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Brothers was producing about 100 motion pictures a year and controlled 360 theatres in the United States and more than 400 abroad.

Warner Brothers became known for its tightly budgeted, technically competent entertainment films. In the early 1930s the company started the craze for gangster films with «Little Caesar» (1930), «The Public Enemy» (1931), and «Scarface» (1932). In the '30s Warner Brothers also presented musical extravaganzas, many swashbuckling and adventure films, and dramas. Among the studio's best-known films of the 1940s and '50s were «Casablanca» (1942), «Watch on the Rhine» (1943), and «A Streetcar Named Desire» (1951). The studio's later box-office successes included «My Fair Lady» (1964), «Bonnie and Clyde» (1967), «The Exorcist» (1973), «The Color Purple» (1985), and «The Fugitive» (1993).

Jack Warner was Warner's longtime vice president in charge of production and became the company's president in 1956, after the last of his older brothers had retired. He retired in 1972. Meanwhile, Warner Brothers had undergone various corporate changes and had diversified into television programming, book publishing, and musical recordings by the 1970s. In 1969 it became Warner Bros. Inc., a subsidiary of Warner Communications Inc. In 1989 the latter company merged with Time Inc. to form Time Warner Inc., the largest media and entertainment corporation in the world. Time Warner inaugurated the WB, a broadcast television network, in 1995.

Notes:

1.to collaborate – сотрудничать;

2.to retire – уходить в отставку;

3.to diversify – разнообразить;

4.a subsidiary – дочерняя компания;

5.a broadcast television network – телевизионная вещательная компа-

ния.

METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER, INC.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. is a motion picture and entertainment company based in Santa Monica, California. A product of the 1981 merger between film studios MGM Pictures and United Artists Pictures, Inc. (UA), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) is one of the oldest and most influential studios in motion picture history. Many of Hollywood’s most famous movies

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were produced under the banner of either MGM or United Artists, including «Gone With the Wind» (1939), «High Noon» (1950), «West Side Story» (1961), «From Russia With Love» (1962), «Midnight Cowboy» (1969), «One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest» (1975), and «Rain Man» (1988). Battered by a series of corporate takeovers and restructurings in the 1980s, MGM slid from its position as a major Hollywood studio. United Artists Pictures became a subsidiary of MGM after a major restructuring in 1992. But a string of hits in the mid-1990s restored much of the luster to MGM and its UA subsidiary.

In 1916 Samuel Goldwyn formed The Goldwyn Picture Corporation and introduced a roaring lion (Leo) as the trademark for his movies. In 1924 Goldwyn’s studio merged with Metro Pictures and with Louis B. Mayer Pictures to form MGM. Louis B. Mayer served as vice president and general manager of MGM, gaining notoriety for his commanding, even dictatorial management style. Irving Thalberg, a protégé of Mayer, ran the new company’s production division and developed MGM’s reputation for producing highly polished, technically sophisticated films. «Ben-Hur» (1926) became the first in a long string of MGM blockbusters that also included «Grand Hotel» (1932), «Boys Town» (1938), «Gone With the Wind», and «The Wizard of Oz» (1939). The studio later became known for its lavish musicals, such as «Singin’ in the Rain» (1952), and for its epic dramas, such as «Doctor Zhivago» (1965).

In 1970 a financier Kirk Kerkorian took over the studio. In 1973 Kerkorian turned over most of MGM’s U. S. distribution to United Artists, a studio that had been formed in 1919 by silent-film stars Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and Douglas Fairbanks, along with director D. W. Griffith. Kerkorian acquired United Artists in 1974 and formed the MGM / UA Entertainment Company.

In 1986 cable television tycoon Ted Turner purchased MGM’s film library for almost $500 million. The studio reorganized and changed its name again, to MGM/UA Communications Company. By the late 1980s the studio had begun losing money, and in 1990 Kerkorian sold the company to Italian financier Giancarlo Parretti. In 1992 former Paramount Pictures chairman Frank Mancuso was installed to lead MGM/UA, which became Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., with United Artists Pictures as a subsidiary.

