121-579: Old Joe may refer to: People, real or fictional [ edit ] Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. , patriarch of the Kennedy political family Joseph Stalin , (1879–1953) Communist dictator of the USSR from 1929 until his death in 1953 Joe Biden (born 1942), current president of the United States, sometimes referred to as "old joe" in the media Old Joe (Breaking Bad) ,
242-572: A stereotypical Irish vice that he offered his sons $ 1,000 not to drink until they turned 21. Kennedy reinvested the proceeds he made from liquor importing into various residential and commercial real estate ventures, much of it concentrated in New York City, and the Hialeah Park Race Track in Hialeah, Florida . The most important purchase of his real estate investment career was marked by
363-603: A Wonderful Life , It Happened One Night , the original King Kong , Mutiny on the Bounty , Top Hat , City Lights , Red River , The Lady from Shanghai , Rear Window , On the Waterfront , Rebel Without a Cause , Some Like It Hot , and The Manchurian Candidate . The studio system and the Golden Age of Hollywood succumbed to two forces that developed in the late 1940s: In 1938, Walt Disney's Snow White and
484-423: A bachelor's degree in economics. Kennedy set his future sights on embarking on a business career upon his graduation from Harvard. During his mid to late 20s, he made a large fortune as an active commodity and stock investor; he then reinvested much of his proceeds into film studios, real estate, and shipping lines. Although Kennedy never built a significant business from scratch, his timing as both buyer and seller
605-564: A character in the TV series Breaking Bad Old Joe, a character portrayed by Bruce Willis in the 2012 Looper (film) Old Joe, a minor character in A Christmas Carol who buys the belongings of the deceased Scrooge Other uses [ edit ] Old Joe (Norfork, Arkansas) , rock art panel listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in Arkansas Old Joe Clark , a folk song 10515 Old Joe , an asteroid Joe Camel ,
726-957: A colleague, "Look at that bunch of pants pressers in Hollywood making themselves millionaires. I could take the whole business away from them." One small studio, Film Booking Offices of America (or FBO), specialized in Westerns produced cheaply. Its owner was in financial trouble, and asked Kennedy to help find a new owner. Kennedy formed his own group of investors and bought it for $ 1.5 million. In March 1926, Kennedy moved to Hollywood to focus on running film studios. At that time, film studios were permitted to own exhibition companies, which were necessary to get their films on local screens. With that in mind, he bought controlling shares in Keith-Albee-Orpheum Theaters Corporation (KAO), which had more than 700 vaudeville theaters across
847-549: A compromise with Arnold in October 1940 and signing a consent decree agreeing to, within three years: The "Little Three" ( Universal Studios , United Artists , and Columbia Pictures ), who did not own any theaters, refused to participate in the consent decree. A number of independent film producers were also unhappy with the compromise and formed a union known as the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers and sued Paramount for
968-419: A computer and manipulate them digitally. The possibilities became apparent in director James Cameron 's Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), in images of the shape-changing character T-1000 . Computer graphics or CG advanced to a point where Jurassic Park (1993) was able to use the techniques to create realistic looking animals. Jackpot (2001) became the first film that was shot entirely in digital. In
1089-587: A former advertising mascot for Camel cigarettes Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower at the University of Birmingham, England Old Joe, a Confederate Civil War memorial in Gainesville, Georgia , in the United States of America See also [ edit ] Poor Joe (disambiguation) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with
1210-408: A homegrown supply of actors—lured west from the New York City stage after the introduction of sound films—to form one of the 20th century's most remarkable growth industries. At motion pictures' height of popularity in the mid-1940s, the studios were cranking out a total of about 400 movies a year, seen by an audience of 90 million Americans per week. Sound also became widely used in Hollywood in
1331-434: A large fortune as a stock and commodity market investor, and later rolled over his proceeds by dedicating a substantial amount of his wealth into investment-grade real estate and a wide range of privately controlled businesses across the United States. During World War I he was an assistant general manager of a Boston area Bethlehem Steel shipyard; through that position he became acquainted with Franklin D. Roosevelt , who
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#17328873926391452-525: A list of recommended candidates for the SEC chairmanship. Kennedy headed the list, which stated he was "the best bet for Chairman because of executive ability, knowledge of habits and customs of business to be regulated and ability to moderate different points of view on Commission." Kennedy sought out the best lawyers available, giving him a hard-driving team with a mission for reform. They included William O. Douglas and Abe Fortas , both of whom were later named to
1573-624: A major film production center. In Colorado , Denver was home to the Art-O-Graf Film Company, and Walt Disney 's early Laugh-O-Gram Studio was based in Kansas City , Missouri . From 1908, Jacksonville, Florida's motion picture industry saw more than 30 silent film companies establish studios in town, including Kalem Studios , Metro Pictures (later MGM ), Edison Studios , Majestic Films, King-Bee Films Corporation , Vim Comedy Company , Norman Studios , Gaumont Film Company and
1694-620: A major in the Coldstream Guards , was killed in action in 1944. Kennedy rejected the belief of Winston Churchill that any compromise with Nazi Germany was impossible. Instead, he supported Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain 's policy of appeasement . Throughout 1938, while the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Germany intensified, Kennedy attempted to arrange a meeting with Adolf Hitler . Shortly before
1815-1007: A marvelous sense of timing". During the Great Depression , Kennedy shrewdly increased his wealth by devoting most of it into investment-grade real estate. In 1929, Kennedy's fortune was estimated to be $ 4 million (equivalent to $ 71 million in 2023). By 1935, his wealth had increased to $ 180 million (equivalent to $ 4 billion in 2023). He also acquired enough capital to establish million-dollar trust funds for each of his nine children that guaranteed lifelong financial independence. Kennedy generated windfall profits from reorganizing and refinancing several Hollywood film studios . He began with film distribution in New England, buying first movie theaters in Massachusetts, but quickly moved on to industry-wide arrangements and production. While still at Hayden, Stone & Co., Kennedy boasted to
