2ĭespite the runaway success of Gone with the Wind, the overall economic state of the industry in early 1940 was shaky at best. In January 1940, Gone with the Wind averaged roughly $1 million per week while playing in fewer than 500 of the nation's 17,500 theaters. In that era, a $5 million box-office gross was considered exceptional over the previous decade, only Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) had surpassed that mark. Gone with the Wind proved to be the biggest of commercial hits as well. Selznick's massive Civil War epic was certainly the "biggest" production in Hollywood annals: a $4.25 million, 220-minute, star-laden Technicolor spectacle far beyond the scale of even the "prestige pictures" of the era. Released in late December 1939, Gone with the Wind was an immediate hit of such magnitude that it redefined what one trade paper termed "how big and how important a motion picture can be." 1 David O. The most significant of these, without question, was Gone with the Wind, an industry phenomenon of the first order and striking evidence of the movie industry's paradoxical state. Smith Goes to Washington, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Drums Along the Mohawk, Destry Rides Again, and Gone with the Wind. In terms of filmmaking achievements, Hollywood was just coming off what many considered its best year ever-a view underscored in January 1940 when several top holiday pictures went into widespread release. The American cinema in early 1940 was a study in paradox, with Hollywood in the full flowering of its "golden age" while the industry foundered economically and was beset by crises both at home and abroad. Propaganda, Politics, and the Production Code Administration Prologue: January 1940 Defense Buildup and the Domestic Movie Market The Studio System and the Antitrust Campaign The Motion Picture Industry in 1940-1941 Prologue: January 1940
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