Evading the Issue: Hollywood and the Social Problem Film

By Amanda J Field

Tino Balio, in his book The American Film Industry, said that the Production Code meant that American films could not deal with political or social issues ‘in an honest and truthful fashion’. This incisive essay tests out the legitimacy of Balio’s claims, using The Lost Weekend (directed by Billy Wilder, 1945) as an example of the Hollywood ‘problem film’. Rather than treating the film as being an entity with a single, unchanging meaning, it is put into its historical and social context, in particular the commercial context within which the studios were working. The commercial imperatives hardly sat well with the reality of a social problem such as alcoholism and this essay reminds us that the prime aim of the industry was to entertain: many of these ‘problem films’, therefore, were as honest and truthful within these confines as it was possible to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chaplin Books
• Release date: Mar 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781909183797

Book preview

Title Page

EVADING THE ISSUE

Hollywood and the Social Problem Film

Book 1 in the Short Takes Film Studies Series

by

Amanda J Field

Publisher Information

First published in 2015 by

Chaplin Books

1 Eliza Place

Gosport PO12 4UN

www.chaplinbooks.co.uk

Digital edition converted and distributed by

Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

Copyright © 2015 Amanda J Field

The right of Amanda J Field to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder for which application should be addressed in the first instance to the publishers. No liability shall be attached to the author, the copyright holder or the publishers for loss or damage of any nature suffered as a result of the reliance on the reproduction of any of the contents of this publication or any errors or omissions in the contents.

Hollywood and the Social Problem Film

Tino Balio, writing about Hollywood as a mature oligopoly (1930-48) said the Production Code severely restricted the subject-matter that American films could deal with: Motion pictures might be technically polished and contain the so-called expensive production values, but they would not deal with pressing political or social issues in an honest and truthful fashion (Balio: 1976 p222).

His comment raises a number of issues, including the meaning of qualitative words like ‘honest’ and ‘truthful’ and how perceptions of what constitutes honesty or truthfulness have changed over time; whether ‘truthful’ dealing with political or social issues should be part of Hollywood’s remit and whether, as Balio implies, movies are otherwise ‘empty’ (ie just technical polish and