5 Classic Movies That Quietly Changed Hollywood Rules

by

Hollywood began over a century ago in 1910 with the short Western film In Old California. Since then, the movie industry has changed many times, constantly expanding what Hollywood could achieve. When people talk about ‘classic movies,’ they generally mean films made before the 1960s.

While today’s films often influence Hollywood, some of the biggest changes actually came from classic movies. From the earliest silent films and lavish musicals to powerfully told fictional stories, these classics – like many others – helped define Hollywood and generally improved the industry.

The Birth of a Nation Scattered Its DNA All Over Hollywood

D.W. Griffith is known for helping to create Hollywood and for directing the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, which was based on the controversial play The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan. The film depicts the aftermath of Lincoln’s assassination in 1864 and explores how families were affected by the Civil War and the Reconstruction period that followed. While the film is problematic, some film historians also acknowledge its significant achievements in filmmaking.

Released during a time when most films were short, The Birth of a Nation was a groundbreaking feature-length movie that helped establish the standard for modern filmmaking. At over two hours long, even the trimmed versions required a break in the middle. This film was also a first in many ways – it was the first to use a full orchestral score and the first to be shown at the White House.

Despite being very controversial for its portrayal of African-American history, The Birth of a Nation was a huge commercial success and is still considered a landmark film. It also pioneered many of the filmmaking techniques that would become standard practice in Hollywood, and its influence extended to film industries worldwide, with filmmakers everywhere drawing inspiration from D.W. Griffith’s innovative approach.

The director used clever editing techniques like crosscutting to create suspense, sweeping long shots to showcase scale, and intricate fight scenes. Released in 1915, The Birth of a Nation profoundly influenced filmmaking, and its techniques are still seen in movies today, despite its problematic history. The film was deeply racist and sparked significant controversy, even being linked to a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and a rapid increase in its membership. Ultimately, The Birth of a Nation proved that movies could be powerfully persuasive and even politically charged.

The Jazz Singer Introduced Audio to Hollywood’s Silent Era

Early films were completely silent because it was incredibly difficult to record sound with the moving images. That changed in 1927 with the release of The Jazz Singer, which introduced synchronized sound to Hollywood movies. Though many people initially thought adding sound was a pointless effort, The Jazz Singer quickly proved them wrong.

Similar to The Birth of a Nation, The Jazz Singer also contains problematic and racist depictions. Film scholar Corin Willis points out that the use of blackface is central to the film’s main idea. Early Hollywood films often relied on harmful stereotypes, with white actors frequently mocking African Americans. Despite this, The Jazz Singer was groundbreaking as it was the first movie to feature synchronized sound using the Vitaphone system.

Despite being a groundbreaking film, The Jazz Singer actually features very little synchronized sound – both speech and song. To ease audiences into this new technology, director Alan Crosland used intertitles – the caption cards common in silent films – to display much of the dialogue. Even so, The Jazz Singer fundamentally and permanently changed how movies were made in Hollywood.

It’s no surprise that The Jazz Singer has been remade several times, including as recently as 1980. Beyond those remakes, the film has inspired countless tributes and references. Both Disney and Warner Bros. have paid homage to it in their cartoons, but it’s perhaps best known for inspiring the 1952 classic Singin’ in the Rain. While Singin’ in the Rain was famous for its performances and music, its story centered around the introduction of sound to movies – a plot directly taken from the events surrounding the original 1927 release of The Jazz Singer.

Gone With the Wind Emphasized the Power of Technicolor and Melodrama

Considered the peak of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Gone With the Wind revolutionized filmmaking in terms of storytelling, technology, and its impact on culture. Based on Margaret Mitchell’s sweeping historical novel, the film shares a setting with The Birth of a Nation, but focuses on the passionate and complicated relationship between Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler. Starring these two iconic actors, Gone With the Wind quickly proved the captivating power of emotional drama.