Under Mancuso’s leadership the studio began to regain some of its former stature in the motion-picture industry. «Stargate» (1994) became the first

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MGM picture in three years to make a considerable profit at the box office, grossing over $40 million. «Goldeneye» (1995) then became the most profitable installment of the popular James Bond series of films, grossing over $350 million. Several hits followed. With its movies winning over audiences once again, the company began expanding and creating new divisions, including MGM Worldwide Television, a television production studio; MGM Animation, an animated-film studio; and MGM Interactive, a multimedia entertainment company.

Notes:

1.trademark – торговая (фабричная) марка;

2.dictatorial management style – диктаторский стиль управления;

3.notoriety – дурная слава;

4.television tycoon – телевизионный магнат;

5.to regain former stature – восстанавливать старую структуру.

PARAMOUNT PICTURES CORPORATION

Paramount Pictures Corporation, motion picture and television production and distribution company based in New York City. One of the leading film studios in the United States, Paramount has produced many popular motion pictures, such as «The Ten Commandments» (1923; remade in 1956), «The Godfather» (1972) and its sequels, and «Forrest Gump» (1994).

Paramount was founded in 1912 as Adolf Zukor’s Famous Players Film Company. Zukor, an immigrant to the United States from Hungary, began his career in the entertainment industry in 1903. In 1912 he formed Engadine, a film distribution company. He later added a film production division and renamed the company Famous Players. In 1916 Zukor teamed with American film producer Jesse Lasky to form the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, which soon took the name of its film distribution division, Paramount. The company produced and distributed films, but it also built or bought hundreds of theaters in the United States and Europe.

Paramount became one of the early leaders in the movie industry by aggressively acquiring smaller production studios, by featuring popular actors in its films, and by showing those films in its own theaters. In 1914 Zukor signed a contract with American actor Mary Pickford, who quickly became one of the

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most famous stars in the industry. Other early movie stars who performed in Paramount films included Douglas Fairbanks, Gloria Swanson, Gary Cooper.

In 1926 the Balaban & Katz theater chain merged with Paramount, and ten years later American producer Barney Balaban took charge of the operation. Under Balaban's leadership during the 1930s and 1940s, Paramount grew even larger. The studio’s films «Going My Way» (1944) and «Lost Weekend» (1945) each won Academy Awards for best picture. By the mid-1940s Paramount and four other large motion picture companies owned most of the movie theaters in urban areas of the U. S., thereby controlling production, distribution, and presentation of virtually all American films.

But in 1948 Paramount sold their theater holdings. The studio’s influence in the motion picture industry diminished considerably. Paramount produced only an occasional hit during the 1950s and early 1960s. In 1966 Gulf

&Western Industries bought the company. When it acquired Paramount, Gulf

&Western was a holding company for dozens of other interests, including cigars, mining, and real estate. With Gulf & Western’s backing, Paramount produced several hits, including «The Odd Couple» (1968), «Love Story» (1970), «The Godfather», and «The Godfather II» (1974).

In 1989 the company was renamed Paramount Communications Corporation. In 1994 Viacom bought Paramount. A year later Viacom launched a television network, United Paramount Network.

Notes:

1.entertainment industry – индустрия развлечения;

2.by aggressively acquiring – активно скупая (покупая);

3.by featuring popular actors – выводя (снимая) в главных ролях популярных актеров.

TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation is a motion picture and television production company, based in Los Angeles, California. The company was formed in 1935 by the merger of two film production companies, the Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Films. Long one of Hollywood’s leading studios, Twentieth Century Fox produced hit films such as «The Sound of Music» (1964) and «Star Wars» (1977).

