Architecture and Design in Hollywood Movies of the 1930S Gabrielle Esperdy
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198 The Journal of American Culture Volume 30, Number 2 June 2007 From Instruction to Consumption: Architecture and Design in Hollywood Movies of the 1930s Gabrielle Esperdy A white telephone! I’ve always wanted one cinema movie makers and manufacturers recog- of those. nized ‘‘the full potential of film as a merchandiser —Cecile in The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) of goods’’ (Eckert 99). While Eckert examined clothing and accessories as they appeared in These are the first ‘‘on screen’’ words uttered Hollywood films of the so-called Golden Age by the waitress heroine of Woody Allen’s 1985 (1920s–1950s), architecture and design have yet to film The Purple Rose of Cairo when she leaves a receive the same consideration, a serious oversight Depression-era New Jersey movie theater and lit- given their prominence in this period. erally walks onto the silver screen—and into a Throughout the 1930s, architecture, decorat- Hollywood version of a sleek Manhattan pent- ing, and shelter magazines featured movie sets house. Although her exclamation upon surveying alongside ‘‘real’’ architecture and design, analyz- her new surroundings registers as a witty com- ing them in as much detail as the newest sky- mentary on a decade of American motion picture scrapers and redecorated apartments. But movie set design, it is more incisive than the director sets were unique among buildings and interiors might have realized. For white telephones, along because they had an almost unimaginably huge with streamlined chrome furniture, faceted mir- public—as many as 80 million people per week by rors, glass brick walls, and bakelite floors, were 1938 (Mast 225). Thus, movie sets had the ability not just stylistic hallmarks of American movies of to set trends, arbitrate public taste, and influence the 1930s. As crucial components of the most and inspire millions of Americans. A Fellow of popular entertainment of the era they were also a the American Institute of Architects put it this form of mass marketing that attempted to miti- way when explaining how his colleagues might gate the social and economic crisis of the Depres- break into the movies, ‘‘the buildings they depict sion by exploiting the standards and mores of the are not permanent to be sure, but they reach many burgeoning consumer culture. Film historian more people with their message than do many Charles Eckert analyzed this phenomenon with permanent buildings’’ (Grey 33). As critics, archi- respect to women’s fashion in his 1978 essay tects, interior designers, and art directors gradu- ‘‘Carol Lombard in Macy’s Window.’’ He ob- ally recognized this potential in the 1930s, they served that almost from the beginning of the were merely following the lead of producers and Gabrielle Esperdy is an architectural historian and Associate Professor of Architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology whose work examines the intersection of architecture, consumerism, and modernism in the United States in the twentieth century. Her book Modernizing Main Street is forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press. The Journal of American Culture, 30:2 r2007, Copyright the Authors Journal compilation r2007, Blackwell Publishing, Inc. From Instruction to Consumption Gabrielle Esperdy 199 studio executives. From nearly the advent of cin- the building industry during the Depression, the ema, film makers were conscious of the central profession’s attitude toward motion pictures was role that movies might play in American culture, informed by more than the economic crisis. Be- transmitting social values and ideals and shaping ginning in the 1920s the architectural press gave public opinion and mores. This was particularly increasing coverage to the growing film industry. true with the introduction and enforcement of the Magazines such as The American Architect, The production code and the worsening of the Architectural Record, and Pencil Points heralded Depression in the early 1930s. As the decade motion pictures as an ideal field for architects progressed, movie makers increasingly created an given their spatial, structural, and aesthetic on-screen world that deliberately simplified knowledge. They also argued that movies offered American life, both prescriptively and proscrip- an opportunity for imaginative, even fantastic, tively, in order to mollify the distressed masses of architectural exploration since set design was the general public (Paine 22). unburdened by exigencies of program and con- One of the most compelling ways to convey struction (Carrick 444; Zeigler 547). While some these social messages was visually through sets, members of the architectural community com- props, decor, and lighting—through the very de- plained that their art would be sullied by the sign of the film. Set design became, in effect, a commercial impulses of Hollywood, most archi- quasi-character. It did not just accompany, but