Hollywood TV: The Studio System in the Fifties

Christopher Anderson

Published by University of Texas Press 1994

Hollywood TV

The Studio System in the Fifties

Christopher Anderson

In the series Texas Film and Media Studies Series

https://doi.org/10.7560/730595

Overview
Contents

About this book

The 1950s was one of the most turbulent periods in the history of motion pictures and television. During the decade, as Hollywood's most powerful studios and independent producers shifted into TV production, TV replaced film as America's principal postwar culture industry.

This pioneering study offers the first thorough exploration of the movie industry's shaping role in the development of television and its narrative forms. Drawing on the archives of Warner Bros. and David O. Selznick Productions and on interviews with participants in both industries, Christopher Anderson demonstrates how the episodic telefilm series, a clear descendant of the feature film, became and has remained the dominant narrative form in prime-time TV.

This research suggests that the postwar motion picture industry was less an empire on the verge of ruin—as common wisdom has it—than one struggling under unsettling conditions to redefine its frontiers. Beyond the obvious contribution to film and television studies, these findings add an important chapter to the study of American popular culture of the postwar period.

Author / Editor information

Christopher Anderson is Associate Professor of Communication & Culture at Indiana University–Bloomington.

Reviews

Most definitely a book worth reading and an important contribution to media history. . . . Anderson blazes trails for continued investigation into the many historical questions surrounding the integration of film and television, questions highly relevant to the American mediascape of the 1990s.

— Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
I. Introduction: Hollywood in the Home Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
II. Thwarted Ambitions in the Studio Era Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	22
III. Escape from the Studio System: Independent Producers and Television Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	46
IV. The Sponsor's Medium: Light's Diamond Jubilee and the Campaign for the Peaceful Atom Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	70
V. David O. Selznick and the Making of Light's Diamond Jubilee Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
VI. Disneyland Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
VII. Origins of Warner Bros. Television Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	156
VIII. Negotiating the Television Text: Warner Bros. Presents Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191
IX. Reviving the Studio System at Warner Bros. Television Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	216
X. The Pathology of Mass Production Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255
XI. Epilogue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	288
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	327
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	337

Language: English
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 355

eBook

Published: November 19, 2013
ISBN: 9780292784604