When did The Golden Age Of Hollywood officially begin and end?

It begins with the move to sound in 1927, when "The Jazz Singer" premieres (before then. Hollywood is in "The Silent Era"). It should be noted, though, that it takes a while for it to get going fully--the first all-talking picture ("The Lights of New York") is not made until 1928, and by 1929, Columbia becomes the last of the major studios to move to all-sound films.

It's hard to say where it ends, though most film historians suggest around 1960. It's pretty clear it's dead and gone by 1967 with the premiere of "Bonnie and Clyde," which is usually considered the signal work of "New Hollywood." In 1968, the Production Code is dissolved, which also signals the final end of the Old Hollywood.

So I would say the Golden Age of Hollywood was roughly 1929-1960, with 1927-1967 defining its outer parameters.

When I started to when I retired.

R1, good answer

Didn’t it end with the release of Bonnie and Clyde.

Absolutely, R4. You win the Grand Prize.

It ended with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1966,

Early to mid-1930s to mid-1950s.

I would say R1 is correct, "Bonnie and Clyde" and its cultural impact in 1968 was a major change.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was still very much old Hollywood.

French New Wave (Nouvelle Vague) marked the end of classic cinema.

The antitrust action again MGM and Loew's marked the end of the Golden Age.

[quote]French New Wave (Nouvelle Vague) marked the end of classic cinema.

I think the Italians got there first.

But really the discussion is about Hollywood.

And the Indians.

Italians started it, the French perfected it, wrote about it, and ensured its export.

I would say roughly 1930-1960. When Marilyn Monroe died in 1962 that seems to be the symbolic ending.

R1 is right. I saw Bonnie and Clyde when it was first in cinemas, and it was definitely the turning point. Gritty, with attractive, threatening and (face it) pretty dumb anti-heroes, ending in a bloodbath: 70s cinema here we come!

The French and Italian movies of the 1960s, while definitely a milestone, still owe a hell of a lot to classic American cinema. Breathless looks today very much like a ripoff of film noir which is pretending to be ironic but really isn't.

There are technical things, ike jump cuts, that the Europeans did that wasn't in Noirs. The studios wouldn't allow it.

I swear I didn’t read your entire post r1. Wasn’t trying to steal your credit.

Sure, but a jump cut is hardly the birth of a new cinema.

Breathless is the most derivative of the nouvelle vague. There were plenty of new things done. I'm just saying there was an influence of old Hollywood still going on. Whereas the US movies from Bonnie and Clyde on knew Old Hollywood well, and were sharply reacting against it. It was the whole generational thing. In 1967-8 the earliest Boomers turned 21.

The Golden Shower Age of Hollywood probably just now ended with P Diddy’s very likely upcoming arrest.

R15 Well, technically...there were jump cuts in The Snow of Kilimanjaro, in the early '50s.

*Snows

Good answers

Did Cleopatra have anything to do with it?

R14, well put

My friend says when James Dean died

I guess 1960 is the correct answer...

I think OP has the right framework, but don't let the term "Golden Age" put you off the many incredible films that came before and after.

Silent film can be tricky for a modern viewer, but for a wonderful overview of the era Kevin Brownlow's 13 episode 1979 Thames TV documentary series "Hollywood - The Pioneers" is both entertaining and informative.

Is r26's link unclickable or is that just me?

!960 cause it's a good round number. There was nothing Golden Age about early 1960s cinema, truly a low point until 1967.

It doesn't seem to work -- here's the link to episode 1. R26

Hmmm... West Side Story, Lawrence of Arabia, Lolita, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Dr Strangelove, The Pink Panther, Mary Poppins, The Miracle Worker, It's a Mad World, Dr Zhivago, Kiss Me Stupid, Virgina Woolf, The Apartment are as fucking Golden Age as it gets. An ENORMOUS range of Hollywood films. Nothing after comes close.

And being that it was started in '66 and released and paid for by MGM presented in deluxe roadshow Cinerama(very old schools 60s) I'll include 2001.

The Golden Age of Hollywood ended over a period of years beginning with the Paramount decrees in 1948. Shortly afterwards, television began to become ubiquitous and by 1955 movie ticket sales has declined 50% for the previous decade. The Golden Age of Hollywood ushered in the Golden Age of Television. (The Golden Age of Hollywood almost always refers to Hollywood before television.)

If I had to narrow it down

Old Hollywood ended Monday, October 15, 1951 at 8:59 PM EST.

Nobody is stating that no great films were made after 1960, or before 1930. However the term "Golden Age of Hollywood" has traditionally been used not as a blanket statement of superior artistic quality, but a way for film historians and buffs to denote the Big Studio era of Hollywood -- as separate from the Nickelodeon / Patent Wars era, the Silent era, and later periods when the absolute power of the Studios began to wane for various business and cultural reasons.