1936-798: A number of theaters in the late 1920s, and would hold a monopoly on theaters in Detroit, Michigan . By the 1930s, almost all of the first-run metropolitan theaters in the United States were owned by the Big Five studios— MGM , Paramount Pictures , RKO , Warner Bros. , and 20th Century Fox . Motion picture companies operated under the studio system . The major studios kept thousands of people on salary—actors, producers, directors, writers, stunt men, crafts persons, and technicians. They owned or leased Movie Ranches in rural Southern California for location shooting of westerns and other large-scale genre films, and
2057-505: A prominent stock brokerage firm with offices in Boston and New York, where he became an expert dealing in the unregulated stock market of the day, engaging in tactics that were later considered to be insider trading and market manipulation violations. He happened to be on the corner of Wall and Broad Streets at the moment of the Wall Street bombing on September 16, 1920, and was thrown to
2178-531: A raid against the stock himself. In 1933, he helped establish a "stock pool" that bought large quantities of stock in Libbey-Owens-Ford (LOF), an auto-glass manufacturer, and wash-traded huge volumes of stock among themselves while promoting the outright fraud that their company was related to Owens-Illinois , a glassmaker that made bottles which presumably would have profited from the imminent repeal of Prohibition. Kennedy later claimed he understood that
2299-427: A run for Governor of Massachusetts in 1942. However, even during the darkest months of World War II, Kennedy remained "more wary of" prominent American Jews, such as Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter , than he was of Hitler. Kennedy told the reporter Joe Dinneen: It is true that I have a low opinion of some Jews in public office and in private life. That does not mean that I. ... believe they should be wiped off
2420-515: A set of still cameras placed in a row. Muybridge's accomplishment led inventors everywhere to attempt to make similar devices. In the United States , Thomas Edison was among the first to produce such a device, the kinetoscope and kinetograph . The history of cinema in the United States can trace its roots to the East Coast , where, at one time, Fort Lee, New Jersey , was the motion-picture capital of America. The American film industry began at
2541-615: A significant share, was under threat of takeover. Kennedy borrowed $ 45,000 (equivalent to $ 1.4 million in 2023) from family and friends and bought back control. At the age of 25, he was rewarded by being elected the bank's president. Kennedy told the press he was "the youngest" bank president in America. In May 1917, Kennedy was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Massachusetts Electric Company, New England's leading public utility at
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#17328873926392662-431: A third term, which began in 1941. Kennedy may have wanted to run for president himself in 1940 or later. Having effectively removed himself from the national stage, Joe Sr. sat out World War II on the sidelines. Kennedy stayed active in the smaller venues of rallying Irish-American and Roman Catholic Democrats to vote for Roosevelt's re-election for a fourth term in 1944 . Former Ambassador Kennedy claimed to be eager to help
2783-634: A time to theaters and use the lock-in to cover for releases of mediocre quality. Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold —a noted " trust buster " of the Roosevelt administration—took this opportunity to initiate proceedings against the eight largest Hollywood studios in July 1938 for violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act . The federal suit resulted in five of the eight studios (the "Big Five": Warner Bros. , MGM , Fox , RKO and Paramount ) reaching
2904-401: A vacant lot near Georgia Street in downtown Los Angeles. While there, the company decided to explore new territories, traveling several miles north to Hollywood: a little village that was friendly and enjoyed the movie company filming there. Griffith then filmed the first movie ever shot in Hollywood, In Old California , a Biograph melodrama about California in the 19th century, when the state
3025-449: Is a helluva long way from East Boston, isn't it?" On May 6, 1944, Kennedy's daughter, Kathleen , married William "Billy" Cavendish , Marquess of Hartington, the elder son of the Duke of Devonshire . The union was disapproved by Rose Kennedy due to Hartington being an Anglican. Unable to reconcile their religious backgrounds, Hartington and Kathleen were married in a civil ceremony. Hartington,
3146-760: Is finished in England. It may be here [in the United States]", he stated in the Boston Sunday Globe of November 10, 1940. With German troops having overrun Poland , Denmark , Norway , Belgium , the Netherlands , Luxembourg , and France , and with daily bombings of Great Britain, Kennedy unambiguously and repeatedly stated that the war was not about saving democracy from National Socialism (Nazism) or from Fascism. In an interview with two newspaper journalists, Louis M. Lyons of The Boston Globe , and Ralph Coghlan of
3267-433: Is still typical of most films made in America today. While French filmmakers Auguste and Louis Lumière are generally credited with the birth of modern cinema, American cinema soon came to be a dominant force in the emerging industry. With more than 600 English-language films released annually as of 2017 , it has produced the fourth-largest number of films of any national cinema , after India , Japan , and China . While
3388-554: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch , Kennedy said: It's all a question of what we do with the next six months. The whole reason for aiding England is to give us time ... As long as she is in there, we have time to prepare. It isn't that [Britain is] fighting for democracy. That's the bunk. She's fighting for self-preservation, just as we will if it comes to us. ... I know more about the European situation than anybody else, and it's up to me to see that
3509-561: The Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles County, California . Director D. W. Griffith was central to the development of a film grammar . Orson Welles 's Citizen Kane (1941) is frequently cited in critics' polls as the greatest film of all time . The first recorded instance of photographs capturing and reproducing motion was a series of photographs of a running horse by Eadweard Muybridge , which he took in Palo Alto, California , using
