From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
The
studio system was a means of film production and distribution dominant in
Hollywood from the early 1920s through the early
1950s. The term
studio system refers to the practice of large motion picture
studios (a) producing movies primarily on their own
filmmaking lots with creative personnel under often long-term contract and (b) pursuing
vertical integration through ownership or effective control of
distributors and
movie theaters, guaranteeing additional sales of films through manipulative booking techniques. A
1948 Supreme Court ruling against those distribution and exhibition practices hastened the end of the studio system. In 1954, the last of the operational links between a major production studio and theater chain was broken and the era of the studio system was officially dead. The period stretching from the introduction of
sound to the court ruling and the beginning of the studio breakups, 1927/29–1948/49, is commonly known as the
Golden Age of Hollywood.
