Hollywood - Ep 2: In The Beginning

The legendary series which outlines the history of Hollywood and the individuals that shaped film-making. Episode Two outlines the transformation of Hollywood into the birthplace of the cinema industry, eventually spreading around the world.

[@andymassingham]

A fascinating footnote; Narrator James Mason actually owned the Buster Keaton mansion he mentions in this episode during the 1950’s. One day Mason noticed a door at the back of a gardening shed on the property. Curious, he opened it and to his astonishment discovered dozens of film cans containing some of the only existing prints of Keaton’s features and shorts. The troubled comic genius had left them there in the wake of his divorce and loss of his property. Some of the films were already decomposing and thankfully Mason promptly turned them over to film preservationists which eventually led to Keaton’s late renaissance and celebration of his work.

[@shannonsmith297]

Amazing

[@leolyon2373]

Wonderful story. Thank you. From the Bronx.

[@JamesHanglin]

Thanks for sharing this valuable piece of information 😌

[@edwardmarks4293]

After watching this series for the third time, I thought it would be a good place to tell my personal Lillian Gish story. When I was a young adult (in the 1970s) I was one of the year round workers at H & R Block in Santa Barbara. One day an older woman comes in, pulls out an IRS notice from her hand bag and asks for help in dealing with it. I take the notice and see her name...Lillian Gish. I know I was a bit off-center (and still am) a teenage boy in the '70s enamored by old movies/Hollywood. I read the notice and gave her some advice. It was no big deal, but, like anything from the IRS, something not to be ignored. She must have noticed my recognition of her name and asks if I knew who she was. 'Yes, Miss Gish", I said. Her response (I'm paraphrasing a bit) "I want to give you some advice. I spent a lifetime working hard and making a name for myself. Now, here I am. An old lady with plenty of money and not enough health or friends to really enjoy life. It's important to succeed in life, but, don't get so wrapped up in your career that you miss enjoying the good things while you can.' One of my favorite memories.

[@alecsiegrist6277]

Beautiful quote

[@ardiffley-zipkin9539]

Well said. I agree. One of my managers told me that no one wishes that they had spent more time at work in their declining years or death bed. I worked hard at my career but also enjoyed my vacations, travel, family and married my best friend, Dr Dan. Balance is the key.

[@scotnick59]

James Mason had the PERFECT voice for narrating this series!

[@katmolina2627]

I remember watching this on cable in the early 80's. Even as a teenager I loved this series!🤩

[@ciaraskeleton]

I'm so Fascinated by the history of film making. It is wild to see how they just popped up studios and weathered each storm just to create art! I know that back then had its atrocities but I would love to have been around to see the beginning and then crystallisation of the industry. Blows my mind.

[@Warped9]

This series really should be remastered and made available on DVD and/or BluRay.

[@mrblobby7864]

Probably would be too expensive to licence all the movie footage for a release that would sadly have very niche appeal.

[@emilys3458]

Agnes DeMille is simply charming in this. So eloquent and descriptive and her background as a dancer is obvious in her movement. Shes wonderful!!!

[@ciaraskeleton]

I thought this too! She is so eloquent and graceful. Something so captivating about her!

[@greengardengreen6666]

Agnes DeMille, what a grand dame, I love the way how she described the Hollywood Hills, about the wild flowers, the nature, the natural beauty the sunshine. How I wish I was there during those early years.

[@bobbyantonelli7978]

I feel so much the same way you do about Agnes DeMille and the way she talks about the wild flowers and how you can just imagine what it was like when the land was so underdeveloped and so beautiful and I just wish I could have been there!

[@Nick1981]

I cannot believe there's not more views on these, I love the whole set, these are so well done, and you actually hear from the ppl who lived then.

[@davidmccarthy4690]

Unfortunately there is so much available on KZbin that it’s easy to overlook excellent programs I myself only became aware of this series as a recommendation then couldn’t remember the exact name and had to keep searching until Eureka!

[@LathropLdST]

I hope there are not a lot of views. Keeping this treasure for the few of us who can appreciate it, is fine. The disgraceful woke tr@$h of today, do not deserve illumination about the times past.