In the "Golden Age" studios had made the transition to sound, and still had the power of vertically integrated monopolies - controlling not only production (with stars, writers, directors, etc under exclusive multi-year contracts) as well as distribution and exhibition (you only saw a Paramount picture in a Paramount Theater; Lowes for MGM, etc) and had yet to face the serious competition for audience time that Television would bring. In the 1940's the average Average American went to the movies three times a week, and most pictures only played for a week or two.

Things began to change with the Consent Decree in 48 - that broke up the monopolies, and the rise of TV over the next decade. The studios shifted from producing an enormous number of films in a variety of genres and budget levels to concentrating more and more on lavish, widescreen "blockbusters" to compete with the small free screen in everyone's living room. The "Golden Age" as such really extends from the early 30's to the mid-50's. The late 50's to the late 60's and the rise of New Hollywood was still a studio dominated era, but one where they were struggling to maintain an older, suddenly less profitable way of operating in a world where the audience now had more options, and the artists wanted more freedom and bigger compensation.

[quote] Hmmm... West Side Story, Lawrence of Arabia, Lolita, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Dr Strangelove, The Pink Panther, Mary Poppins, The Miracle Worker, It's a Mad World, Dr Zhivago, Kiss Me Stupid, Virgina Woolf, The Apartment are as fucking Golden Age as it gets.

If you truly think that somehow "Lolita" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" were "as fucking Golden Age as it gets," then I simply cannot help you.

I would say 1960-ish. The real final moment really seems to be Marilyn Monroe's death in '62. Definitely by the mid-60 it was all over.

They were produced during the time you were SPECIFICALLY talking about. The early to mid 60s a truly low point in the history of cinema. Don't be so insistently stupid. Unless you think they were lousy films then I can't help YOU. Jack Warner bought Virginia Woolf for films as golden age a producer as there was.

Virginia Woolf came out in '66. Old Hollwood was definitely over by then.

Movies like Doctor Zhivago exist because the Golden Age of Hollywood ended.

The end of the Golden Age forced studios to innovate. One of the innovations is below.

This question, and thread, is akin to a "What are the birth years of Gen-X?" discussion -- wherein a rather vague term to denote a historic/cultural era coined by one sub-culture, is then used differently by another subculture, and becomes even more amorphous when adopted by the the culture at large, at which point it is argued over as if it were some immutable law of physics in the first place.

snarky novel / consumer marketing speak / MY IDENTITY

film history / niche cable channel marketing / MY FAVORITE FILMS

During the Golden Age films like West Side Story would have been cast all the way with big stars, not just one. A film like Dr. Zhivago would have been shot on the back lot with Hollywood stars, not foreigners. Mary Poppins would have been a beautifully drawn cartoon.

Lolita, Dr. Strangelove and Virgina Woolf wouldn't have gotten made.

I'll give you My Fair Lady and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad.....World..

All I know is that people seemed to agree at the time that the 1970s Murder on the Orient Express was a return to the Golden Age of Hollywood.

I love the movie.

But...

That was because the cast contained several Studio-Era fossils, R43

In my opinion the Golden Age ended with the first blockbuster, Jaws.

[quote] They were produced during the time you were SPECIFICALLY talking about. The early to mid 60s a truly low point in the history of cinema. Don't be so insistently stupid. Unless you think they were lousy films then I can't help YOU. Jack Warner bought Virginia Woolf for films as golden age a producer as there was.

Ooh, I see a nerve was touched.

No good Hollywood movies until '67. You were the one who said something extremely stupid. Who am I not to point the finger at an ignorant asshole like you?

Song of the South was made in the 40s. Mary Poppins is made in that vein. Dr Zhivago is a big romantic sweeping epic. You don't get more golden age than that. It's practically MGM from the silent era. And WSS was made by old Hollywood hands- Robert Wise, Saul Chaplin. Ernest Lehman, Irene Shariff, Johnny Green. They had one big star simply probably for budget concerns. And outside of the location shots like On the Town it was made in Hollywood studios. I believe in Warner Bros. studios. And in terms of location shooting it was done in noirs like A Double Life starring Ronald Coleman and directed by George Cukor. A very dark film that opened at Radio City. You people need to see more movies so you have a better frame of reference.

I meant to say older films before the late 60s. You will find many revelations.

Ronald Colman

I say 1930-1970.

Surely one is not so retarded that they cannot differentiate locally shot exteriors (which many films employed, like Robin Hood with its groves of California eucalyptus in the background) from shooting in 70 millimeter Super-Panavision in the Wadi Rum.

Even the noir genre - distinguished by its minimalism - was fundamentally changed by move to widescreen location shooting. This is not a Golden Age innovation.

