Hollywood (TV Mini Series) In the Beginning (1980) User Reviews

The weather is just lovely here in Fort Lee, New Jersey...

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 20 October 2019]

...for about three months a year. And that was just one of the reasons that the independent film makers moved to California starting around 1910. The other reason was that Edison, via both legal means and muscle ,was trying to shut down the independents because he felt since he invented the motion picture camera, that the profits of anybody who made a motion picture belonged to him.

The title of this film "In The Beginning" may be confusing to people. It is not recounting the beginning of the film industry, but the beginning of the industry in Hollywood. Viola Dana said that almost everybody who came there at first believed they would eventually go back east when the coast cleared. They would stay at a hotel - there was only one in Hollywood at the time - then rent a house for six months then back to the hotel.

But things became permanent, and not to the like of the non film industry residents. It was the home to farming tee totaling folk and was very rural with little industry. Some early Hollywood films are shown to illustrate just how rural it was.

So this episode goes on to show just how much Hollywood changed over the next ten years. As the move became permanent more permanent movie studios were built there. The big stars built palatial homes there such as Pickfair and Keaton's Italian Villa.

This episode is good as are all of the episodes of Silent Hollywood, but this one was just a little less interesting to me since it deals more in real estate and less in the films and stories that the other episodes do. Still it is worthwhile viewing.

Not perfect, but still exceptional

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 11 October 2014]

Like episode 1, episode 2 seems to suffer a bit when it comes to an analysis of the early American silent films. While it talks some about the film industry in New Jersey (the biggest in America in the early part of the 20th century), it skips through this important period VERY quickly--too quickly for my taste. So, the works of the Edison Company and others are barely mentioned at all. It makes it seem like until Hollywood was incorporated, there was almost no American film industry. However, apart from this mistaken impression it gives, the show is top- notch. As always, it was great interviews and clips. It also gives a lot of interesting material about the early king and queen of silents, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford and the impact they had on the world. And, it explains how the American films surpassed the output of the rest of the world and soon were the leading exporter of culture to the world. Well worth seeing.

Shooting, location, silence!

[AvionPrince16 · 7/10 · 27 August 2023]

So we still continue like the first episode but this one was more oriented of where the directors shot their movies (some of them was not that professional in a sense that they shot movies even if they didnt have a story.) It was kind of interesting to meet the actors and their little stories about stunts, locations, directors, money. And how more and more movies become something important and not minor. That was a great overview and we saw some movies shot in the 1920's and how the directors keep shooting to earn money and to make some interesting shots. We have also some discussions on set about exposure (things that we still have now). Still a great episode and a great way to show that period in that way.

Hollywood Episode 2

[Michael_Elliott · 28 August 2010]

Hollywood: In the Beginning (1980)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Second entry in the documentary series shows us the beginning of the home of movies, which was actually Fort Lee, NJ and not Hollywood. We see the eventually trip West as directors, such as D.W. Griffith, started going to California so that they could use the many visuals styles that it offered. We see early shots of Hollywood streets in Griffith's FAITHFUL before hearing about the first feature, Cecil B. DeMille's THE SQUAW MAN. From here we learn about some of the more ambitious projects like INTOLERANCE, JOAN THE WOMAN, ROBIN HOOD and THE THIEF OF BAGDAD. That there leads to the first super-team of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. Once again we're treated to some wonderful film clips but the real key to watching to this are for the wonderful interviews. In this episode we hear from Allan Dwan, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Byron Haskin, Henry King and Colleen Moore among many others. Fans of silent cinema are really going to eat this thing up thanks in large part to the terrific interviews that really give you a clear understanding and look of what it must have been like making movies back in the day. The stories are all full of life and you can't help but feel that these folks are so happy to be telling these stories as I'm sure there were decades where people didn't bothered to ask for these stories. This episode really does a good job at showing how quickly Hollywood came to be one of the largest businesses in the world and how things were changing daily. Sometimes these changes were for the better but sometimes for the worst. Just listen to Gish talking about having to film outside with nothing to block the wind.