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The company traces its origins to 1904 when William Fox, an immigrant to the United States from Hungary, started a chain of nickelodeon theaters (movie houses that charged a nickel for admission) in New York City. Fox began producing motion pictures in 1912, and three years later, in 1915, he founded the Fox Film Corporation to produce, distribute, and exhibit films. The company moved to California in 1917. From 1925 to 1928 the Fox Film Corporation pioneered technology for recording and playing back sound on film. Beginning in October 1927 Fox used the technology, which it called the Movietone sound system, to bring sound to newsreels that it played in cinemas before presentation of the company’s feature films. In 1928 Fox began making feature sound films that used the Movietone system, and soon other major studios began converting to the technology.

Twentieth Century Films began in 1933 when Darryl F. Zanuck and Joseph M. Schenck left their executive positions at Warner Bros. and United Artists, respectively, to create a new company. Zanuck and Schenck merged their company with Fox two years later in 1935 and formed Twentieth Century-Fox.

In the late 1930s and '40s Twentieth Century-Fox produced mainly Westerns, musicals, screen biographies, and religious epics, several important social dramas, such as «Gentlemen's Agreement» (1947). In 1953 Twentieth Century-Fox introduced CinemaScope, the process by which a picture is projected on a screen two and a half times as wide as it is high; the company's first wide-screen feature film, «The Robe» (1953), began the trend toward the use of wide screens in motion-picture theatres. Twentieth Century-Fox was the studio that brought Marilyn Monroe to stardom in the 1950s. Among the studio's most successful musicals in that decade was «The King and I» (1956).

During the late 1950s and early 1960s Twentieth Century Fox nearly went bankrupt after it produced a string of financial failures, including the wildly expensive film «Cleopatra» (1963). In 1964 the studio became financially stable once again following the success of «The Sound of Music».

During the 1960s Twentieth Century Fox became a leading producer of television shows with popular programs such as «Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea» (1964-1968), «Batman» (1965-1968), and «Lost in Space» (1965-1968). The film studio had a string of successful films in the 1970s, including «The Poseidon Adventure» (1972), «Young Frankenstein» (1974), and «The Towering Inferno» (1974). In 1977 Twentieth Century Fox released «Star Wars»,

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a film that several other studios had chosen not to produce. The film grossed nearly $200 million on its first release, breaking box-office records and supplying the studio with revenue to make acquisitions outside of the film industry. These acquisitions included resorts in Aspen, Colorado, and Monterey, California.

In 1981 the corporation was bought by oil industry executive Marvin Davis and his family, who in turn, in the course of 1985, sold it to the international publisher Rupert Murdoch, Australian-born media mogul. After the purchase Murdoch consolidated his American film and television companies under a holding company, Fox, Inc. Fox produced several box office hits, including «Wall Street» (1987). In 1996 the studio scored a blockbuster with «Independence Day», which grossed more than $800 million worldwide.

Notes:

1.box office hit – кассовый фильм;

2.box-office failure – кассовый провал;

3.on the eve of the Great Depression – накануне Великой депрессии;

самый крупный мировой экономический кризис 1929–1933 гг., который начался в США и охватил все страны с рыночным хозяйством; официальной датой начала Великой депрессии считается биржевой крах на Уолл-стрит в «черный вторник» 29 октября 1929;

4.to merge – объединять;

5.great commercial success – большой коммерческий успех;

6.to retrieve its fortune – вернуть себе фортуну;

7.Movietone – первый технический прием, включающий звуковую дорожку на пленке;

8.CinemaScope – синемаскоп, система широкоэкранного кино.

BOLLYWOOD: INDIA'S STAR MACHINE

India turns out more motion pictures each year than any other country in the world. And Bollywood, the name given to the center of the Hindi film industry in Mumbai, India, is the dream factory for a great many of them.

In India, cinema is not entertainment. It’s a passion. Every day, millions of moviegoers flock to the 13, 000-odd cinema halls scattered across the country to partake of a movable feast of spectacle, song, and dance. Since film pro-

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duction began in India in the early 1900s, India has made over 27,000 films in 52 languages. Today, India is the largest film-producing country in the world.

Indian moviemaking industry began in Bombay (now Mumbai) in the 1930s and developed into an enormous film empire. The Mumbai film industry or Bollywood, as it’s popularly known, is India’s Hindi film capital.

