Studios now aimed to produce entertainment that could not be offered by television: spectacular, larger-than-life productions, while others would lose the rights to their theatrical film libraries to other companies to sell to television.Modern HollywoodIn 1947, the first commercial TV station west of the Mississippi River, KTLA, began operating in Hollywood. In December of that year, the first Hollywood movie production was made for TV, The Public Prosecutor. And in the 1950s, music recording studios and offices began moving into Hollywood. Much of the movie industry remained in Hollywood, although the district's outward appearance changed.Though television broke the movie industry's hegemony in American entertainment, the rise of television would prove advantageous, in its way, to the movies. This is because public opinion about the quality of television content soon declined, and by contrast, cinema's status began to be regarded more and more as a serious art form as worthy of respect and study as the fine arts.

This was complemented with the Miracle Decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States reversed its earlier position and stated that motion pictures were an art form entitled to the protection of the First amendment.First Amendment to The United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights. Textually, it prevents the U.S. Congress from infringing on six rights. It forbids laws that:·Establish a state religion or prefer certain religion·Prohibit the free exercise of religion·Infringe the freedom of speech·Infringe the freedom of the press·Limit the right to assemble peaceably·Limit the right to petition the government for a redress of grievancesThe “New Hollywood” or Post – classical cinema“The New Hollywood” and 'post-classical cinema' are terms used to describe the period following the decline of the studio system in the 50s and 60s and the end of the production code. The Production Code spelled out what was and was not considered morally acceptable in the production of motion pictures for a public audience.It is defined by a greater tendency to dramatize such things as sexuality and violence, and by the rising importance of blockbuster movies.Post - classical cinema' is a term used to describe the changing methods of storytelling in the New Hollywood.

It has been argued that new approaches to drama and characterization played upon audience expectations acquired in the classical/Golden Age period: chronology may be scrambled, storylines may feature "twist endings", and lines between the antagonist and protagonist may be blurred. The roots of post-classical storytelling may be seen in film noir, in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and in Hitchcock's storyline-shattering Psycho.Walk of FameThe Walk of Fame was created in 1958 by southern Californian artist Oliver Weismuller, who was hired by the city to give Hollywood a "face lift". Many honorees received multiple stars during the initial phase of installation for contributions to separate categories.The Walk of Fame began with 2,500 blank stars. A total of 1,558 stars were awarded during its first sixteen months. Since then, about two stars have been added per month.The Hollywood SignThe famous Hollywood sign in Los Angel, California was erected in 1923 to advertise a new housing development in the hills above Hollywood. The letters were 30 feet (9 m) wide and 50 feet (15 m) high, and were originally studded with light bulbs. The sign was officially dedicated on July 13, 1923. It originally read "Hollywoodland" and for many years the sign was left to deteriorate. It had only been expected to last a year and a half. In 1932, actress Peg Entwistle committed suicide by jumping to her death from the letter "H".

Seven years later, in 1939 official maintenance of the sign ended.In 1949, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce stepped in and offered to remove the last four letters (LAND) and repair the rest. The sign, located at the top of Mount Lee is now a registered trademark and cannot be used without the permission of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.The Studios MGMRight fro The name combines those of three film production companies which merged on April 24, 1924: Metro Pictures Corporation (formed in 1916), Goldwyn Pictures Corporation (1917), and Louis B. Mayer Pictures (1918). M-G-M was controlled by Loews, Inc., the vaudeville-and-movie theater chain founded by Marcus Loew in 1904. Louis B. Mayer was made head of the studio.From Goldwyn was inhereted a runaway production, Ben Hur, which had been filming in Rome for months without producing much usable film. Though Ben-Hur was the most costly film made up to its time, it became M-G-M's first great public-relations triumph, establishing an image for the company that persisted for years.MGM tapped into the audience´s need for glamour and sophistication.Having inherited few big names from their predecessor companies, Mayer and Thalberg began at once to create (and publicize) a host of new stars, among them Greta Garbo.

The arrival of talking pictures in 1928-29 gave opportunities to other new stars, many of whom would carry MGM through in 1930´s: Clark Gable and Jean Harlow.Like its rivals, MGM produced 50 pictures a year.Loews theater were mostly located in New York and the northeast, so MGM films were often sophisticated, polished entertainments. No matter how bad the economy, MGM showed a profit every quarter all through the thirties.Before and during the World War II production values remained high, and even ´B´ pictures carried a polish and gloss that made them expensive to mount, and artificial in tone. After 1940, production was cut from fifty pictures a year to a more manageable twenty-five features per year. It was during this time that MGM released very successful musicals with newly-acquired contract players such as Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra to name just a few.MGM´s biggest cartoon stars,however,were the cat-and-mouse duo of Tom and Jerry, created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Tom and Jerry won several Oscars and nominations.

As audiences drifted away after the war, MGM found it difficult to attract audiences.MGM´s profit margins decreased. L.B. Mayer thought he had found a savior in Dore Schary, a writer and producer. Mayer's taste for wholesomeness and "beautiful" movies conflicted with Schary's charge to cut costs and produce better pictures. In August of 1951, after a period of friendly antagonism with Schary, Mayer's employment was terminated by Nicholas Schenck. An embittered Mayer, dismissed after twenty-seven years as head of the studio, never produced another picture.Schary managed to keep the studio running much as it had through the early 1950s. MGM produced some well-regarded musicals but generally it was a losing fight, as the mass audience preferred to stay home with television. , in 1956, cost overruns and the failure of the big-budget epic Raintree County prompted the studio to release Schary from his contract. By 1960, MGM had released all of their contract players, with many either retiring or moving onto television.MGM fell into a habit in this period which would eventually sink the studio: an entire year's production schedule was reliant on the success of one big-budget epic each year.