What was the first movie filmed after the golden age of Hollywood ended?

My Fair Lady , The Sound of Music, Doctor Zhivago, Funny Girl, Hello, Dolly! .....were pretty much in the Golden Age vein.

Personally I consider the Golden Age to be 1930 to mid 1950s. This my opinion only as I believe technically R1 is correct.

For me, once The Method actors took over the whole style and pace of movoe acting changed. There were outliers of course but the Golden Age was over.

You can't define things like this. It's a vague term that means roughly the studio era.

The late silent era feels more "Golden Age" to me than most of the 50s does.

Personally, I feel that when La Ball at 57 played a mother of eight young kids was stretching it too much.

That was insane r59. Not only was she way too old, but that uterus had been drenched in Smirnoff and Pall Malls for decades. It was like outer space, unable to harbor any kind of living organism.

Speaking of Golden Age I am currently watching Deitrich and Cooper in Morocco (1930).

The golden age probably takes in the last few years of the silent era. It might even start with Intolerance in 1916.

It dies the death of a thousand cuts starting with Olivia de Havilland's court fight that gutted the contract system in 1944 followed by the Paramount decision that broke up the studio monopolies over theater chains in 1948. This was followed by the rise of television in the early 1950s, the collapse of the production code in 1968, the rise of auteur theory in the 70s and 80s and the changing of the economics to focus on blockbusters (which really starts in 1972 with The Godfather, a few years before Jaws in 1975).

That's an excellent overview R62, but there really was a huge break in overall proficiency - in every department - with the introduction of sound. An entire industry need to learn how to walk and chew gum again, but differently. They did adapt very quickly, but if you've never seen "The Lights of New York" or other very early sound features, they really were primitive compared to the Silents of the era, so I think the division in a useful one. In later interviews, many vets of the Silent Era felt that Talkies were a completely different art form.

"Contemporary critical reception of Lights of New York was decidedly cool. A New York Times review, while acknowledging the film's place as "the alpha of what may develop as the new language of the screen", called the plot "crude in the extreme" and the direction wooden, only singling out the musical interludes for praise.[5] "Ordinary cast and production", reported Film Daily. "Discard the talking element, and it is just a second-rate meller."[6] Variety was even more harsh in its dismissal, labeling the production "hokumed junk." "In a year from now everyone concerned...will run for the river before looking at it again."[7] Oliver Claxton of The New Yorker also panned the film. "It would have been better silent, and much better unseen. The talking films have not even progressed to their infancy yet. Bad as it is, though, the film shows what I have been very reluctant to believe, that audibility will be a great help to the movies."[8]"

It's interesting that the OP doesn't mention FILMS but the replies all go there.

The golden age also includes music, theatre & tv.

I think the golden age was over the last day of 1969.

International film icon/singer Judy Garland was dead & All In The Family was on the way in with funk popping up on the radio.

1969 is much too late. I would say the late 50s.

I'd say early 30's till early 60's....

I always thought it was when films became more gritty and cinematic with real camera work and not just filming of staged plays. I consider The Apartment Golden Age but the subject matter had a dark layer.

The 20's were probably the funnest time ever to be in Hollywood, but it feels a bit too early for the Golden Age.

Ro me its basically when the Hayes Code was reinforced, so about 1934 to 1961-ish .

R63, if the early talkies are are bad as you contend, how can those years be the beginning of the Golden Age?

R64 The Golden Age of Hollywood...you think that includes theatre? The music business? No, the Golden Age of Hollywood usually means the movies.

R70 The movie, Applause, directed by Rouben Mamoulian (1929) is a great one. Lubitsch's The Love Parade (1929) is also very good. For instance.

Judy Garland defined the Golden Age. It started with Pigskin Parade and ended when she died.

Golden age of tv = Milton Berle, Lucy, Leave It To Beaver

Golden age of music = Sinatra, Bennett & Garland

People don't talk about the big bands much any more.

R70 - My point is that there is a break between the Silent Era and the Golden Age (or Studio Era) -- an intermediate period when the industry was re-tooling, adapting to a different mode of storytelling and acting, and getting proficient in the technical ins and outs of sound production so that the camera was not the slave to the microphone -- stuck inside a huge box and unable to move freely as it had in silents. (This is all shown for comedic effect in "Singing In The Rain.")

The transition period took a few years, "The Jazz Singer" premiered in October 1927, "Lights of New York" the first "100% all-talking" motion picture was in 1928. But the last silent feature film released was "The Poor Millionaire" in 1930. So I agree with the above posters who date Hollywood's "Golden Age" from about 1933 to 1948 - 52. There were scores of great films made both before and after those dates, but those were the two decades when the Studio System was in full swing. They had mastered sound, had all sorts of artists under contract, owned their own theaters, and did not yet have the competition from TV.