3630-1072: The Kalem Company began using Fort Lee as a location for filming in the area, other filmmakers quickly followed. In 1909, a forerunner of Universal Studios , the Champion Film Company , built the first studio. Others quickly followed and either built new studios or leased facilities in Fort Lee. In the 1910s and 1920s , film companies such as the Independent Moving Pictures Company, Peerless Pictures Studios , Solax Studios , Eclair , Goldwyn Pictures Corporation , Star Film ( Georges Méliès ), World Film Company , Biograph Studios , Fox Film Corporation , Société Pathé Frères , Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. , Victor Film Company , and Selznick International Pictures were all making pictures in Fort Lee. Such notables as Mary Pickford got their start at Biograph Studios. In New York,
3751-674: The Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens , which was built during the silent film era, was used by the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields . The Edison Studios were located in the Bronx . Chelsea, Manhattan , was also frequently used. Other Eastern cities, most notably Chicago and Cleveland , also served as early centers for film production. In the West, California was already quickly emerging as
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3872-486: The Lubin Manufacturing Company . Picture City, Florida was a planned site for a movie picture production center in the 1920s, but due to the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane , the idea collapsed and Picture City, Florida returned to its original name of Hobe Sound . An attempt to establish a film production center in Detroit also proved unsuccessful. The film patents wars of the early 20th century helped
3993-537: The Nazi bombing of British cities began in September 1940, Kennedy once again sought a personal meeting with Hitler without the approval of the U. S. Department of State, in order to "bring about a better understanding between the United States and Germany". When war came in September 1939, Kennedy's public support for American neutrality conflicted with Roosevelt's increasing efforts to provide aid to Britain. "Democracy
4114-614: The antagonist and protagonist may be blurred. The roots of post-classical storytelling may be seen in film noir , in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and in Hitchcock's storyline-shattering Psycho . The New Hollywood is the emergence of a new generation of film school-trained directors who had absorbed the techniques developed in Europe in the 1960s as a result of the French New Wave;
4235-466: The richest people in the United States in 1957, it placed Kennedy in the $ 200–400 million group, which is equivalent to roughly 3.2 billion dollars in 2023. Kennedy's first job after graduating from Harvard was a position as a state-employed bank examiner, where the job allowed him to learn a great deal about the banking industry. In 1913, the Columbia Trust Bank, in which his father held
4356-407: The studios and Hollywood grew. Before World War I , films were made in several American cities, but filmmakers tended to gravitate towards southern California as the industry developed. They were attracted by the warm, predictable climate with reliable sunlight, which made it possible to film their films outdoors year-round alongside the varied scenery that was available. War damage contributed to
4477-705: The "Jew media" in the United States to become a problem, that "Jewish pundits in New York and Los Angeles" were already making noises contrived to "set a match to the fuse of the world". By August 1940, Kennedy worried that a third term for President Roosevelt would mean war. Biographer Laurence Leamer in The Kennedy Men: 1901–1963 reports: "Joe believed that Roosevelt, Churchill, the Jews, and their allies would manipulate America into approaching Armageddon ." Nevertheless, Kennedy supported Roosevelt's third term in return for Roosevelt's promise to support Joseph Kennedy Jr. in
4598-530: The "shining star among the dim 'knights' in the [Roosevelt] Administration". In 1938, Roosevelt appointed Kennedy as the United States ambassador to the Court of St James's (United Kingdom). Kennedy hoped to succeed Roosevelt in the White House, telling a British reporter in late 1939 that he was confident that Roosevelt would "fall" in 1940 (that year's presidential election). Kennedy and his family retreated to
4719-545: The 1930s, with a radio audience that reached millions every week. Having been a strong supporter of Roosevelt since 1932, in 1934 Coughlin broke with the president, who became a bitter opponent and a target of Coughlin's weekly anti-communist, anti-Semitic , far-right, anti–Federal Reserve and isolationist radio talks. Roosevelt sent Kennedy and other prominent Irish Catholics to try to tone down Coughlin. Coughlin swung his support to Huey Long in 1935, and then to William Lemke 's Union Party in 1936. Kennedy strongly supported
4840-533: The 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde marked the beginning of American cinema rebounding as well, as a new generation of films would afterwards gain success at the box offices as well. Filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola , Steven Spielberg , George Lucas , Brian De Palma , Stanley Kubrick , Martin Scorsese , Roman Polanski , and William Friedkin came to produce fare that paid homage to the history of film and developed upon existing genres and techniques. Inaugurated by
4961-609: The 1969 release of Andy Warhol 's Blue Movie , the phenomenon of adult erotic films being publicly discussed by celebrities (like Johnny Carson and Bob Hope ), and taken seriously by critics (like Roger Ebert ), a development referred to, by Ralph Blumenthal of The New York Times , as " porno chic ", and later known as the Golden Age of Porn , began, for the first time, in modern American culture. According to award-winning author Toni Bentley , Radley Metzger 's 1976 film The Opening of Misty Beethoven , based on
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5082-520: The 1990s had access to technological, political and economic innovations that had not been available in previous decades. Dick Tracy (1990) became the first 35 mm feature film with a digital soundtrack. Batman Returns (1992) was the first film to make use of the Dolby Digital six-channel stereo sound that has since become the industry standard. Computer-generated imagery was greatly facilitated when it became possible to transfer film images into
5203-542: The Catholic watchdog organization The Legion of Decency —appalled by some of the provocative films and lurid advertising of the era later classified Pre-Code Hollywood —threatened a boycott of motion pictures if it did not go into effect. The films that did not obtain a seal of approval from the Production Code Administration had to pay a $ 25,000 fine (equivalent to $ 455,976 in 2023) and could not profit in
5324-656: The Fox Film Corporation owned the Fox Theatre . RKO (a 1928 merger between Keith-Orpheum Theaters and the Radio Corporation of America ) also responded to the Western Electric/ERPI monopoly over sound in films, and developed their own method, known as Photophone , to put sound in films. Paramount, which acquired Balaban and Katz in 1926, would answer to the success of Warner Bros. and RKO by purchasing
