World Film History I, 5
Japanese and Hollywood cinema
cinema untill the II World War
Early Japanese cinema
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Terminology: benshi, onnagata
TSUNEKICHI SHIBATA: Ninin Dojojii (Two
People at Dojo Temple, 1899)
NORIMASA KAERIYAMA: Sei no kagayaki
(Glow of Life, 1918), Miyama no otome
(Maiden of the Deep Valleys, 1918)
EIZO TANAKA: Kyoya erimise (The Kyoya
Collar Shop 1922)
KENSAKU SUZUKI: Tabi no onna geinin
(Wandering Female Artist, 1923)
Japanese producers and genres
Major producers
 Nikkatsu (1912)
 Tenkatsu (1914)
 Shochiku (1920)
 TOHO (1934)
Japanese genres
 jidai-geki
 nansensu
 keiko eiga
 gendai-geki
 shosmin-geki
 burojoa-eiga
 haha-mono
historical films
”nonsense” comedes
tendency films
contemporary middle class stories
stories about lower middle class
stories about upper middle class
mother films
Japanese cinema until the Second World War
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KENJI MIZOGUCHI: Chi to rei (Blood and Spirit, 1923), Gion no
kyodai (Gionin sisters, 1936), Zangiku monogatari (Story of the
Last Chryasantemum, 1939), Genroku chushingura (47 Ronin,
1941)
SHIGEYOSHI SUZUKI: Nani ga kanojo wo so saseta ka (What
Made him Do it?, 1930)
DAISUKE ITO: Chuji tabi nikki (The Diary of a Chuji wanderer,
1927)
HEINOSUKE GOSHO: Madamu to nyobo (The Neighbours Wife
and Mine, 1931)
TENOSUKE KINUGASA: Kurutta ippeji (A Page of Madness,
1926)
MIKIO NARUSE: Tsuma yo bara no yo ni (Wife, be like a Rose,
1935)
YASUJIRO OZU: Radukai wa shita keredo (I flunked, but
…1931), Hitori musuko (The Only Son,1936)
Hollywood studios in the 1930s
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The Big Five
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Minors:
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Paramount
Loew's (MGM)
Fox (→ Twentieth Century Fox since 1935)
Warner Brothers
RKO
Universal
Columbia
United Artists
"Powerty Row”
Paramount
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Diretors/producers: Adolph Zukor, Barney Balaban
Directors: Rouben Mamoulian, Ernst Lubitsch, Josef von
Sternberg, Cecil B. De Mille (tuottaja-ohjaaja)
Stars: Fredric March, Claudette Colbert, Herbert
Marshall, Sylvia Sydney, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Bing
Crosby, W.C. Fields
Films: Lowell Sherman: She Done Him Wrong (1933),
De MiIle: Sign of the Cross (1932), Cleopatra (1934), The
Crusades (1935); Lubitsch: One Hour with You (1932),
Trouble in Paradise (1932), The Merry Widow (1934),
Ninotchka (1939); Sternberg: Morocco (1930), Shanghai
Express (1932), Blonde Venus (1932), The Scarlet
Empress (1934). The best of the Marx bros.
Loew’s/MGM
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Diretors/producers: Louis B. Mayer, Irving
Thalberg, David O. Selznickin
Directors: Frank Borzage, Clarence Brown, King
Vidor, Vincente Minnelli, Sam Wood, Victor Fleming,
George Cukor, Rouben Mamoulian, Fritz Lang
Stars: ”More stars than in the sky!" Greta Garbo,
Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Spencer
Tracy, Robert Montgomery, James Stewart, Judy
Garland etc.
Films Fleming: The Wizard of Of (1936) ja Gone
with the Wind (1939); Mamoulian: Queen Christina
(1933) ja Becky Sharp (1935); Wood: A Night at the
Opera (1935); Brown: Anna Karenina (1935); Lang:
Fury (1936). Cheepie series films such as Andy
Hardy, Tarzan and Dr Kildare
20th Century Fox
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Diretors/producers: William Fox, Darryl F. Zanuck
Directors: Henry King, Alan Dwan, John Ford, Ernst
Lubitsch, Henry Hathaway
Stars: Shirley Temple, Betty Grable, Tyrone Power,
Henry Fonda, Loretta Young, Alice Fay
Films: Ford Judge priest (1934), Steamboat Round
the Bend (1935), Young Mr Lincoln (1939), The
Grapes of Wrath (1940). Glamorous musicals,
special effect catastrophe films such as Dante’s
Inferno (1935) and The Rains Came (1939). Shirley
Temple and Charlie Chan films
Warner Brothers
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Diretors/producers Hall B: Wallis, Henry Blanke,
Jack L. Warner
Directors Michael Curtiz, Anatole Litvak, William
Dieterle, Mervyn LeRoy, Lloyd Bacon, William
Wellman
Stars James Cagney, Bette Davis, Humphrey
Bogart, Errol Flynn, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G.
Robinson
Films Bacon: 42nd Street (1933); Le Roy: Little
Caesar (1930), I Am a Fugitive from Chain Gang
(1932); Wellman Public Enemy (1931); Curtiz Black
Fury (1935), Angels With Dirty Faces (1938); Litvak:
Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939)
RKO
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Diretors/producers: Howard Hughes
Directors: George Stevens, Mark Sandrich, George
Cukor, William Dieterle, Howard Hawks
Stars Katherine Hepburn, Fred Astaire & Ginger
Rhodes
Films Cukor: Little Women (1933); Hawks: Bringing
up Baby (1938); Cooper & Shoedesack: King Kong
(1939); Orson Welles: Citizen Kane (1941), eight
Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers films, Val Lewton’s
horror films
The minor studios
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Universal Pictures James Whale: Frankenstein
(1931), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), The
Invisible Man (1935); Karl Freund: The Mummy
(1932); Lewis Milestone: All Quiet on the Western
Front (1930); George Marshall: Destry Rides Again
(1939); Tod Browning: Dracula (1931), Melodramas
and horror films
Columbia: Howard Hawks: The Twentieth Century
(1934), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl
Friday (1940); Frank Capra: It Happened one Night
(1934), Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Mr Smith
Goes to Washington (1939)
United Artists: Chaplin: City Lights (1931), Modern
Times (1936); King Vidor: Street Scene (1931),
Howard Hawks: Scarface (1932), William Wyler
Wuthering Heights (1939)
Technical development in the 1930s
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Multiple track sound editing becomes a standard by
1932
Special effects technology develops - earlier on
tricks would be made mainly with the camera
”Second unit” shoots background projections apart
from the other shooting
Optical printer
Soft-focus technology, glamour lighting (Kodack
Super Sensitive Panchromatic Film 1931)
Deep focus cinematography
Three Color -Technicolor