The Origins of Hollywood as a Film Community

[dglink · 10/10 · 24 March 2019]

"In the Beginning" is the appropriate, if uninspired, title of the second episode in Kevin Brownlow and David Gill's superlative documentary on the American silent film, "Hollywood." The episode explores factors that prompted the budding U.S. film industry to move from Fort Lee, New Jersey, west to California and details the emergence of Hollywood as a community and the center of film-making. Cecil B. DeMille's daughter, Agnes DeMille, provides fascinating anecdotes and details of life in early Hollywood, and, not surprisingly, her father's 1914 film, "The Squaw Man," was the first feature made in Hollywood.

Brownlow and Gill illustrate the rise of movie stardom and fan worship through newsreels of the crowds attracted by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks on their foreign travels, and they show the growing cultural influence of Hollywood stars such as Colleen Moore, the flapper in "Flaming Youth," whose straight hair and bangs revolutionized women's hair styles. The engrossing interviews include not only Colleen Moore and Agnes DeMille, but also actresses Leatrice Joy and Lillian Gish, stunt man Harvey Parry, writer Anita Loos, and directors Allan Dwan and Henry King. Producer Hal Roach touches on the rise of the opulent movie palaces, although the subject deserves a stand-alone documentary, and four big-budget spectacles are generously excerpted: D.W. Griffith's "Intolerance," Cecil B. DeMille's "Joan the Woman," and Douglas Fairbanks's "Robin Hood" and "The Thief of Bagdad."

The contribution of composer Carl Davis to the series cannot be underestimated. From his nostalgic-romantic opening theme to the accompaniment of the various film clips, Davis's score is appropriate and memorable. Not surprisingly, Davis has subsequently composed scores for such restored silent classics as "Napoleon," "The General," and "Ben Hur, A Tale of the Christ." As with the series as a whole, viewers can argue the subjective inclusion or exclusion of specific films and individuals, and they can bemoan the superficial glance at subjects that deserve more depth, but those are small quibbles about an invaluable documentary that preserves so much about a period in film history that was quickly fading from living memories when it was made.

The Bud Stage of Development.

[rmax304823 · 8/10 · 7 May 2016]

It must have been a pretty place, Los Angeles and Hollywood, about 1910. Other industries were dampened by laws. Hollywood itself was a fruit orchard, bought by the Wilcox family and named after an estate back East. Mr. Wilcox, an entrepreneur, chopped down the trees, divvied the land up into parcels, and sold them at a profit to prim Midwesterners. This is what's known as "land development", which suggests that a butcher should really be called a cow developer. There was a balmy climate, abundant sunshine, no smog, no congestion, varied natural environments, wide spaces, and stunning landscapes. There were snowy mountains, rushing rivers, open ranges, sea ports, forests, valleys filled with wildflowers, and deserts.

Before the advantages of Southern California were discovered, films were mainly shot in the New York metropolitan area, with a focus on Fort Lee, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River. The movies were shot on roof tops to take advantage of the sunlight. There was so much corruption and rivalry between the established studios and the independents, that the latter were more or less forced out of town. Cecile B. DeMille arrived in Hollywood in 1912 when the first studio was built. There was no electric lighting but movies didn't need to be shot on rooftops. Sets with no roofs could be slapped together outdoors. The newcomers from the East were déclassé. They were Jews and roughnecks who didn't go to church, who drank immoderately, and who rode horses over privately owned lawns, leaving ragged hoofprints and horse turds in their wake. Ads for rooms to rent were often accompanied by a notice -- "No Movies", the first time the word was used.

After World War I, with the European film industry in bad shape, Hollywood's product, even more resplendent, became the international standard, influencing hair styles and the like. Stars became rich and famous. The King of Siam stayed at "Pickfair," the name of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks' modest cottage in Hollywood.

This episode, like the others, illustrates its point with excerpts from the films. Ah, to be a movie star. Better yet, a Mogul.