Film Studies Daily Log

Monday, December 15

We watched two film excerpts concerning the early days of the film industry focusing on the war between Edison's Trust and the independent producers. The second ( from An Empire of Their Own) stressed the common experiences of many of these independents -- later the leading Hollywood "moguls" -- as Eastern European Jewish immigrants. Following the excerpts Mr. Potratz talked about the history of anti-Semitism directed at Hollywood and the background of Fascism in Europe in the 1930s, the threat of which went largely unnoticed by Hollywood until after the U.S. entered the war in December, 1941.