5445-519: The German ambassador to the United Kingdom, who claimed upon his return to Berlin that Kennedy had told him that "it was not so much the fact that we want to get rid of the Jews that was so harmful to us, but rather the loud clamor with which we accompanied this purpose. [Kennedy] himself fully understood our Jewish policy." Kennedy's main concern with such violent acts against German Jews as Kristallnacht
5566-510: The Hollywood antitrust case, as did the Little Three studios. The United States Supreme Court eventually ruled in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. that the major studios ownership of theaters and film distribution was a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act . As a result, the studios began to release actors and technical staff from their contracts with the studios. This changed
5687-466: The Hollywood studios. The Classical style began to emerge in 1913, was accelerated in 1917 after the U.S. entered World War I , and finally solidified when the film The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, ending the silent film era and increasing box-office profits for the film industry by introducing sound to feature films. Most Hollywood pictures adhered closely to a formula— Western , slapstick comedy , musical , animated cartoon , biographical —and
5808-588: The Kennedy family's private fortune, including being a source of funding for financing his sons' future political campaigns. In 1932 , Kennedy supported Franklin D. Roosevelt in his bid for the presidency. This was his first major involvement in a national political campaign, and he donated, lent, and raised a substantial amount of money for the campaign. In 1934, Congress established the independent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to end irresponsible market manipulations and dissemination of false information about securities. Roosevelt's brain trust drew up
5929-518: The New Deal (Father Coughlin believed that the New Deal did not go far enough, and thought that Franklin Roosevelt was a tool of the rich) and reportedly believed as early as 1933 that Coughlin was "becoming a very dangerous proposition" as an opponent of Roosevelt and "an out and out demagogue". In 1936, Kennedy worked with Roosevelt, Bishop Francis Spellman and Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII ) to shut Coughlin down. When Coughlin returned to
6050-508: The SEC was protecting their interests. He resigned from the SEC in September 1935. In 1936 , Roosevelt sought Kennedy's help on the campaign, and Kennedy responded with his book I'm for Roosevelt , which he had published and made sure was widely distributed. The book presented arguments for why businessmen should support Roosevelt and the New Deal , told from the perspective of Kennedy's own personal endorsement. The book had significant impact in
6171-492: The Seven Dwarfs was released during a run of lackluster films from the major studios, and quickly became the highest grossing film released to that point. Embarrassingly for the studios, it was an independently produced animated film that did not feature any studio-employed stars. This stoked already widespread frustration at the practice of block-booking , in which studios would only sell an entire year's schedule of films at
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#17328873926396292-495: The Supreme Court. The SEC had four missions. First was to restore investor confidence in the securities market, which had collapsed on account of its questionability, and the external threats supposedly posed by anti-business elements in the Roosevelt administration. Second, the SEC had to get rid of penny-ante swindles based on false information, fraudulent devices, and get-rich-quick schemes . Thirdly, and much more important than
6413-584: The U.S. According to Harvey Klemmer, who served as one of Kennedy's embassy aides, Kennedy habitually referred to Jews as " kikes or sheenies". Kennedy allegedly told Klemmer that "[some] individual Jews are all right, Harvey, but as a race they stink. They spoil everything they touch." When Klemmer returned from a trip to Germany and reported the pattern of vandalism and assaults on Jews by Nazis, Kennedy responded, "Well, they brought it on themselves." On June 13, 1938, Kennedy met in London with Herbert von Dirksen ,
6534-502: The US film industry. They were able to make their mark in a brand-new business: the exhibition of short films in storefront theaters called nickelodeons , after their admission price of a nickel (five cents). Within a few years, men like Samuel Goldwyn , William Fox , Carl Laemmle , Adolph Zukor , Louis B. Mayer , and the Warner Brothers (Harry, Albert, Samuel, and Jack) had switched to
6655-414: The United States that had begun showing movies. In October 1928, he formally merged his film companies FBO and KAO to form Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) and made a large amount of money in the process. Kennedy had no interest in vaudeville; he just wanted the theaters, which he planned to convert to movie houses for the film booking interests he ran in cooperation with Radio Corporation of America (RCA). As
6776-626: The United States. Although he was skeptical of American involvement in World War I , Kennedy sought to participate in wartime production as an assistant general manager of Fore River , a major Bethlehem Steel shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts . There, he oversaw the production of transports and warships. Through this job, he became acquainted with Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt . In 1919, Kennedy joined Hayden, Stone & Co. ,
6897-419: The actors who appeared in it; MGM , for example, claimed it had contracted "more stars than there are in heaven." Each studio had its own style and characteristic touches which made it possible to know this—a trait that rarely exists today. For example, To Have and Have Not (1944) is notable not only for the first pairing of actors Humphrey Bogart (1899–1957) and Lauren Bacall (1924–2014), but because it
7018-442: The air in 1940, Kennedy continued to battle against his influence among Irish Americans. Despite his public disputes with Coughlin, it has also been acknowledged that Kennedy would also accompany Coughlin whenever the priest visited Roosevelt at Hyde Park. A historian with History News Network also stated that Coughlin was a friend of Kennedy as well. In a Boston Post article of August 16, 1936, Coughlin referred to Kennedy as
7139-539: The business community and after his re-election, Roosevelt appointed Kennedy as Chairman of the United States Maritime Commission , which built on his wartime experience in running a major shipyard. Kennedy spent only ten months at the Commission. Father Charles Coughlin , an Irish Canadian priest near Detroit , became the most prominent Roman Catholic spokesman on political and financial issues in
