Does movie boom indicate stronger economy?

Vappala Balachandran 
Former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat

Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had to withdraw his October 12 statement in Mumbai, citing Bollywood successes while trying to refute the charge that our economy was in a crisis. The argument he chose was the success of three Bollywood films at the box office which netted Rs 120 crore in a day. A senior politician like Prasad should have realised that one should not judge the health of a huge economy like ours by selectively examining a small sector like Bollywood.  

Also, the BJP government would have faced international embarrassment had it persisted with this argument. This is because a study of the history of commercial films in America would prove that the film industry performed well during the ‘Great Depression’, which started with the October 29, 1929 Wall Street Crash, setting in motion the financial crisis which lasted till 1941 when America started mobilising for World War II. 

The Hollywood boom was a result of fortuitous circumstances and sharp commercial instinct. American movie curator John Farr says that the Crash took Hollywood by surprise while it was in transition from “The Silent” to the early stages of “The Sound”. Huge investment was made to convert shooting sets and theatres to “Sound”. Hollywood moguls urgently needed to recoup their investment. 

Hence, they swung all energies to market this new entertainment instead of looking to the federal government like the rest of America. They took advantage of the relative weaknesses of their competitors which were radio and stage shows. Also, they had full control over their assets, like studios, stars, directors, writers and theatre owners. “They had to catch up with their technology fast, creating a cinema of sight and sound, images and words.” 

To achieve this, they managed to create a new business package of showing movies cheap (10 to 25 cents), beating plays which were expensive.  It was a “therapeutic diversion” to the millions of American people who needed to forget their misery. They were like the early Raj Kapoor films or the present dhushum-dhushum David and Goliath Indian language movies. Also they established a show protocol which exists even this day: starting with news reels, cartoons, advertisements, serials and ending with the main movies, a wholesome entertainment for the common man for two-three hours.

To quote John Farr, “American films reached a pinnacle of influence at a time when most other industries were struggling mightily.” It was during this period that Hollywood produced some of the best classics, deliberately choosing Depression era comedies which made fun of the rich. The list includes choreographer Busby Berkeley’s 42nd Street, Broadway dancing star Fred Astaire’s Flying Down to Rio and Marx Brothers’ Anarchic, and humour movies like A night at the opera and A day at the races. Also popular were King Kong and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. 

Between 60 and 80 million Americans saw movies once a week during those days. The Depression films were based on the realities of that era, “dragged directly from the grim pages of contemporary newspapers.” Also thrown in liberally by Columbia and Warner Brothers were crime and gangster movies starring Paul Muni, Edward G Robinson and James Cagney. 

In 1934, Frank Capra, till then unknown, was allowed to make It Happened One Night at Columbia’s ‘Poverty Row Studios’, starring Clark Gable who was ‘loaned’ by MGM. It turned out to be a great success as Gable could win his only Oscar. Stars like Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn bloomed during this period. “Comedies, gangster movies and musicals helped people forget their troubles.” This ‘Golden Age’ boom continued till after the Second World War, until the “idiot box” challenged the might of Hollywood, leading to its decline. 

Large-scale movie watching continued even during the later financial crises. The year 2008 saw the collapse of the Lehman Brothers, which set in motion a global financial crisis. Its effect on the UK was shattering. The pound collapsed. Bovis, Britain’s giant builder, warned that the property market would collapse unless the interest rates were cut.  HBOS, the UK’s biggest mortgage seller, was under strain. 

However, this did not affect the film industry. A New York Times report on February 28, 2009 said that movie ticket sales in the US surged by 17.55 per cent to $1.7 billion, not merely due to higher ticket prices but also due to attendance which was 16 per cent higher. The Entertainment page of the Independent (UK) conveyed on October 4, 2008 that the films in the UK, the US and Australia were doing well despite a general apprehension of another ‘Black Tuesday’, when leading economies were facing a downturn since the summer of 2008. It said that in the UK, the movie attendance was at a “40-year high”. 

During the Great Depression, the US federal government had to intervene to alleviate the adverse effects of Hollywood’s success on other areas of entertainment. The boom had adversely affected even “big bands” like Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman. As many as 30,000 musicians were out of job when ‘The Sound’ was introduced. This plan was called ‘New Deal: Federal Theatre Project 1935-1939’. Hallie Flanagan, a theatre professor, was chosen by President FD Roosevelt to head the project over the claims of commercial professionals. Thousands of unemployed theatre professionals were rehabilitated through government intervention. 

For the first time, an African-American theatre group emerged. A new breed of theatre artistes like Arthur Miller, Orson Welles and Elia Kazan rose. Burt Lancaster, the famous latter day Hollywood hero, joined the Federal Theatre Circus when he was 19.  During its four years of existence, the Federal Theatre Project entertained over 30 million Americans, renting theatres, parks, churches and schools. However, the project had to be closed in 1939 due to objections from the right wing Congressional lobby for allegedly encouraging “leftist” ideas and racial integration. Also, America was inching towards the Second World War. 

In 2009, the New York Times quoted Martin Kaplan, of the Norman Lear Center for the Study of Entertainment, saying why movie watching had soared during the economic crisis: “People want to forget their troubles, and they want to be with other people.” Is this what is happening in India?