There really is no scientific answer to the OP, because the Golden Age never had an "official" beginning and ending. In hindsight we put the continuum of lived history into simpler boxes with labels and defined parameters, so there will always be some argument about what labels and dates are "correct."

They need to bring back the studio system. Actors are too dumb to be left on their own.

How can we decide when the Golden Age began when nobody can define what it was, exactly.

The 50s were definitely part of the Golden Age. I would put Marilyn Monroe's death in '62 as the symbolic ending of that era.

It definitely ended in the early 60's. MM died, the Hays Code gave up, and grittiness and realism became more valued than escapism and glamour. The early Hollywood stars were grandparents at this time. And t.v made films more obsolete. Alot of these changes started creeping in in the mid 50's but really were took firm hold by this time.

When it began is more up for debate. I'd say perhaps in the late 20's/early 1930's. When talkies became the norm, when the Depression struck and people would pay 5 cents twice a week to escape the world, and the Hays Code struck in 1934.

The beginning of the end of the Golden Age was, as someone mentioned above, The Paramount decree, the end of bloc-booking , the rise of TV, and the fact that by the '50s, actors who had formed their own production companies, and agents and agencies, went into film production. Package deals were created, vs. films being formed within a studio setting Also, there was a shift in filmmaking style, from so-called classical filmmaking, to a new form that is obvious in the 1960s. some of this had to do with innovation: more sensitive film stock, so that they could shoot in more locations, even at night. Different lenses, more sensitive microphones, one-strip color, etc.

I agree with R76 and R81. There's no official definition of the Golden Age because, when Hollywood was in it, they didn't know they were in it. It's a term we've imposed on the past, and as a result it generates controversy and uncertainty, much like the term "film noir."

The Golden Age didn't just end one day in 1952 or 1958 or 1962 or 1968. It dwindled away as the system that built what we call the Golden Age faded and transformed into a different way of making movies and as movies themselves took a different place in the culture than they had had before television. The studio system is at the heart of the Golden Age, and in 1960 it was a shadow of what it had been in 1945. I think roughly 1933 until some time in the early '50s - pick the year of your choice - is about right.

Everything you mention is correct R81 - I will add to the list the emergence and then mainstreaming of wide-screen formats which were seen as a way to compete with television,

That competition also ramped up the production of hugely budgeted, wide-screen, “blockbuster” extravaganzas in every genre - biblical / historical / western / musical / thriller, even comedy (Its A Mad Mad Mad World) along with the roadshow style of exhibition.

The roughly 15 year period between the Golden Age and the rise of New Hollywood in the late 60s / early 70s could be labeled the Wide-Screen Blockbuster era.

R83 The '50s (unlike the '40s) were also a time when they didn't want to make topical pictures that might get them labeled in any way as socialistic, or even political, because of the climate of the time. So they did safe topics like biblical, historical, western and musical stuff.

(With some notable exceptions.)

When Elizabeth Taylor started gaining weight.

R84 Unlike the 40's though the 50's started to discuss more non political adult subjects like sexuality, addiction, bigotry, sexual violence, etc. People began airing out their dirty laundry more in this decade (though more subtly than they would in the 60s). WW2 made people start caring less and less about pretense and some incredible works, both in film and on stage came during the postwar years.

True R87 - and all those topics were dealt with in silents and early Pre-Code talkies.

But some of the '50s studio films, while well made and very entertaining, leave you with a feeling of not making statements, vis a vis the grittier Warner Bros. movies of the '40s with Bogart, or the WWII movies. And there was a feeling that if you showed the seedier side of life you were playing into the Russians' hands. Although some things bucked the trend, like Preminger movies, The Man With The Golden Arm, etc.

^In the '30s, there were a lot of left-leaning movies, like One Third Of A Nation, Dead End, Winterset, Confessions of a Nazi Spy, etc.

It ended in 1969, when Alan Bates and Oliver Reed went balls to the wall full-frontal in "Women in Love".

Can you imagine Clark Gable and Leslie Howard doing this in "Gone with the Wind".

It was chipped away a little at a time for a number of years. The shock of Norman Bates killing Marion Crane certainly added to it, and that was 1960.

[quote]In my opinion the Golden Age ended with the first blockbuster, Jaws.

Wasn't the first blockbuster The Exorcist?

R91 Love that scene. Man, I love beards.

Jaws was the first Summer Blockbuster.

I love this picture of Ava and Joan laughing for real. That's the golden age of Hollywood.

Wasnt "Gone with the Wind" the 1st blockbuster?

The technical problems with early talkies were overcome very quickly. The early 30s would have to be the apotheosis of Golden Age Hollywood, by anyone’s definition.

R97 More likely the mid- to late '3os.