7260-453: The country gets it. Kennedy's views became inconsistent and increasingly isolationist . British MP Josiah Wedgwood IV , who had himself opposed the British government's earlier appeasement policy, said of Kennedy: We have a rich man, untrained in diplomacy, unlearned in history and politics, who is a great publicity seeker and who apparently is ambitious to be the first Catholic president of
7381-522: The countryside during the bombings of London by German aircraft in World War II. In so doing, he damaged his reputation with the British. This move prompted Randolph Churchill to say, "I thought my daffodils were yellow until I met Joe Kennedy". Kennedy developed a reputation as a defeatist . According to the U.S. National Archives: In London, the American Ambassador and his wife soared to
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#17328873926397502-399: The decline of the then-dominant European film industry, in favor of the United States , where infrastructure was still intact. The stronger early public health response to the 1918 flu epidemic by Los Angeles compared to other American cities reduced the number of cases there and resulted in a faster recovery, contributing to the increasing dominance of Hollywood over New York City. During
7623-473: The developer of photophone , a sound system for the new " talkies ", RCA needed to forge a connection with Hollywood to sell its product. At the same time Kennedy knew that he needed to compete in the new market of sound films and to do so he would have to have access to a technology that was not proprietary. Keen to buy the Pantages Theatre chain, which had 63 profitable theaters, Kennedy made an offer of $ 8 million (equivalent to $ 142 million in 2023). It
7744-506: The early New Hollywood films like Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider had been relatively low-budget affairs with amoral heroes and increased sexuality and violence, the enormous success enjoyed by Friedkin with The Exorcist , Spielberg with Jaws , Coppola with The Godfather and Apocalypse Now , Scorsese with Taxi Driver , Kubrick with 2001: A Space Odyssey , Polanski with Chinatown , and Lucas with American Graffiti and Star Wars , respectively helped to give rise to
7865-427: The early times of talkies, American studios found that their sound productions were rejected in foreign-language markets and even among speakers of other dialects of English. The synchronization technology was still too primitive for dubbing . One of the solutions was creating parallel foreign-language versions of Hollywood films. Around 1930, the American companies opened a studio in Joinville-le-Pont , France, where
7986-494: The end of the 19th century, with the construction of Thomas Edison's " Black Maria ", the first motion-picture studio in West Orange, New Jersey . The cities and towns on the Hudson River and Hudson Palisades offered land at costs considerably less than New York City across the river, and benefited greatly as a result of the phenomenal growth of the film industry at the turn of the 20th century. The industry began attracting both capital and innovative work forces. In 1907, when
8107-465: The end of their careers or used the same creative teams on their films so that a DeMille film still looked like one whether it was made in 1932 or 1956. Post-classical cinema is the changing methods of storytelling in the New Hollywood. It has been argued that new approaches to drama and characterization played upon audience expectations acquired in the classical period: chronology may be scrambled, storylines may feature " twist endings ", and lines between
8228-441: The eventual shift of virtually all filmmaking to the West Coast by the 1930s. At the time, Thomas Edison owned almost all the patents relevant to motion picture production and movie producers on the East Coast acting independently of Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company were often sued or enjoined by Edison and his agents while movie makers working on the West Coast could work independently of Edison's control. In Los Angeles,
8349-415: The example for other national film industries. In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated the power of photography to capture motion. In 1894, the world's first commercial motion-picture exhibition was given in New York City , using Thomas Edison 's kinetoscope and kinetograph. In the following decades, the production of silent films greatly expanded, studios formed and migrated to California , and
8470-469: The exclusive American agent for Haig & Haig Scotch, Gordon's Dry Gin and Dewar's Scotch. Kennedy kept his Somerset company for years. In addition, Kennedy purchased spirits-importation rights from Schenley Industries , a Canadian distillery and liquor company. Though he possessed substantial investments in various shipping lines that imported significant shipments of liquor, Kennedy himself drank little alcohol. He so disapproved of what he considered
8591-427: The face of the Earth. ... Jews who take an unfair advantage of the fact that theirs is a persecuted race do not help much. ... Publicizing unjust attacks upon the Jews may help to cure the injustice, but continually publicizing the whole problem only serves to keep it alive in the public mind. When the White House read his quotes, it became clear that Kennedy was completely out of step with Roosevelt's policies. Kennedy
8712-543: The film Titanic , Cameron wanted to push the boundary of special effects with his film, and enlisted Digital Domain and Pacific Data Images to continue the developments in digital technology which the director pioneered while working on The Abyss and Terminator 2: Judgment Day . Many previous films about the RMS Titanic shot water in slow motion , which did not look wholly convincing. Cameron encouraged his crew to shoot their 45-foot-long (14 m) miniature of
8833-418: The films and stories they told became much longer. The United States produced the world's first sync-sound musical film , The Jazz Singer , in 1927, and was at the forefront of sound-film development in the following decades. It was fully released to the public on October 6, 1927. Since the early 20th century, the U.S. film industry has primarily been based in and around the thirty-mile zone centered in
8954-459: The foreign language. The Spanish-language crews included people like Luis Buñuel , Enrique Jardiel Poncela , Xavier Cugat , and Edgar Neville . The productions were not very successful in their intended markets, due to the following reasons: Classical Hollywood cinema , or the Golden Age of Hollywood, is defined as a technical and narrative style characteristic of American cinema from 1913 to 1962, during which thousands of movies were issued from
9075-464: The frauds, the SEC had to end the million-dollar maneuvers in major corporations, whereby insiders with access to high-quality information about the company knew when to buy or sell their own securities. A crackdown on insider trading was essential. Finally, the SEC had to set up a complex system of registration for all securities sold in America, with a clear set of rules, deadlines and guidelines that all companies had to follow. The main challenge faced by
