ABSTRACT
Past studies have focused on the micro aspects of the coming of sound in film production and film reception. Taking a macro approach, the greatest consequence of the coming of sound was that it narrowed the field of Hollywood studios to eight, and divided them into five that owned theater chains (the “Big Five”), and three (the “Little Three”) that cooperated with the “Big Five.” This established the vertically integrated companies and the “Little Three” which remain in play today-save billionaire Howard Hughes taking RKO out of business in the 1950s. In other words, the greatest outcome of the coming of sound was the establishment of the studio classic system that dominated through the 1930s and 1940s, languished but remained viable in the 1950s, and was reinvented with the same companies shifting their place in the pecking order. The sole change was the rise of Disney into a major by the 1960s. Disney had survived the coming of sound by attaching itself to one of the major eight companies-first Columbia, then United Artists, and finally RKO-until 1953 when Walt Disney created his own international distribution system, and became a creator of feature films instead of only animated shorts, with an occasional feature.
