'Movie going had become ingrained during the thirties.  Thorp estimated that 85 million people went to the movies every week...The audience was primarily middle0-class whites between the ages of fourteen and forty-five, the most important segment of which was the adult female-the "average citizens wife" who set the tone of the majority of American movies.  According to Thorp "audiences wanted to be cheered up when they went to the movies; they had no desire to see on the screen the squalor and misery of which there was all to much at home'. (p.2).  Balio is citing Margaret Thorp's 1939 study of the film industry, America at the Movies, p,17.
'Hollywood liked to characterise itself as producing mere "harmless entertainment" that appealed to "the largest possible audience"'.(p.3)
'the thirties transformed the American film industry into a modern business enterprise.' (p.8)

David Parkinson, History of Film, Thames and Hudson, 1995.

'Conversion [to sound] was a torturous process which cost the industry some $300 million and delivered it into the thrall of big business' (p.85)
Parkinson argues that all of the studios featured the following common stylistic traits: 'sets were invariably lit for scene, stars and atmosphere in that order. Editing was largely functional and limited to transitions, 'shot-reverse-shot' and rapid-time passages, achieved by a combination of cuts and superimpositions known as 'Hollywood montage'.  The stars, no longer paid the astronomical salaries of the silent era, were now bound by rigid contracts and compelled to accept roles on pain of suspension or loan to another studio.  Directors, too, were left with little scope for individualism' (p.97)

Brian Neve, Film and Politics in America: A Social Tradition, Routledge, London, 1992.

'the sociology of Hollywood had changed considerably in the late 1930's, in particular with the period of the politicisation and unionisation of student personnel, especially writers.' (p.56)

Ruth Vasey, The World According to Hollywood 1918-1939, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1997.

'At the most basic level, the size of the audience led to the economies of scale that uderpinned the industry's output of more than four hundred movies a year in the 1930's.  Production on this scale meant that the movies could not be understood as wholly distinct from each other, either at the level of manufacture or at the level of consumption' (p.3)

LINKS

• This  anonymous essay discusses the film industry in the depression
• This  discussion of the film industry in the depression is a part of the University of Virginia American Studies Program.
• Robert E. Yahnke, Professor at the university of Minnesota, has written this  history of the film industry which discusses the years 1934-1946.
• Two extracts from David Shipman's book, The Story of Cinema, have been placed online as a part of Michael Mills' The Palace.  One discusses  the R.K.O, Paramount and Twentieth Century Fox studios , whilst the other discusses  Columbia and United Artists.
• Elizabeth's  Reel Classics  site, her surname is never provided, contains information on  movie-makers  and  stars from the 'classic era'.  It shoudl be noted that this era is not defined and that some of the material lies outside the 1930's.  Nonetheless, with some caution exercised, this  site should prove to be a useful resource.

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