This policy began well, in 1959, when an expensive remake of Ben-Hur was profitable enough to carry the studio through 1960. But later attempts at big-budget epics failed.As MGM sank (along with the other main-line studios), a series of studio heads came and went, along with a succession of corporate managers, all hoping to bring back the studio's glory days. ParamountParamount Pictures Inc. can trace its beginnings to the creation in May, 1912, of the Famous Players Film Company. Founder Adolph Zukor, who had been an early investor in nickelodeons, saw that movies appealed mainly to working-class immigrants. With partners Daniel Frohman and Charles Frohman he planned to offer feature-length films that would appeal to the middle class by featuring the leading theatrical players of the time. By mid-1913, Famous Players had completed five films, and Zukor was on his way to success. That same year, another aspiring producer, Jesse L. Lasky, opened his "Lasky Feature Play Company".As their first employee, the Lasky company hired a stage director with no film experience, Cecil B. DeMille, who would find a suitable location-site in Hollywood, near Los Angeles for his first film, The Squaw Man.In 1916, Zukor maneuvered a three-way merger of his Famous Players, the Lasky company, and Paramount.Zukor believed in stars - after all, he had begun by offering "Famous Players in Famous Plays," as his first slogan put it. He signed and developed many of the leading early stars, among them Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino. The driving force behind Paramount's rise was Zukor.

Zukor's over-expansion and use of over-valued Paramount stock for purchases led the company into receivership in 1933. A bank-mandated reorganization team kept the company intact, and miraculously, kept Zukor on.By the 1930s, talkies brought in a range of powerful new draws: Marlene Dietrich, Mae West, Gary Cooper, Claudette Colbert, the Marx Brothers, Dorothy Lamour, Carole Lombard, and Bing Crosby among them. In this period Paramount can truly be described as a movie factory. Paramount's cartoon division was also a big success because of two major characters: Popeye The Sailor and Betty Boop.When the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department decided to re-open their case against the five integrated studios. This led to the Supreme Court decision of 1948 which broke up Adolph Zukor's amazing creation.This case finally came before the Supreme Court as U.S. vs. Paramount Pictures, et al., and in May, 1948, the court agreed with the government, finding restraint of competition, and calling for the separation of production and exhibition.

Paramount was split in two, with the 1,500-screen theater chain handed to the new United Paramount Theaters.By the mid-1950s, all the great names were gone; only C.B. DeMille, associated with Paramount since 1913, kept making pictures in the grand old style. The Paramount cartoons and shorts went to various television distributors.20th Century FoxThe company is the result of a 1935 merger of two entities, Fox Film Corporation founde by William Fox and Twentieth Century Pictures founded by Darryl F.Zanuck. The growing company needed space, and in 1926 Fox acquired three-hundred acres in the open country west of Beverly Hills and built "Movietone City," the best-equipped studio of its time. At Warner Brothers, production-head Darryl Zanuck was in a feud over money; tight-fisted Warners had cut costs in the depression by reducing salaries. When Zanuck asked for his pay to be restored, they refused, and he quit. Days later he announced the formation of a new company Twentieth Century Pictures, in partnership with Joseph Schenck. Twentieth Century – Fox Film Corporation, was created on May 31, 1935Zanuck quickly signed young actors who would carry Twentieth Century-Fox for years: Henry Fonda and Betty Grable.

Favoring popular biographies and musicals, Zanuck built Fox back to profitability.With pictures like Wilson, Gentleman's Agreement, The Snake Pit, Boomerang and Pinkie, Zanuck established a reputation for provocative, adult films. Fox also specialized in adaptations of best-selling books and Broadway musicals.Fox mortgaged its studio to buy rights to a French anamorphic projection system which gave a slight illusion of depth without glasses. In February, 1953, Zanuck announced that henceforth all Fox pictures would be made in CinemaScope. Seeing the box-office for the first two CinemaScope features, The Robe and How to Marry a Millionaire, Warners, MGM, Universal and Columbia quickly adopted the process.After discovering Zanuck's affair with actress Bella Darvi. Zanuck moved to Paris, setting up as an independent producer; he did not set foot in California again for fifteen years.

Chairman Spyros Skouras brought in a series of production executives, but none had Zanuck's touch. By the early 1960s Fox was in trouble. A remake of Theda Bara's Cleopatra had begun in 1959 with Joan Collins in the lead; as a publicity gimmick producer Walter Wanger offered one million dollars to Elizabeth Taylor if she woud star; Taylor accepted, and costs for Cleopatra began to escalate. The only possible savior was Darryl F. Zanuck. He was installed as chairman; then named his son Richard Zanuck as president. This new management group: seized Cleopatra and rushed it to completion; shut down the studio and laid off the entire staff to save money; axed the long-running Movietone Newsreel; and, with limited funds, made a series of cheap, popular pictures that luckily restored Fox as a major studio.