic magic.

Although the production of movies, with its reliance on gossip columns and its lack of stability, is unbusinesslike in many ways, at the same time it has some of the characteristics of the assembly line. Producer, writer, director, actor, cameraman, cutter, musician, make-up man, set designer, and many others all have a set place

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and timing in the production. A unit manager endeavors to keep all efficiently geared to a schedule and a budget. The filming of sequences in a different order from that in which they finally appear contributes to the assembly-line analogy. So also does the breaking up of the writing of the script into many separate and seemingly disconnected elements. One man adapts from the novel or play, another rewrites this adaptation in the form of a script, another supplies gags or comedy touches, still another adds some characterizations, and finally the dialogue is polished by several more. All these work "under the thumb" of the producer. The emphasis given to technical details such as lighting and the great concern with appearances-costuming, sets and make-up-as compared to the meaning of the picture as a whole or its emotional validity are other characteristics similar to those of the assembly-line factory.

But closer examination reveals many other elements of move making that are foreign to the assembly line. The raw material is not a piece of steel but a product of imagination, and there is an excitement in translating it into celluloid film to be seen by millions of people. Nor does this assembly line run with the smooth precision of careful planning. Rather it operates in an atmosphere of constant crisis, towards which there are differences of attitude. Some glory in it. This feeling is well expressed in an article by Maurice Bergman, whose theme is Crisis Is the Backbone of Our Industry. To prove his point the author makes a number of interesting statements, such as:

Our adrenaline glands are more stimulated because we never know how good we are until the picture opens.... We are better conditioned to hysteria. We worry a lot, but our systems are attuned to worry. It's like other people being susceptible to the common cold. Our occupational disease is the stomach ulcer. If we escape the actuality of the ulcer, we always are reconciled to its imminence.
That's why so many of us are hypochondriacs. Living in a two-dimensional world of profitable shadows that talk and make noise, we suddenly go into shock when we get exposed to the third-dimensional world.
If a world economic crisis lurks around the corner, we con-

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tinue our abstract but imaginative skirting around it, finding solace in the dream world we build to harmoniously fit in with the dreams of our customers (God bless them). It isn't that we like such crises. Existing as we do on the people's hopes and making films evocative of these hopes, we just can't let a crisis affect our creative efforts. We have to function in our own atmosphere of crisis. Betting $400,000,000 or so a year that the pictures will please is what we term a crisis ab initio.

When someone says, "Bergman, you look worried," I always answer by saying, "No wonder; I worry all the time."

But my worries are well channeled and logical and never get out of hand. Lacking blueprints, our minds (who's that heckler?) are flexible to the degree that we necessarily have a new intellectual wardrobe every week.... Let's remember that crisis is the backbone of our business.5

Mr. Bergman represents a point of view held by many.

There are others, a smaller number, who see that many of the crises are unnecessary and artificially stimulated, and who do not enjoy them. These people resent the almost complete lack of planning and the day-by-day opportunistic attitude. They would prefer business executives who did not pride themselves on being showmen running their business by "instinct," and whose behavior did not frequently resemble that of a prima donna following erratic whims. However, the atmosphere of continuous crisis helps create the illusion of everyone's and everything's being of the greatest importance. The star refuses to play the part as it was written-and there is a crisis on hand. The Motion Picture Association office has insisted on the deletion of something which the director thinks is necessary-and this is a crisis. The producer is tearing his hair because his $3000-a-week writer is not turning out the kind of script he wants. There is a big blow-up between two important people that leaves repercussions all around. A crisis next occurs in the publicity department, because it is discovered that a secretary has sent the wrong negative for a magazine cover to meet a New York date line; she is afraid that she will be fired, and the head of the department fears that this will be a black mark against him. There

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are difficulties in shooting on location, and the unit manager is swearing over the phone to the director about the delay.... All are crises, part of the daily atmosphere. They are resolved; but everyone goes home at the end of the day exhausted. A few know, deep down, that the crisis is not really important and that the film will go on.

Sometimes, of course, the crisis is important, but often a trifling incident is blown up so as to appear a crisis. A studio limousine with two men in it drives twenty miles to an actor's home at midnight on Saturday to deliver one page of minor changes in the script of a film in which he will play a secondary role. He is not due to report to the studio for another two weeks. But - "Crisis is the backbone of our business."

Closely related to this crisis atmosphere is the lack of planning for training directors and actors and writers for their jobs. Instead, there is a parasitic reliance on stage, radio and literature, and on accidental "finds." As one might expect in such an atmosphere, there is also an anti-intellectual point of view, and the research done by the industry as a whole is negligible. Mr. Eric A. Johnston, the president of the Motion Picture Association of America, stated that the "film industry knows less about itself than any other major industry in the United States."6 In the same interview he points up a number of questions to which the industry has no answer. Among them are: "What is the relationship between the cost of films and their drawing power?" . . . "Why do some people go to movies, and why do others stay away?" . . . "What sort of people are in each group?" The answers would be of inestimable value to the industry. But the research department, situated in New York, is small, operates on a meager budget and is not equipped to undertake extensive work.