tects grasped the industry’s possibilities for career commented upon the action of the plot, reinforc- advancement and design innovation (Barnes 169). ing and promoting the vision of American society Of even greater consequence, however, the pro- it depicted. This vision became even more con- fession regarded the movies as an unparalleled vincing after technological advances in the 1920s opportunity for the edification of the American enabled set design to move away from its theatrical public. origins toward more fully realized depictions of Architects acknowledged that they were not inhabited space. In the early days of cinema, flat- the first to discover that movies possessed educa- painted back-drops or three-walled ‘‘box’’ sets tional power, but they believed this had yet to be were the norm (Heisner 7). With the development properly developed. Because movies were enter- of depth of field moving photography and pan- tainment they might succeed where schooling had chromatic film stock, however, all objects within failed, and could demonstrate to the public what the shot remained crisp and clearly focused was good, correct, and beautiful in architecture whether they were near the camera or receding and interiors (‘‘The Architecture of Motion Pic- in space. This meant that three-dimensional props ture Settings’’ 2; MacFarland 66). According to would be read as three-dimensional on film. As a Harold Miles, art director and head of the Hol- result, anything appearing in a shot—stairs, pan- lywood League of Architects, once such examples eling, furniture, lamps or ashtrays—required a were widespread, movies would truly become higher level of finish and detail than had previously ‘‘one of the most powerful sources of molding been necessary. The effect of this was obvious, and public opinion that civilization has devised’’ visitors to the major movie studios began to note (Miles 544). Their impact was inevitable, or so that set fixtures and furnishings were ‘‘genuine and architects wished to believe: the public would not of the best materials’’ (Grey 31). only come to enjoy and appreciate good design at It was around this time that American archi- the movies, they would demand it in their every- tects first expressed an interest in the movies; by day lives as well. This would have the effect of the 1930s, according to some estimates, nearly counteracting the depravities of taste that many ninety-five percent of all Hollywood art directors architects regarded as a condition of modern life: came from the profession (Erengis 222). While the ‘‘it is safe to predict that motion pictures will be number of architects working in film production an influence for the good of public taste in many was undoubtedly influenced by the contraction of lines of effort and in standards of living generally’’ 200 The Journal of American Culture Volume 30, Number 2 June 2007 (Ziegler 546; Grey 33; Miles 544). Despite this Menzies, an art director at United Artists, it was early optimism, architects in Hollywood soon the responsibility of his staff to ‘‘picturize’’ the dispensed with their didactic ambitions for the form and content given to them by other depart- movies, or at least refrained from public discus- ments within the studio (Laing 64). This might sion of them. seem as if art departments were merely following With movies averaging between thirty-five and studio dictates rather than leading design deci- fifty sets per feature and studios producing close sions. However, because a film’s form and content to fifty movies per year, often with five to ten in were so often ‘‘in amoeba,’’ as one writer put it, progress at the same time, the simple pressures of set designers were called upon to visualize from film production were at least partially responsible the very beginning every aspect of the film (Laing for this change. But so were the larger dynamics 59). Thus, though they remained bound by finan- of the studio system as it flourished during cial and technical realities, the fact that they Hollywood’s Golden Age. The system in this were, in essence, starting from scratch, meant that period is generally understood as regulatory, in they were able to operate with a large measure of that all aspects of film production and distribution design freedom. were completely under studio control (Gomery). This freedom was equally informed by two At first glance, set design seems to be no excep- other factors. First, as discussed above, motion tion; it was merely a single cog in the larger ma- picture set design was only just emerging as a chine of the film factory. While art directors, and discipline distinct from stage set design. Called their draftspeople and set decorators, were solely upon to produce unprecedented designs, art di- responsible for set design, they closely coordinat- rectors were able to experiment widely, often with ed their work with representatives from scripting, new materials and technologies. Second, architec- costuming, cinematography, and, of course the ture and design in the United States was at a director.