9196-423: The ground by the force of the blast. In 1923, he established his own investment company. Kennedy subsequently became a multi-millionaire as a result of taking " short " positions following the 1929 stock market crash. Kennedy was enlisted in 1924 to help stabilize the stock of John D. Hertz 's Yellow Cab Company , a taxi cab operator, against a bear raid ; afterward, Hertz suspected Kennedy of carrying out such
9317-571: The heights of British society. In the spring of 1938...the couple luxuriated in the warmth of English hospitality, hobnobbing with aristocrats and royalty at the many balls, dinners, regattas, and derbies of the season. The highlight was surely the April weekend that they spent at Windsor Castle , guests of King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth . While getting dressed for an evening at Windsor Castle soon after he arrived, Kennedy paused in momentary reflection and remarked to his wife, "Well, Rose, this
9438-490: The land acquisition of the largest privately owned building in the country, Chicago's Merchandise Mart (the world's largest building at the time), which gave his family an important base in that city and an alliance with the Irish-American political leadership there to lay the groundwork for realizing his sons' future political ambitions. The Merchandise Mart's revenues became a principal source of wealth that formed much of
9559-536: The late 1920s. After The Jazz Singer , the first film with synchronized voices was successfully released as a Vitaphone talkie in 1927, Hollywood film companies would respond to Warner Bros. and begin to use Vitaphone sound—which Warner Bros. owned until 1928—in future films. By May 1928, Electrical Research Product Incorporated (ERPI), a subsidiary of the Western Electric company, gained a monopoly over film sound distribution. A side effect of these " talkies "
9680-468: The major studios owned hundreds of theaters in cities and towns across the nation in 1920 film theaters that showed their films and that were always in need of fresh material. In 1930, MPPDA President Will Hays created the Hays (Production) Code , which followed censorship guidelines and went into effect after government threats of censorship expanded by 1930. However, the code was never enforced until 1934, after
9801-556: The modern " blockbuster ", and induced studios to focus ever more heavily on trying to produce enormous hits. In the US, the PG-13 rating was introduced in 1984 to accommodate films that straddled the line between PG and R, which was mainly due to the controversies surrounding the violent content of the PG films Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins (both 1984). Film makers in
9922-561: The monopoly they still had over the Detroit Theaters—as Paramount was also gaining dominance through actors like Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake, Betty Hutton, crooner Bing Crosby, Alan Ladd, and longtime actor for studio Gary Cooper too- by 1942. The Big Five studios did not meet the requirements of the Consent of Decree during WWII, without major consequence, but after the war ended they joined Paramount as defendants in
10043-508: The most successful film of its time, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs . This distinction was promptly topped in 1939 when Selznick International created what is still, when adjusted for inflation, the most successful film of all time in Gone with the Wind . Many film historians have remarked upon the many great works of cinema that emerged from this period of highly regimented filmmaking. One reason this
10164-521: The movie-making process. Nestor Studios of Bayonne, New Jersey , built the first studio in the Hollywood neighborhood in 1911. Nestor Studios, owned by David and William Horsley, later merged with Universal Studios; and William Horsley's other company, Hollywood Film Laboratory, is now the oldest existing company in Hollywood, presently called the Hollywood Digital Laboratory. California 's more hospitable and cost-effective climate led to
10285-595: The national cinemas of the United Kingdom , Canada , Australia , and New Zealand also produce films in the same language, they are not part of the Hollywood system. Because of this, Hollywood has also been considered a transnational cinema , and has produced multiple language versions of some titles, often in Spanish or French. Contemporary Hollywood often outsources production to the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The major film studios of Hollywood are
10406-503: The pandemic, public health officials temporarily closed movie theaters in some jurisdictions, large studios suspended production for weeks at a time, and some actors came down with the flu. This caused major financial losses and severe difficulties for small studios, but the industry as a whole more than recovered during the Roaring Twenties . In the early 20th century, when the medium was new, many Jewish immigrants found employment in
10527-437: The paradigm of film making by the major Hollywood studios, as each could have an entirely different cast and creative team. The decision resulted in the gradual loss of the characteristics which made Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures, RKO Pictures, and 20th Century Fox films immediately identifiable. Certain movie people, such as Cecil B. DeMille , either remained contract artists until
10648-477: The play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (and its derivative, My Fair Lady ), and due to attaining a mainstream level in storyline and sets, is considered the "crown jewel" of this ' Golden Age '. At the height of his fame in the early 1970s, Charles Bronson was the world's No. 1 box office attraction, commanding $ 1 million per film. In the 1970s, the films of New Hollywood filmmakers were often both critically acclaimed and commercially successful. While
10769-402: The primary source of the most commercially successful and most commercially successful movies in the world. Hollywood is considered to be the oldest film industry, where the earliest film studios and production companies emerged. It is the birthplace of various genres of cinema —among them comedy , drama , action , musical , romance , horror , science fiction , and epic —and has set
10890-629: The production side of the business. Soon they were the heads of a new kind of enterprise: the movie studio . The US had at least two female directors, producers and studio heads in these early years: Lois Weber and French-born Alice Guy-Blaché . They also set the stage for the industry's internationalism; the industry is often accused of Amero centric provincialism . Other movie makers arrived from Europe after World War I: directors like Ernst Lubitsch , Alfred Hitchcock , Fritz Lang and Jean Renoir ; and actors like Rudolph Valentino , Marlene Dietrich , Ronald Colman , and Charles Boyer . They joined
