Grand Design: Hollywood As a Modern Business Enterprise 1930-1939

Tino Balco

University of California Press, 1995 - Business & Economics - 483 pages

The advent of color, big musicals, the studio system, and the beginning of institutionalized censorship made the thirties the defining decade for Hollywood. The year 1939, celebrated as "Hollywood's greatest year," saw the release of such memorable films as Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and Stagecoach. It was a time when the studios exercised nearly absolute control over their product as well as over such stars as Bette Davis, Clark Gable, and Humphrey Bogart. In this fifth volume of the award-winning series History of the American Cinema, Tino Balio examines every aspect of the filmmaking and film exhibition system as it matured during the Depression era.

What people are saying

Review: Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise, 1930-1939 (History of the American Cinema #5)

User Review  - Sean Cobb - Goodreads

Full of detail. The first two thirds of the book documents the salient features of the classic Hollywood studio system after the birth of sound, the last section focuses on avant-garde and documentary ...

Review: Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise, 1930-1939 (History of the American Cinema #5)

User Review  - Judy - Goodreads

This is a bit dry for me - very comprehensive, but not really what I was looking to read just now. I may go back to it in the future.

Contents

• Surviving the Great Depression: 13
• The Production Code and the Hays Office: 37
• Feeding the Maw of Exhibition: 73
• Technological Change and Classical Film Style: 119
• Selling Stars: 143
• Production Trends: 179
• Hollywoods Other Half: 313
• Documentary Film: 351
• AvantGarde Film: 387
• Bibliography: 441
• Index of Films: 473

About the author

Tino Balio is Program Director of the Arts Institute and Professor of Communication Arts and Academics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he also served as Director of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research from 1966 to 1982. He is the author of Hollywood in the Age of Television (1990), among other titles.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Grand Design: Hollywood As a Modern Business Enterprise 1930-1939; Volume 5 of History of the American cinema, Tino Balio Charles Harpole, general ed
• Author: Tino Balco
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: University of California Press, 1995
• ISBN: 0520203348, 9780520203341
• Length: 483 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Industries / Media & Communications; Performing Arts / Film & Video / History & Criticism