Studio system
Sound and the Big Five

The years 1927 and 1928 are generally seen as the beginning of Hollywood's Golden Age and the final major steps in establishing studio system control of the American film business. The success of 1927's The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length " talkie " (in fact, the majority of its scenes did not have live-recorded sound) gave a big boost to the then midsized Warner Bros. studio. The following year saw both the general introduction of sound throughout the industry and two more smashes for Warners: The Singing Fool, The Jazz Singer' s even more profitable follow-up, and Hollywood's first "all-talking" feature, Lights of New York. Just as significant were a number of offscreen developments. Warner Bros., now flush with income, acquired the extensive Stanley theater chain in September 1928. One month later, it purchased a controlling interest in the First National production company, more prominent than Warners itself not long before. With the First National acquisition came not only a 135-acre (55 ha) studio and backlot but another large string of movie theaters.

The last of the "Big Five" Hollywood conglomerates of the Golden Age emerged in 1928: RKO Pictures. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA), led by David Sarnoff, was looking for ways to exploit the cinema sound patents, newly trademarked RCA Photophone, owned by its parent company, General Electric. As the leading film production companies were all preparing to sign exclusive agreements with Western Electric for their technology, RCA got into the movie business itself. In January, General Electric acquired a sizable interest in Film Booking Offices of America (FBO), a distributor and small production company owned by Joseph P. Kennedy, father of future president John F. Kennedy. In October, through a set of stock transfers, RCA gained control of both FBO and the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chain; merging them into a single venture, it created the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corporation, Sarnoff chairing the board. With RKO and Warner Bros. (soon to become Warner Bros.–First National) joining Fox, Paramount, and Loew's/MGM as major players, the Big Five that would remain for thirty years were now in place.

Although RKO was an exception, the heads of studios on the west coast, the 'movie moguls', had mostly been in place for some years: Louis B. Mayer at MGM, Jack L. Warner at Warner Bros., Adolph Zukor at Paramount, William Fox and Darryl F. Zanuck (at 20th Century Fox from 1935), Carl Laemmle at Universal, and Harry Cohn at Columbia.
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