Hollywood (British TV series)

Synopsis

This 13-episode series, each installment running 50 minutes, explores different facets of Hollywood’s past. Actor James Mason, a noted fan of the era, provides the narration, while Carl Davis composed a lively, expressive musical score. A major focus was on technical presentation. Before this series, television often showed silent films using blurry, sped-up copies accompanied by cheap honky-tonk piano.

The production instead sourced the best available prints, screened them at their correct speed using a polygonal prism telecine, and paired them with a full orchestral soundtrack, letting audiences experience the films as originally intended. The first episode illustrates this by first showing a low-quality, poorly scored clip from the 1903 film Life of an American Fireman, then contrasting it with a pristine, correctly timed print of the 1926 film The Fire Brigade, complete with orchestral music.

The filmmakers also captured interviews with many surviving figures from the silent era, illustrating their conversations with film clips, production stills, and historical photos of the Los Angeles area. Several of these interviews are notable as the only known filmed conversations with their subjects.

Participants

Among the notable people who contributed interviews were actors Mary Astor, Eleanor Boardman, Louise Brooks, Olive Carey, Iron Eyes Cody, Jackie Coogan, Dolores Costello, Viola Dana, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Janet Gaynor, Leatrice Joy, Lillian Gish, Bessie Love, Ben Lyon, Marion Mack, Tim McCoy, Colleen Moore, Charles 'Buddy' Rogers, Gloria Swanson, Blanche Sweet, John Wayne, Eva von Berne, and Lois Wilson. Directors included Dorothy Arzner, Clarence Brown, Karl Brown, Frank Capra, George Cukor, Allan Dwan, Byron Haskin, Henry Hathaway, Henry King, Lewis Milestone, Hal Roach, Albert S. Rogell, King Vidor, and William Wyler.

Also interviewed were choreographer Agnes de Mille, writer Anita Loos, writer Adela Rogers St. Johns, press agent/writer Cedric Belfrage, organist Gaylord Carter, cinematographers George J. Folsey, Lee Garmes, and Paul Ivano, writer Jesse L. Lasky, Jr., special effects artist A. Arnold Gillespie, Lord Mountbatten, agent Paul Kohner, producer/writer Samuel Marx, editors William Hornbeck and Grant Whytock, property man Lefty Hough, stuntmen Bob Rose, Yakima Canutt, Paul Malvern, and Harvey Parry, Rudolph Valentino's brother Alberto Valentino, Valerie von Stroheim, and English set designer Laurence Irving.

Episodes

The first episode, Pioneers, traces cinema's journey from a simple penny arcade attraction into a recognized art form. It highlights what is considered the first film with a real plot, The Great Train Robbery, and moves through to The Birth of a Nation, which demonstrated the medium's immense potential. The episode also showcases early color processes, including Technicolor. Featured interviews include Lillian Gish, Jackie Coogan, and King Vidor.

In the Beginning documents the transformation of Hollywood from a quiet village of dusty streets and lemon groves into the center of the California film industry. It also explores how silent films broke through international borders to become a global sensation. Henry King, Agnes de Mille, and Lillian Gish are among those interviewed.

Single Beds and Double Standards examines the rapid success that led to a carefree party culture in Hollywood, culminating in major scandals like the manslaughter trial and acquittal of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. In response, Will H. Hays was brought in to clean up the industry's image and introduced a self-regulated Production Code that remained in force until the 1960s. Even so, filmmakers found clever ways to include adult themes. King Vidor and Gloria Swanson share their insights.

Hollywood Goes to War covers how World War I gave the industry a profitable source of stories. After the war, war movies were less common until King Vidor's The Big Parade in 1925. Wings won the first Academy Award for Best Picture in 1927. As sound films arrived, Universal released Lewis Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front, which presented the German perspective and became a powerful anti-war statement from the generation that fought. Interviews feature Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., King Vidor, Blanche Sweet, and Lillian Gish.

Hazard of the Game focuses on the slapstick and dangerous stunts that define silent comedies. Stuntmen worked anonymously for low pay and were forbidden from revealing their roles. Yakima Canutt, Harvey Parry, Bob Rose, and Paul Malvern recount thrilling and funny stories, and explain how many famous stunts were pulled off.