Periodisation
While the boundaries are vague, the Classical era is generally held to begin in 1927 with the release of The Jazz Singer. Hollywood classicism gradually declined with the collapse of the studio system, the advent of television, the growing popularity of auteurism among directors and the increasing influence of foreign films and independent filmmaking.
The 1948 U.S. Supreme Court decision, which outlawed the practice of block booking and the above-mentioned ownership and operation of theater chains by the major film studios (as it was believed to constitute anti-competitive and monopolistic trade practices) was seen as a major blow to the studio system. This was because it firstly cleared the way for a growing number of independent producers (some of them the actors themselves) and studios to produce their film product free of major studio interference, and secondly because it destroyed the original business model utilized by the studios who struggled to adapt.
"At the time of the Court decision, everyone said the quality, consistency and availability of movies would go up and prices would fall. Quite the opposite happened. By 1955, the number of produced films had fallen by 25 percent. More than 4,200 theaters (or 23 percent of the total) had shut their doors. More than half of those remaining were unable to earn a profit. They could not afford to rent and exhibit the best and most costly films, the ones most likely to compete with television."
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