Mumbai has occupied center stage in film history since the arrival of cinema in India. On July 7, 1896, the first ever film to be screened in India, six Lumière Brothers shorts, was shown at Mumbai’s Watson Hotel. Soon, enterprising Indians in Mumbai were making similar shorts. By 1912 there were efforts at filming stage plays, and Dadasaheb Phalke, widely acknowledged as the father of Indian cinema, had established Phalke Films in Mumbai. One year later, after pawning his wife’s jewelry and risking physical and financial ruin, he made India’s first feature film. A resounding success, it ran for over three weeks. In 1931 Ardeshir Marwan Irani, a Mumbai studio mogul, directed the first Indian talkie «Alam Ara»; in 1937 he produced India’s first indigenously processed color film, «Kisan Kanya».

Since then, the Hindi film industry has grown in scale and ambition. Over the years several classic genres emerged from Bollywood: the historical epic, the curry western, the courtesan film, which highlights stunning cinematography and sensual dance choreography, and the mythological movie.

Today, Bollywood resembles its products in its larger-than-life aura, colorful personalities, and grand contradictions. Mumbai, home to more than 10 sprawling studios, churns out a variety of spectacles, ranging from big budget, multi-star movies to C-grade quickies made on threadbare budgets in 10 to 15 days. At any given time, 200-plus films are under production, with budgets ranging from $50, 000 to over $5 million. The approximately $500million industry employs around 100, 000 people.

Although Chennai (Madras), Hyderābād, and Calcutta are also important film production centers, Bollywood films, with a wider reach, retain an almost hypnotic hold on Indians across the world. Its stars are modern gods. Megastars, rather than the plots, were often the driving force behind the films. Beginning in 1936, when Ashok Kumar and Devika Rani emerged as the first major star pair, the Indian public developed an insatiable appetite for news about their screen heroes. This interest continued with male actors such as Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, and Dev Anand in the 1950s and '60s, Rajahs Khanna in the '70s, Amitabh Bachchan in the '80s, and Shahrukh Khan in the '90s.

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Popular female icons included Madhubala in the 1950s, Mumtaz in the '60s, Zeenat Aman in the '70s, Hema Malini in the '80s, and Madhuri Dixit and Kajol in the '90s.

Over the years, Hindi films have taken giant strides technically but baby steps thematically. While it isn’t unusual to find modern equipment like Arriflex cameras and Avid editing systems in Mumbai’s dusty studios, unconventional themes are rare. Most mainstream movies subscribe to the two cardinal rules of Mumbai moviemaking: there must be a love angle and there must be songs.

Music has been an integral part of Indian cinema since «Alam Ara», which had seven songs. Historians believe the musical form comes from Indian theater. Whether it is a thriller, an action film, a horror shocker, or a teen romance, characters eventually break into song – often against the backdrop of an impossibly beautiful location. Film songs, which are played at weddings, festivals, celebrations, and in discos, are national anthems. Today, film music is a big business, with successful soundtracks selling as many as 10 million cassettes. And the various composers, singers, and choreographers are stars themselves.

At the turn of the 21st century, Bollywood produced as many as 1, 000 feature films annually in all of India's major languages and in a variety of cities, and international audiences began to develop among Asians in the United Kingdom and in the United States. Standard features of Bollywood films continued to be formulaic story lines, expertly choreographed fight scenes, spectacular song-and-dance routines, emotion-charged melodrama, and larger- than-life heroes.

So Bollywood thrives, in all its chaotic splendor. As the legendary filmmaker, the late Raj Kapoor put it: «It’s here to live, it’s here to die. There is no other earth and no other sky».

Notes:

1.Bollywood – Болливуд (индийская киноиндустрия) (от B(ombay) + (H)ollywood);

2.movable feast – переходящий церковный праздник;

3.gaudy – яркий, броский, кричащий;

4.sublime – возвышенный, величественный;

5.sensual dance choreography – хореография чувственного танца;

6.an integral part – неотъемлемая часть;

7.national anthems – национальные гимны.

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