11011-431: The rampant stock speculation of the late 1920s would lead to a market crash . It is said that he knew it was time to get out of the market when he received stock tips from a shoe-shine boy, but no evidence has been found of the anecdote and the first known version of the same tale was associated to Bernard Baruch in 1957. Kennedy survived the crash "because he possessed a passion for facts, a complete lack of sentiment and
11132-449: The same creative teams often worked on films made by the same studio. For example, Cedric Gibbons and Herbert Stothart always worked on MGM films, Alfred Newman worked at 20th Century Fox for twenty years, Cecil B. De Mille 's films were almost all made at Paramount , and director Henry King 's films were mostly made for 20th Century Fox . At the same time, one could usually guess which studio made which film, largely because of
11253-469: The same sets and wardrobe and even mass scenes were used for different time-sharing crews. Also, foreign unemployed actors, playwrights, and winners of photogenic contests were chosen and brought to Hollywood, where they shot parallel versions of the English-language films. These parallel versions had a lower budget, were shot at night and were directed by second-line American directors who did not speak
11374-466: The ship as if "we're making a commercial for the White Star Line". Even The Blair Witch Project (1999), a low-budget indie horror film by Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick , was a huge financial success. Filmed on a budget of just $ 35,000, without any big stars or special effects, the film grossed $ 248 million with the use of modern marketing techniques and online promotion. Though not on
11495-443: The spread of film companies to other parts of the US, outside New York. Many filmmakers worked with equipment for which they did not own the rights to use. Therefore, filming in New York could be dangerous, as it was close to Edison's company headquarters, and close to the agents the company sent out to seize cameras. An alternative was Los Angeles , which had mild winters, a large selection of places to film, and, most importantly, it
11616-451: The studios in order to achieve their artistic visions. The apogee of the studio system may have been the year 1939, which saw the release of such classics as The Wizard of Oz , Gone with the Wind , Stagecoach , Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Wuthering Heights , Only Angels Have Wings , Ninotchka and Midnight . Among the other films from the Golden Age period that are now considered to be classics: Casablanca , It's
11737-723: The theaters, as the MPPDA controlled every theater in the country through the Big Five studios. Throughout the 1930s, as well as most of the golden age, MGM dominated the film screen and had the top stars in Hollywood, and they were also credited for creating the Hollywood star system altogether. Some MGM stars included "King of Hollywood" Clark Gable , Lionel Barrymore , Jean Harlow , Norma Shearer , Greta Garbo , Joan Crawford , Jeanette MacDonald , Gene Raymond , Spencer Tracy , Judy Garland , and Gene Kelly . Another great achievement of American cinema during this era came through Walt Disney's animation company . In 1937, Disney created
11858-701: The time was an independent city. In the Sultan's Power, directed by Boggs for Selig Polyscope Company, also starring Bosworth, is considered the first film shot entirely in Los Angeles, with shooting at 7th and Olive Streets, in 1909. In early 1910, director D. W. Griffith was sent by the Biograph Company to the West Coast with his acting troupe, consisting of actors: Blanche Sweet , Lillian Gish , Mary Pickford , Lionel Barrymore and others. They started filming on
11979-399: The time. Kennedy emerged as an astute businessman who possessed an eye for value , both with regard to his shrewd entrepreneurial acumen and savvy investment foresight. For example, as an active real estate investor , he turned a handsome profit from his privately-controlled ownership of Old Colony Realty Associates, Inc., an investment company which bought distressed real estate throughout
12100-523: The title Old Joe . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Old_Joe&oldid=1235115045 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr. (September 6, 1888 – November 18, 1969)
12221-502: The war effort, but as a result of his previous gaffes, he was neither trusted nor invited to do so. Cinema of the United States The cinema of the United States , consisting mainly of major film studios (also known metonymically as Hollywood ), has remained a significant influence on the global film industry beginning in the early 20th century . Classical Hollywood cinema , which developed from 1910 to 1962,
12342-461: The young lawyers was drafting precise rules. The SEC succeeded in its four missions, as Kennedy reassured the American business community that they would no longer be deceived and taken advantage of by Wall Street. He trumpeted for ordinary investors to return to the market and enable the economy to grow again. Kennedy's reforming work as SEC Chairman was widely praised on all sides, as investors realized
12463-439: Was recalled from his diplomatic duties and returned to the United States. Roosevelt urgently needed his support to hold the Catholic vote and invited him to spend the night at the White House. Kennedy agreed to make a nationwide radio speech to advocate Roosevelt's reelection. Roosevelt was pleased with the speech because, Nasaw says, it successfully "rallied reluctant Irish Catholic voters to his side, buttressed his claims that he
12584-685: Was a leading member of the Democratic Party and of the Irish Catholic community. President Roosevelt appointed Kennedy to be the first chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which he led from 1934 to 1935. Kennedy later directed the United States Maritime Commission . Kennedy served as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1938 to late 1940. With the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Kennedy
12705-508: Was an American businessman, investor, philanthropist, and politician. He is known for his own political prominence as well as that of his children and was a patriarch of the Kennedy family , which included President John F. Kennedy , attorney general and senator Robert F. Kennedy , and longtime senator Ted Kennedy . Kennedy was born into a political family in East Boston , Massachusetts. He made
12826-501: Was claimed as the first to have been filmed in Los Angeles , in 1907. A plaque was unveiled by the city, in 1957, at Dearden's flagship store on the corner of Main Street and 7th Street, to mark the filming on the site when it had been a Chinese laundry. Bosworth's widow suggested the city had got the date and location wrong, and that the film was actually shot in nearby Venice , which at
12947-506: Was declined. He then stopped distributing his movies to Pantages. Still, Alexander Pantages declined to sell. However, when Pantages was later charged and tried for rape, his reputation took a battering, and he accepted Kennedy's revised offer of $ 3.5 million (equivalent to $ 62.1 million in 2023). Pantages, who claimed that Kennedy had "set him up", was later found not guilty at a second trial. The girl who had accused Pantages of rape, Eunice Pringle , confessed on her deathbed that Kennedy
