According to study results released in January 2023 by the American Film Institute (AFI) in which 6,000 feature films released in the silent film era, it was discovered that “women represented a higher percentage of writers, directors and producers in the silent era than at any other time in the first century of American film-making.”
Figure 1 shows where credits attributed to women working behind the camera were 10.9% in 1910-1930 versus 6.9% in 1931-1993. Feature films credits attributed to women screen/scenario writers and co-writers were 27.5% in 1910-1930 versus 12.2% in 1931-1993. Even literary sources that were written by women and adapted to the film were 19.6% in 1910-1930 versus 15.8% in 1931-1993.
Figure 1, information from AFI study released January 2023.
The silent film industry as a whole was not at first targeted by the Sherman Antitrust Act after it was passed, even though Thomas Edison had created a monopoly on much of silent film technology by founding the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC) in 1908. The company subsequently folded in 1915 after it eventually lost a federal antitrust suit.
Until this happened however, an article in the Saturday Evening Post stated that, “The East Coast became suffocating for non-Edison-affiliated film makers. Every turn they made in the industry was met with a lawsuit, stifling creativity and stalling innovation. The environment that Edison concocted led to independent film makers wanting to get far away from him and his monopoly. Hollywood seemed like the ideal destination.”
Film production companies did become self-regulated through the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) which evolved into today’s Motion Picture Association (MPA), until the film industry was brought under investigation in United States v. Paramount Pictures in 1948. The MPPDA was founded in 1922 and led by former Postmaster General William H. Hays.
This information correlates to an article by Kolko that said Woodrow Wilson “expressed satisfaction that businessmen were beginning to reform themselves” in the time of Wilson’s vision coined the New Freedom.
Additionally, an article by Chandler notes that in the silent film era, the “modern business enterprise as having two basic characteristics: it contains a number of distinct operating units and it is managed by a hierarchy of full-time salaried executives.”
Silent film companies only half-mirrored Chandler’s description - there were several distinct operating units such as editing, costume, screenwriting, directing, acting, producing, camera crank, etc - BUT, film companies were managed by a few full-time executives, and were usually managed by investors, along with directors and producers, and there was no real hierarchy involved.
Abreu explains that by the 1930s, and at the end of the silent film industry/era, the “studio system” took over as the business method employed. The studio system operated for about two decades, and involved Hollywood movie studios having control over all aspects of their film productions - including production, distribution, and exhibition.
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| Frances Marion, c. 1920. Photo courtesy The Criterion Collection. |
Amid all of the new-found censorship antitrust legislation and modern business characteristics model, a pioneering woman in silent film named Frances Marion, navigated the business side of the industry to become arguably one of the longest employed, and best paid professionals in the field.
The January 2023 study by AFI that is referenced above specifically highlights Frances Marion as having more film credits attributed to her scenario/screen writing than any other in the industry. By 1918, Frances Marion was making $50K/year, which is almost a million dollars a year, today ($996,159). The irony is that for a time at the beginning of her silent film career, Marion worked for free to prove her skills as a writer.
By 1919, she received a letter from William Randolph Hearst offering her $2000 a week to write for his Cosmopolitan Studios in New York.
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| France Marion, silent film screenwriter. Photo courtesy In Their Own League. |
According to the Beauchamps, who wrote and produced the Frances Marion documentary Without Lying Down: Frances Marion in Hollywood, “she wrote more than 200 movies and was the world's highest paid screenwriter - man or woman. Hollywood moguls competed for her stories…Marion became the first screenwriter to win two Oscars.”
In fact, an article by Petersen in Screenland Magazine from 1938, tells that Frances Marion “remained consistently the highest paid scenario writer in the world. The first to make big money in screenwriting, Frances Marion paved the way for the present income tax bracket for Hollywood writers who have her to thank for their surtaxes today.”
Marion’s work as a screenwriter lasted through the beginnings of two film industries - silent and the “talkies.” She not only navigated a male-dominated field, she also became one of the most significant examples of how women with diverse capabilities behind the film camera came to run the early entertainment industry.
Antitrust laws came to the silent film industry through the breakup of the Edison trust, ending his hold on the technology used to create early films. Business enterprise models also reflected the structure of silent film companies in the Progressive Era, to a certain extent. Regardless, women were able to exercise their entrepreneurial sides and flourish economically in the now-extinct field.
Bibliography
Abreu, Rafael. “What is the Studio System?: Hollywood’s Studio Era Explained.” Studiobinder website. (Jan.1, 2023). https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-the-studio-system- in-hollywood/.
American Film Institute (AFI). “AFI Releases Landmark Study about the Contributions of Women to Early Cinema.” AFI Catalog website. (January 2023). https://aficatalog.afi.com/wtta-silent-era/#credits.
Beauchamp, Terry and Carrie Beauchamp. “Without Lying Down: Frances Marion in Hollywood.” Directed by Brigit Terry (2000). Video: Chaise Lounge Productions, LLC and UCLA Film Archive. https://milestone.vhx.tv/products/without-lying-down- frances-marion-in-hollywood.
Chandler Jr., Alfred D. “Chapter 2: Scale, Scope, and Organizational Capabilities.” In Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Capatilism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, (1990): 14-46. Accessed February 6, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central.
Kolko, Gabriel. “Chapter Ten: The Triumph of Political Capitalism, The Federal Trade Commission and Trust Legislation.” In the Triumph of Conservatism. New York, NY: Free Press (1977). https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk& AN=1963172&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
National Coalition Against Censorship. “A Brief History of Film Censorship.” NCAC website (2023). https://ncac.org/resource/a-brief-history-of-film-censorship.
Petersen, Elizabeth Benneche. “Great Women of Motion Pictures.” Screenland. New York, NY: Screenland Magazine, Inc. (1938): 54-55 & 77-78. Urn:oclc:record:1085107635. https://archive.org/details/screenland38unse/page/n275/mode/2up.
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