Even when accounting for today’s money, Gone With the Wind remains the highest-grossing film of all time, earning almost $4.5 billion worldwide. Beyond its huge success at the box office, the film also won an unprecedented ten Academy Awards, including a historic first Oscar for an African-American actor. Sadly, the film was touched by the racism of the Jim Crow era. Despite her incredible talent, Hattie McDaniel, who won Best Supporting Actress, faced segregation and wasn’t permitted to attend the film’s premiere.

While the way Gone With the Wind portrays history is now seen as deeply flawed, its influence on filmmaking is undeniable. Before this film, Technicolor was mostly a curiosity, even with recent releases like The Wizard of Oz. Gone With the Wind, however, demonstrated how color could powerfully enhance a story’s emotional impact, using vibrant scenes of plantations and dramatic sunsets. After its success, Technicolor quickly became the standard for all films.

Gone With the Wind not only became a huge hit, but it also set the standard for large-scale historical movies. Films like The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, and even Gandhi followed its lead. Before this, multi-hour movies were often criticized for being too long, but Gone With the Wind, with its nearly four-hour length, proved they could be successful. While The Birth of a Nation had previously shown that longer films were possible, Gone With the Wind pushed the boundaries to the length we now expect from epic movies. Its success also made producers more willing to invest in big-budget productions.

Citizen Kane Proved That Cinema Was an Art Form

Orson Welles’ first film, Citizen Kane, came out in 1942 when he was just 25 years old. It’s widely considered his masterpiece and was a huge critical success – often topping lists of the greatest films ever made, and deservedly so. Despite the praise, it wasn’t a hit with audiences at the time and was largely forgotten for about ten years.

I remember when Citizen Kane first came out, it was surprisingly overlooked by the Academy Awards – nominated for nine Oscars but only winning one for its original screenplay. It felt like a real snub, even back then. But over time, people really started to recognize its brilliance. Now, it consistently tops lists of the greatest films ever made! The American Film Institute declared it the greatest American movie, and the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound poll agreed. What always strikes me is how innovative it was – especially the cinematography and editing. It really pushed boundaries in so many ways.

Film critic Roger Ebert believed that Citizen Kane wasn’t just a fantastic movie, but a culmination of everything filmmakers had learned with the introduction of sound, much like Birth of a Nation had showcased the peak of silent film techniques. He felt Citizen Kane truly established cinema as a respected art form—comparable to a classical symphony—and demonstrated that filmmaking was a serious and valuable endeavor.

Many of the filmmaking techniques we see today, like deep-focus photography and complex sound, were pioneered in Citizen Kane. In many ways, Hollywood’s visual style was greatly influenced by Welles’ groundbreaking film.

Some Like It Hot Subverted Hollywood’s Restrictive Rules

Hollywood has a long history of censorship, with the Hays Code being a prime example. Enforced from 1934 to 1968, these rules reflected existing societal biases. Anything relating to queerness, including drag and depictions of homosexuality, was considered morally offensive. However, the 1959 film Some Like It Hot cleverly challenged the Code almost ten years before it was officially abolished.

Featuring the comedic talents of Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and the incredibly charming Marilyn Monroe, Some Like It Hot boldly broke the rules of traditional Hollywood filmmaking – a quality that’s often missing in movies today. The film is a comedy classic thanks to its fast-paced mix of slapstick, over-the-top humor, and playfully suggestive jokes that still feel fresh and funny after all these years.

In the film Some Like It Hot, Tom Curtis and Jack Lemmon spend much of the movie disguised as women and develop romantic connections with men, which was a bold move considering the strict censorship of the Hays Code at the time. This was particularly noteworthy because while dressing in drag was once common among WWII soldiers, the 1950s saw a rise in anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment known as the Lavender Scare. Despite this social climate, Some Like It Hot was hugely successful and consistently funny, especially in its memorable final scene.

I was so thrilled when Some Like It Hot came out! It felt like a real breath of fresh air – the movie wasn’t afraid to be funny and honest about adult relationships and even played with ideas about gender in a really fun way. To me, it wasn’t just a great film, it felt like a sign that society was finally starting to loosen up and become more accepting. While Hollywood still has progress to make, this movie felt like the first glimmer of hope – a promise that things were going to get better, not just for movies, but for everyone.

Read More

2025-11-30 00:11