The lack of both planning and useful research may be due, in part, to the phenomenal success of the movies and their big profits, which come so easily and in spite of the methods of production, rather than because of them. Moviegoing happens to be a popular habit that fills a real need, and it takes a lot to stop it.

Another part of the anti-intellectual attitude is revealed in the superstitions which abound. These are not just the traditional ones of actors, but the untraditional ones of executives. For instance, one producer had and enormous box-office success from a script which numbered two hundred and three pages. After that, all the scripts of his movies had to have two hundred and three pages, even if this result could be obtained only by the stenographic department through such devices as spacing and margins.

Every social system operates under a number of institutionalized controls, economic, religious, family, political, legal and others. In a Stone Age Melanesian society, one of the most important of these is the kinship system, which regulates all economic and social life. The power of the elders is another control; still another lies in the taboos handed down by tradition.

Hollywood has its controls, too, which influence the method of production, the relationships between people, and leave their stamp on the movies.

One of the Hollywood controls is that of the contract between any of the various talent guilds and the studio-which, while legalistic and economic in nature, contributes much to the psychological atmosphere. Everyone, except the front-office executive and producer, is in a guild or union.

The contracts which guilds have with the studios vary in details-such as in the range of salaries-but all have one very essential feature in common: the option clause. The option contract is usually made for a period of seven years, and the studio has the privilege of renewing or dropping the option-that is, firing the employee-at the end of each six months. (In some cases it is a year instead of six months, with sometimes an increase in salary if the option is taken up.) The employee cannot, however, leave the studio of his own volition until the seven years have expired. As a union contract which gives the employer the right to fire a worker every six months, but binds the latter for seven years' service, it is unique in trade union history. Hollywood presents the picture of a l00 per cent union community, paying the highest

salaries in the country (not to mention the world), but with the atmosphere of a company town. It can also be viewed as a modern big industry, utilizing the very latest technological developments, with the air of a medieval manor and its relationships between master and serf.

In this case the master is the front-office executive; and behind him are the banks and financial interests with their goal of quick, sure and large profits. When the question is asked, "Does a picture make money?" it usually means, "Does the picture make money in the first six months?"-not over the two or three years it may be playing throughout the country.

"What are the net profits on any picture?" is the sixty-four-dollar question in Hollywood, and one of the most difficult on which to get exact data. Ideas on what is a good net profit range from 25 to 300 percent, and l00 per cent is regarded as only average. The Variety headline of April 9, 1947-Film Biz Dips to Only "Terrific" from Used-to-Be "Sensational"-is, according to the same paper, an "industry cliché."

The unusually high salaries are as important a control as the big profits. It is extremely difficult for the writer, the actor, the director, to do other than the bidding of the studio heads. He is paid highly for his docility, and it is an unusual man who will take a chance on losing a salary of two thousand dollars a week in order to keep his personal and creative integrity. Beverly Hills houses have been described as the "most beautiful slave quarters in the world.... With the best-paid slaves, it might be added.

A very important control is the star system, a keystone on which the social structure rests. The star is not only an actor, but one of the gods or folk heroes in our society. It is on his looks and personality that the picture is primarily sold, and he often takes precedence over every other element in the making of the move. Scripts are frequently written with a particular star in mind; on the set it is his will, whether logically or temperamentally exercised, which is supreme. The ramifications of the star system permeate the entire structure and leave their indelible mark on the final product, the movie.

Censorship, both direct and indirect, is another active control.

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There is the well-known Code in regard to subject matter and details of treatment-with its list of taboos that the producers impose upon themselves, a code carried out through the Production Code Administration the Motion Picture Association of America- formerly known as the "Hays Office"-now headed by Eric Johnston and administered by Joseph Breen. More indirect is the control exercised by heterogeneous organized groups such as churches, temperance leagues, parent-teachers' associations, professional and occupational groups, national and racial groups and political parties. No one can say that the American public does not take its movies seriously, and no one could be more convinced of the profound influence of the movies than members of these organized groups. Their propaganda has two themes, both negative: (1) No member of their group must be portrayed in an unflattering manner, or as the "heavy." (2) No movie should emphasize drinking, delinquency, divorce, or immorality (on the premise that movies are the cause of these social ills, or at least of their frequency). The State Department has added its critical notes: (I) No picture should show in an unflattering light the members or institutions of a foreign country with which we have cordial relations (2) Pictures designed for export abroad should "sell" the American way of life.

All these forms of direct and indirect censorship influence the script before a word is set on paper.

