The Studio System

Despite occasional, unfortunate lapses into academic jargon, this collection of 14 essays-most reprinted from film criticism journals-offers some intriguing takes on the development of Hollywood's studio system. Rather than the commonly held ``assembly line'' metaphor used to describe the production process of mainstream Hollywood movies, these essays argue that many innovations occurred precisely because of studio constraints-or even, as Robert C. Allen argues in his informative essay, ``William Fox Presents Sunrise,'' because of calculated moves on the part of the studio. Denise Hartsough's essay on how the studio paid off a Chicago organized-crime syndicate to quell film-industry labor unions should garner-rightfully-the majority of the attention, though Jeffrey Sconce's examination of the development of the film adaptation of Jane Eyre is illuminating as well. Most of these essays concentrate on the major studios of the '20s, '30s and '40s and were written in the 1980s. One wonders what more recent works on the contemporary studio system have had to say in light of the increasing corporate nature of the large studios coupled with the burgeoning American independent film movement. (Jan.)