13068-457: Was excellent. Various criminals, such as Frank Costello , have boasted they worked with Kennedy in mysterious bootlegging operations during Prohibition . Although his father was in the whisky importation business, scholars dismiss the claims. The most recent and most thorough biographer David Nasaw asserts that no credible evidence has been found to link Kennedy to bootlegging activities. When Fortune magazine published its first list of
13189-470: Was heavily involved in the political careers of his sons. Three of Kennedy's sons attained distinguished political positions: John served as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts and as the 35th president of the United States, Robert as the U.S. attorney general and as a U.S. senator from New York, and Ted as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts. Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr. was born on September 6, 1888, at 151 Meridian Street in East Boston, Massachusetts . Kennedy
13310-538: Was involved in was the importation of large shipments of high-priced Scotch where he earned a handsome profit in the process. Various contradictory "bootlegging" stories surrounding Kennedy have circulated but historians have not accepted them. At the start of the Franklin Roosevelt administration in March 1933, Kennedy and future Congressman James Roosevelt II founded Somerset Importers, a business entity that acted as
13431-491: Was not going to take the nation into war, and emphasized that he alone had the experience to lead the nation in these difficult times." After Roosevelt was reelected, Kennedy submitted his resignation as ambassador. Throughout the rest of the war, relations between Kennedy and the Roosevelt administration remained tense, especially when Joe Jr., a Massachusetts delegate at the 1940 Democratic National Convention , vocally opposed President Roosevelt's unprecedented nomination for
13552-492: Was only 90 miles to the border of Mexico , in case they needed to run if Edison's enforcement agents found them. By 1912, most major film companies had set up production facilities in Southern California , near or in Los Angeles , because of the region's favorable year-round weather. The 1908 Selig Polyscope Company production of The Count of Monte Cristo , directed by Francis Boggs and starring Hobart Bosworth ,
13673-506: Was pessimistic about Britain's ability to survive attacks from Nazi Germany . During the Battle of Britain in November 1940, Kennedy publicly suggested, "Democracy is finished in England. It may be here [in the United States]." After a controversy regarding this statement, Kennedy resigned his position. Kennedy was married to Rose Fitzgerald ; the couple had nine children. During his later life he
13794-464: Was possible is that, with so many movies being made, not everyone had to be a big hit. A studio could gamble on a medium-budget feature with a good script and relatively unknown actors: Citizen Kane , directed by Orson Welles (1915–1985) and often regarded as the greatest film of all time , fits this description. In other cases, strong-willed directors like Howard Hawks (1896–1977), Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980), and Frank Capra (1897–1991) battled
13915-587: Was that many actors who had made their careers in silent films suddenly found themselves out of work, as they often had bad voices or could not remember their lines. Meanwhile, in 1922, US politician Will H. Hays left politics and formed the movie studio boss organization known as the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA). The organization became the Motion Picture Association of America after Hays retired in 1945. In
14036-505: Was that they generated bad publicity in the West for the Nazi regime, a concern that he communicated in a letter to Charles Lindbergh . Kennedy had a close friendship with Viscountess Astor , and their correspondence is replete with anti-Semitic statements. According to Edward Renehan: As fiercely anti-Communist as they were anti-Semitic, Kennedy and Astor looked upon Adolf Hitler as a welcome solution to both of these "world problems" (Nancy's phrase). ... . Kennedy replied that he expected
14157-513: Was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. In the 1920s Kennedy made huge profits by reorganizing and refinancing several Hollywood studios; several acquisitions were ultimately merged into Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) studios. Kennedy increased his fortune with distribution rights for Scotch whisky . He owned the largest privately owned building in the country, Chicago's Merchandise Mart . Kennedy
14278-552: Was the elder son of Mary Augusta (née Hickey) Kennedy and businessman and politician Patrick Joseph "P.J." Kennedy . Kennedy attended Boston Latin School , where he excelled at baseball and was elected class president before graduating in 1908. Kennedy then attended Harvard College , where he gained admittance to the prestigious Hasty Pudding Club but was not invited to join the Porcellian Club . Kennedy graduated in 1912 with
14399-679: Was the mastermind of the plot to frame Pantages. Many estimate that Kennedy made over $ 5 million (equivalent to $ 88.7 million in 2023) from his investments in Hollywood. During his three-year affair with film star Gloria Swanson , he arranged the financing for her films The Love of Sunya (1927) and the ill-fated Queen Kelly (1928). The duo also used Hollywood's famous "body sculptor", masseuse Sylvia of Hollywood . Their relationship ended when Swanson discovered that an expensive gift from Kennedy had actually been charged to her account. As soon as it became legal to do so, Kennedy ventured into liquor importing. One of his shipping ventures he
14520-494: Was under Mexican rule . Griffith stayed there for months and made several films before returning to New York. Also in 1910, Selig Polyscope Company of Chicago established the first film studio in the Los Angeles area in Edendale , and the first studio in Hollywood opened in 1912. After hearing about Griffith's success in Hollywood, in 1913, many movie-makers headed west to avoid the fees imposed by Thomas Edison , who owned patents on
14641-637: Was written by two future winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature : Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), the author of the novel on which the script was nominally based, and William Faulkner (1897–1962), who worked on the screen adaptation. After The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, Warner Bros. gained huge success and were able to acquire their own string of movie theaters after purchasing Stanley Theaters and First National Productions in 1928. In contrast, Loews theaters owned MGM since forming in 1924, while
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