How The Red Scare Changed The Film Industry

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The American journalist Edward Murrow said this in regards to the Red Scare that was so prevalent during the time “No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.” After World War Two, the movie industry went through a tumultuous change. The old way of doing things was challenged. Big government wanted a division of interests, and simultaneously wanted to dig into the possibility of a communist threat. Specifically the Paramount decision and the Hollywood blacklist were brought to the forefront during this time of change. These subjects changed the direction of the film industry. During the late 1930’s the Justice Department began its antitrust challenge. The studios at the time owned most of the city movie theaters, and the independent chains had to essentially accept whatever terms the larger studios wanted. As Jon Lewis states in American Film “The studios not only controlled filmmaking from development through release but also exerted almost complete control over theatrical exhibition (Lewis, p 194).” They accomplished this by licensing films without prior viewing (blind bidding), block booking, and other monopolistic options in order to maintain control.…show more content…
The Court intended to have a betterment of management and labor relations. It challenged the way studios would combine profits to cover up a film that did not stack up monetarily. This would also cause a push to disrupt the ability of studios to collude with one another. A final change on this, and it could be considered good for the studios, is that American movies were a huge moneymaker in the overseas market. This happened in part because Europe was in a state of reconstruction and not displaying much focus on their own film
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