[@DerbyKnowledge93]

Great series, I have watched multiple times

[@alecwilliams7111]

This is an excellent documentary series. It's easy to forget that these pioneers created one of the greatest American industries of all time, plus the jobs, payrolls, and taxes that go with that. They also created the ultimate American art form, a fact which helped make America dominant in the 20th century. It is hard to over estimate the importance of the movies.

[@bostonblackie9503]

The only true US art form is Jazz. People were making movies all over the world and were succeeding the US. The turn around came with WWI.

[@SrAJones-ns7sx]

Always loved the variations of the score....thank you for posting!

[@laurasedor4641]

This is amazing, thank you for putting this online

[@amandawhiteley6737]

2 silent films I own are Ben Hur with Ramon Navarro. I have also Metropolis

[@Linda-pw8gx]

Very enjoyable! Thank you!

[@janets9179]

California used to be an amazing place.

[@goldenager59]

Such a delightfully enticing time and place to be alive, in bucolic rural Hollywood before it became an "industry town", where a colony of independent filmmakers (much like a grand extended family of thinkalikes) played with an exciting new art form to mainly please themselves (not that there was ever a time when it wasn't a strenuous and nerve-racking endeavor, of course) and hopefully make _mucho dinero_ in the process. Such a shame that the products of those days are mostly lost to us now. But I suppose that's our blinkered Yankee outlook for you. 😕 😎

[@anthnee1]

Fascinating!

[@richardmills1505]

With this installment, I'm subscribing to this channel! 👍🙏

[@user-jg9gq6ms9m]

Mountbatten had already been assassinated by the IRA by the time this episode had aired. Cool bit of trivia

[@CrustyUgg]

I've watched these 13 episodes or however many there are quite a few times now. I love it

[@thinkaboutit3366]

Th u for this education in film entertainment 🎩

[@marine4lyfe85]

What a delightful woman Colleen Moore was!

[@stephenoconnor9904]

A Fasinating into the look and transformation of early Hollywood, Great Viewing.

[@Jonathon10]

These are so great

[@stephenoconnor9904]

A Little hard to understand, but , Facinating Vewing, none the less.

[@user-jg9gq6ms9m]

Does anyone know the song used at 38:39? I have heard it before on an old tv show

[@mjohnson66]

Can anyone identify the excerpt of music which starts at timestamp 25:30? I am sure it is from a classical piece rather than part of the original music written for this series by Carl Davis. Would love to find it and listen to the entire piece.

[@pennyburns4425]

I think the piece of music you refer to is from the 2nd half of ' Scherazade ' by Rimsky-Korsakov.

[@HOE68YEN]

It’s the Bacchanale from Saint Saens opera Samson & Delilah.

[@macarenahernandez2839]

Amazing episode 😍 does anybody know whats the name of the song played when flaming youth" is mentioned? Min 38, please 🙏

[@angelinasamson6996]

I wonder what they would think of the cameras that we have these days

[@onesunnyday5699]

Witchcraft 😅

[@NuGanjaTron]

I wonder what they would think of the nondescript, untalented "actors", shitty scripts and endless, idiotic comic book sequels we have these days. De Mille and the early Hollywood greats must be turning in their graves if they saw the formulaic garbage now being cranked out of Tinseltown. That shite will certainly _not_ be worth preserving 100 years from now.

[@rahmmason2159]

I have all 13 episodes on VHS! Where could I find a clean VCR to watch them?

[@marine4lyfe85]

Get them transferred to dvd. There are places that do that.

[@leolyon2373]

The Hollywood elite pale in comparison to the GIANTS of this truly inspired by the muses age.

[@mauriceschannel1945]

0:47 what’s this song called?!?!?

[@Sunfried1]

Lord Mountbatten was assassinated in the late Seventies. I'm guessing this doc was made around that time

[@dariowiter3078]

He died in 1979 in that bombing of the boat that he was aboard on that the IRA(Irish Republican Army) claimed credit for.

