The Failure Of The Studio System

The studio system began as a system designed by men such as Thomas Edison and Carl Laemmie to make, distribute and exhibit movies. (p.468) The system began to change in the golden age of films, then began to decline due to the economy, government intervention and reorganization of the studio system. (p.473-4) The start of the studio system began in the early 1900’s by men like Thomas Edison. The early beginnings of the studio system by men like Edison was to control,create and profit from films.There were two main companies Carl Laemmle had the Motion Picture Patents Company and it began to be threatened by Thomas Edison’s Motion Picture Production Code. The idea of both of those companies was to control the film industry and make it a monopoly. You can quickly see how this would cause a major failure to film studios. Because of the fiscal push on the film industry prior to the golden age of films studios pushed quantity over quality and because of the failure of these types of movies the studio heads pushed for a new studio system. They way it began to take shape almost reminds you of our government with a system of checks and balances.
There were three factors that contributed to this, one is that basically the studios and producers hurt themselves by their own success. The second is that because of the failings of the film industry and the current studio system the government began to intervene and because of the economic restructuring after the war it was said that things had to change and it began to work and rejuvenate the film industry partly in thanks to the development and use of Unions. (p.474) and finally by the re-organizing of the studio management into producer unit style systems helped to again eliminate the old studio system way of doing things which enabled the growth of more independent producers and the better quality films and film