The producers' rule "Give the audience what it wants" is still another control. Many producers tend to see the audience in their own image. This does not, however, prevent some of them from also employing polling organizations to tell them what the audience wants in terms of plots, titles and stars.

The fears and anxieties which pervade all of Hollywood likewise function as controls. From top to bottom, no one is sure that his job or reputation will continue. "A man is only as good as his latest picture" is another saying of the industry. Even when his latest picture is successful, it does not insure the continuation of a job. Studio heads mysteriously "blow hot and cold" about their creative personnel. A man is in great favor one day, but not the next; reasons can only be speculated upon. Or, there may be a

reorganization at the top of the studio or in a department; the folk proverb "A new broom sweeps clean" is frequently carried through in personnel policy. Even important executives may be "dropped" with very little notice. There is no security in employment for anyone.

Most people feel that they owe their positions and big salaries to "getting the breaks" rather than to their own ability and hard work. Anxiety is a natural accompaniment of such a situation. Luck and the breaks are by their nature transitory, and what comes in this way can go just as easily. Only a sense of one's own real ability can give a feeling of true security. Many people give the impression of Cinderella at the ball, just before the clock strikes midnight. They are scared that their chariots will be turned back to pumpkins and that the fairy godmother will disappear.

Every picture is regarded as an enormous gamble, surrounded by the greatest uncertainties of success at the box office. Whether or not this attitude of the gamble is justified by reality is, at least, open to question. Producers who talk most about the gambling aspects rarely experiment with a new kind of film or do anything not based on either a Broadway hit or a best-selling novel, or not insured by the presence of popular stars and a big exploitation campaign. But the attitude of uncertainty pervades the whole studio, and everyone-from the front-office executive, producer, director, actor, writer, to script girl and secretary-works under conditions of anxiety and tension.

To live in this situation individuals must, of necessity, develop ways of relieving the tensions, and some of the methods become institutionalized. The manner in which both the annexes and the ways of meeting them leave their marks on the movies is seen in the more detailed discussions of writing, acting and directing in later chapters.

Frustrations and anxieties are not unique to Hollywood. They occur in every industry and society, and each society provides its compensations too. Among the latter, in Hollywood, are the satisfactions which accompany any creation, although in the making of

movies this satisfaction is frequently in inverse proportion to the creativeness of the individual. There is the camaraderie, the "kibitzing," the "smell" of the set. There is the excitement-particularly for little people-of being associated with something big, different and glamorous, something "new every day." There is the constant titillating experience of being with beautiful women and handsome men and in the general atmosphere of sexiness. But most important are the big salaries and enormous profits.

Some of the over-all important characteristics of the social structure of Hollywood have been briefly indicated. My hypothesis is that they determine, to a considerable degree, the kind of movies we see. I have mentioned the deep symbolism of Hollywood for the world, the importance of its situation in Los Angeles; I have pointed out that the movies are both big business and a popular art with widely differing goals and values, that the locus of power is in the front-office executives who control the artists, that the relationships are highly personalized on the verbal plane but impersonal on the deeper exploitive and manipulative level, that production resembles in some ways a modern factory assembly line and is at the same time characterized by constant crises, and that there are many controls-among which are big business, big profits, big salaries, censorship, the star system, "what the audience wants," and the ever-present fear and anxiety. All these leave their marks on the movies.

There is nothing in Hollywood which cannot be found elsewhere in the United States, or the rest of the world. Contradictory and conflicting patterns are part of our society. What is significant in Hollywood is the particular type of thinking and behavior which it elaborates at the cost of the kind it underplays.

Like all modern society, Hollywood is in flux, and represents a changing situation. It has deep roots in the past, which dominate the present; but there are also new tendencies, not yet very strong, some of which may be merely aberrations-and others, signposts to the future.

1. The majority of novels dealing directly with Hollywood (Bud Schulberg What Makes Sammy Run. New York: Random House. Carl Van Vechten, Spider Boy: A scenario for a moving picture. New York: Knopf. Francis Scott K. Fitzgerald, The Last Tycoon: An unfinished novel. New York: Scribners. Caroll and Garrett Graham, Queer People. New York: Grosset and Dunlap. Ludwig Bemelmans, Dirty Eddie. New York: Viking-and others) are cynical or depressing in tone and characterized by disillusionment. Some of these novels have been popular, but not on the top of best-seller lists. The group they reach is comparatively very small, a section of the intelligentsia.

2. Interview in Variety, April 14, 1948

3 .New York Times, June I, 1947, article by Gladwin Hill with a Los Angeles byline.

4. A businessman, a teacher, a scientist, an artist, a journalist can usually work under much the same conditions and earn about the same amount of money in Chicago, San Francisco, Denver or New York.

5. Variety, January 17, 1948.

6. Variety, March 27, 1946

Link to Chapter 2