Oferta y demanda de valores del BCB

The film reached movie theatres in 1939, an excellent year for Hollywood cinema, in which a mythic film like Gone with the wind and the first “quality” western Stagecoach, both based on literary sources, were also released. At that time, Hollywood was immersed in the studio system (1920s – 1950s) and the label “factory of dreams” was never more appropriate. The vast majority of the film production concentrated around big companies (the “studios”), which were in fact structured as factories and ruled by producers – businessmen. Practices like mass production, standardized designs, concentration of the whole production cycle in a single place, a radical division of labour, the routinizing of workers’ tasks, even the after-hours surveillance of employees were common in Hollywood studios (Ray 67).

In the 30s, Hollywood had the Big Five studios: Paramount, Metro Goldwyn Mayer27_{, 20}th Century Fox, Warner Bros and RKO. They worked as a vertical monopoly, producing and distributing their own films, which would be screened in their own cinema theatres. On the other hand, there were the Little Three studios: Universal, Columbia and United Artists. These

companies produced and distributed but did not possess cinema theatres. Finally, there were some big independent producers, like David Selznick and Samuel Goldwyn, who had their own studios and financed their own projects but depended on one of the majors for distribution (Nacache 12): WH1939 was released through United Artists, like all the films that Goldwyn produced.

Samuel Goldwyn was not what we nowadays understand as an independent producer. In contemporary cinema, “indie” producers are associated to arthouse, to risky, controversial projects and film festivals like American Sundance. On the contrary, Goldwyn’s working methods were archetypical of Hollywood’s studio system. He had absolute power to control every aspect of the motion pictures made by his company, which were not different from those of the Big Five. They were divided according to genre patterns (comedy, western, horror, drama…), which mimic the Fordist factory practice of standardising their products. Crewmembers would be treated as simple manufacturers, and many of them (especially scenarists and camerapersons) were rarely credited. Moreover, directors would be considered hired employees. The 1939 version of Wuthering Heights is referred to in many reviews as “Samuel Goldwyn’s version” (Nugent 28, calls it “Goldwyn’s Show”) and its shooting process suffered from his constant interference. Director William Wyler enjoyed very little creative freedom and had frequently to fight in order to keep his decisions.

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Being conscious that the stars involved were one of the biggest selling points for a movie, Goldwyn insisted in his leading actors looking glamorous all the time and even complained that Laurence Olivier was “dirty” in his stable boy clothes (Berg 298). At the same time, actors would be treated like assets who could be “borrowed” or “loaned” for a film from one studio to the other. They would be under a contract that forced them to play the roles the studio chose for them. If they refused, their weekly salary would be suspended. Actor David Niven, who played Edgar Linton in the film, explained in his autobiography that he was willing to face suspension. He wanted to get rid of the obligation to play a thankless role he considered “the actor’s nightmare”, with a director like William Wyler, who had been tyrannical to him in the past (194-198). However, consequences could be worse. The time it took to shoot the film the actor had refused would be added to the total duration of their contract, thus trapping them for years. Actors would not be able to work independently till the 1950s, with the collapse of the studio system.

Studios typically gave preference to commerciality over artistic vision, which the custom of the “sneak preview” demonstrates: before their release, films were screened to a small audience and changes were made according to their opinion, which they expressed in cards provided at the entrance.28 _{The final scene of WH1939 is not the one originally shot by Wyler. Unhappy with} audiences’ reaction in the previews, Goldwyn ordered the second unit director to shoot a different one, with stand-ins doubling for the protagonists (Berg 299). Moreover, films already had

merchandising accompanying their release. Although it would not reach the extent of nowadays films (soundtrack CDs, videogames, action figures, etc…), children of the time were able to buy the album and stickers of films such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (dir. Michael Curtiz, 1938). Many Hollywood films had a one-hour radio show version after their release, in the extremely popular Radio Lux Theatre, with the voices of the original stars whenever it was possible. It was produced by Cecil B. De Mille and sponsored by Lux soap and detergent, products that the stars involved in the broadcasting would recommend during the commercial break. WH1939 had a Radio Lux Theatre version on the 4th _{November 1941. The leading actors did not reprise their roles, although} Merle Oberon did when it was broadcasted again in 1951 (Stoneman [1996] 301 & 304). The custom of merchandising can be traced back to the pre-cinema era. Many of the consumerist practices that we associate to commercial cinema can be found in the aforementioned 1860s

“sensation novels”. The numerous fans of Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White (1859) could also buy The Woman in White perfume, cloaks and bonnets, and even the music sheets. There existed Woman in White waltz and quadrilles (Sweet xv), like modern film soundtrack CDs.

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