[@user-jg9gq6ms9m]

I have just left a comment about this. He had already died by the time this episode had aired. Cool bit of trivia

[@marcdelente2456]

Quand ont pensent qu'avec l arrivée du parlant des milliers de films du muet seront détruits . Le style de films qui sera relativement conservé seront les burlesques d autres aussi mais la majorité seront un peu près tout les genres heureusement ils en a qui seront conservés .

[@bobgreystoke316]

I was born way too freaking late.

[@onesunnyday5699]

When was this originally filmed? Surely all of these people are long gone by 2017, that's more than a century past. Also the font & filming looks like the 70s

[@michellereichardt3323]

1980

[@juniorjames7076]

I remember seeing clips of this on PBS channels (13, 21 and 25) as a child in the mid 1980s NYC. I remember being both fascinated and bored at the same time, cuz most of what they were saying went over my head. LOL. I can obviously appreciate it better now.

[@dariowiter3078]

@@michellereichardt3323 It was 1979 and 1980, not 1980 exclusively. The Los Angeles television station KHJ-TV(now KCAL) Ch. 9 first aired this Thames Television(🇬🇧) documentary in the fall of 1979 and early in the late winter/early spring of 1980 when I was in 5th grade at the time.

[@marine4lyfe85]

Some of the interviews were pre-79. Mountbatten was assassinated in 79.

[@SaraiSantana-ei8vq]

Who is the girl who dances next to the man with the hat at minute 1:31 - 1:33

[@5.56_Media]

These are the end times

[@dariowiter3078]

What are talking about, dummy? You're not making sense at all! 😣😡

[@classiclife7204]

The music is wayyyyyy too high in the mix. It nearly drowns out Agnes DeMille's beautiful description of the natural Hollywood that she knew. And there shouldn't have been any music competing with Allan Dwan, who was in his 90s when they interviewed him, dying about a year after this series' release. Sometimes the music is louder than Mason's narration. I've talked about this series at length on an older upload on KZbin, so now I guess I'm picking nits. But seriously, turn it down! - these folks were old as hell and most of them weren't nearly as vigorous as DeMille. Let them be heard clearly!

[@thebundleart]

Excellent work! I really learned several stuff I didn't know. I am having a video channel about the History of Cinema, where I focus more on movies from different periods and movements and I speak also about the birth of Hollywood. I would be really interested to read your opinion about my work!

[@glennso47]

Holly weird

[@joaniec6178]

So are you

[@marcdelente2456]

Hollywood non ce n était pas ce que l'ont croi derrière les strass et les bijoux les dandys ça sentait pas bon et sinon ont rajoutait un peu plus de parfums . Comme aujourd hui les peoples viene montré leurs jeunesses éternels avec le botox et leurs gros lolos et leurs grosses fesses vraiment dégueulace .

[@Coolarrowify]

How do you know that your comments are true? Have you been to LA? Are you an expert regarding film history? Your comments reflect your lack of knowledge about LA or the early film business. You may realize that Botox and large derrières were not possible in the early years of film history, so don’t confuse now and then. Don’t confuse posers versus true artists. Hollywood created the magic that is Garbo, Lubitsch, Cukor, Marilyn, Clara Bow, Adrian, Edith Head, Hitchcock, Judy Garland, Busby Berkeley, Mary Pickford, Valentino, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Cedric Gibbons, etc. You understand what I mean. You should try to separate the fiction and the hype from the artistry that arose from the early film pioneers. I am perplexed by your simplistic thinking and crass comments. C’est dommage, mon enfant.

[@walterlahaye2128]

The motion picture industry is the devil’s family altar, through the Hollywood looking glass

[@edwardlee654]

The content is here. The behavior is a shared admission. Some of the info. is presumed to analogize the presenter as legible, some so be it. Follow along is contributive to appreciation. Hollywood, technical merit to communications by generational. United States, United nations. Accredited by templating the movements, including personal and incorporated to/of the industry. Tasteful report, yes. Edward 7034 21293-20- Apr- 2022.

[@LathropLdST]

What are you prattling on about?