Hollywood That Once Was

Sharaf Rehman, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Abstract

Every great empire came to an end. Every media industry saw its “golden age” – some experienced more than one. So was the case with the film industry in Hollywood which has become a state of mind rather than a tangible entity. The American film industry remains the biggest in the world in terms of its box-office revenue, but not so in output or the number of movie admissions. India and China beat the U.S. The former in the number of productions and the later in the audience size. In some ways, Hollywood still dominates the world market, but there was a time (1930 - 1950) when American films, their stars dominated the screens the world over. This paper looks at the socio-economic factors that brought the dominance of Hollywood to its end.