Los Angeles Documentary and the Production of Public History, 1958-1977

by Joshua Glick

Overview

Los Angeles Documentary and the Production of Public History, 1958–1977 explores how documentarians working between the election of John F. Kennedy and the Bicentennial created conflicting visions of the recent and more distant American past. Drawing on a wide range of primary documents, Joshua Glick analyzes the films of Hollywood documentarians such as David Wolper and Mel Stuart, along with lesser-known independents and activists such as Kent Mackenzie, Lynne Littman, and Jesús Salvador Treviño. While the former group reinvigorated a Cold War cultural liberalism, the latter group advocated for social justice in a city plagued by severe class stratification and racial segregation. Glick examines how mainstream and alternative filmmakers turned to the archives, civic institutions, and production facilities of Los Angeles in order to both change popular understandings of the city and shape the social consciousness of the nation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520293717
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	01/19/2018
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	254
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Joshua Glick is an Assistant Professor of English, Film, and Media Studies at Hendrix College and a Fellow at the Open Documentary Lab, MIT. He teaches courses on global Hollywood, race and representation, documentary history and theory, and emerging media formations.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Studio Documentary in the Kennedy Era

Wolper Productions Begins

Praises be to Newton Minow. ... He's our best press agent and I feel as if I should send him a weekly check.

— PRODUCER DAVID WOLPER, 1961

On December 7, 1962, a Time magazine article assigned the title "Mr. Documentary" to David Wolper, the thirty-four-year-old film distributor turned documentary producer. The piece praised the variety and style of his well-crafted television documentaries and the influence of Wolper Productions, a company that rivaled the documentary output of CBS and NBC. Wolper was, Time announced, "the youngest, and often the most vigorous, of the three. His offices on Hollywood's Sunset Strip have grown in the past 42 months from a five-man [bucket] shop to a 200-employee corporation with [a] bright white neo-Palladian façade and 40 cutting rooms — some of which are already crammed with the 8,000,000 ft. of film that Wolper is condensing into The Making of the President:1960."

The article connected Wolper to a place, a particular filmmaking process, and a product. The confident producer — framed in a thumbnail portrait in a neat black suit and comfortably holding a cigar in one hand and what appears to be a script in the other — had located his studio on one of Los Angeles's hippest and busiest commercial thoroughfares. Another article in the same issue highlighted the multitasking capacity of President John F. Kennedy, able to preside over the military, economic, and cultural life of the nation while still making time for his friends, family, and outdoor recreation. Time commended Wolper for exhibiting many of the same traits, which the magazine associated with effective and likable leadership. His ability to work on multiple projects at once while still making time to see the Dodgers play or meet one of his show-business friends for a round of golf reflected what the article called his "go-go dynamism." It hardly seems coincidental that the Time profile used the word "vigorous," a term frequently used by and to describe Kennedy, to talk about "Mr. Documentary."

Social reformers, politicians, major news periodicals, and the trade press shared Time's enthusiasm for Wolper Productions. They applauded the studio's films, and especially their reach into living rooms, theaters, and schools. Curiously, despite being praised at the time, the organization has received scant attention in scholarly accounts of post–World War II documentary. Instead, cinema and media scholars have focused on the New York–based network news divisions or the small cluster of American cinema verité filmmakers. Los Angeles, it is often assumed, was dominated by the economic imperatives of studio features and entertainment television, invariably defined as the media center against which filmmakers in the Northeast tried to position their work.

Wolper Productions, however, was a prominent player in what had become a national trend of nonfiction programming. Examining how the studio drew on the city's resources as well as collaborated with individuals and institutions across the country reveals a critical and underexplored relationship between Hollywood and the cultural Cold War. The studio focused on the recent and more distant American past, making films about military campaigns, the daily lives of citizens, and the pursuits of civic leaders and politicians. These documentaries portrayed American democracy as vibrant and emphasized the government's staunch stance against Communism, all the while smoothing over or sidestepping contentious debates surrounding civil rights, class inequality, and the use of military force overseas. Wolper Productions presented a romantic vision of liberal reform at home and geopolitical power abroad.

CAPTURING THE SPACE RACE

Wolper made a name for himself by carefully navigating the changing film and television industries. His first major film, The Race for Space (1958), exploited the national desire for audiovisual media that could educate a mass audience about pressing social concerns. The October 4, 1957, launch of the Sputnik satellite galvanized a new anxiety about Soviet scientific superiority and intensified America's competitive relationship with its adversary. Sputnik's launch and traceable flight, coming six weeks after the Soviets' successful testing of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), stoked hyperbolic speculation about the militaristic uses of advanced rocketry. The launch resulted in government reaction — the formation of the civilian-oriented National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1958) and the military-oriented Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (1958) — as well as responses from the mainstream media. Just as old space films were rerun on television, reissued for the classroom market, and rereleased in theaters and drive-ins, new films about intergalactic possibilities and the perils of space-age technology likewise proliferated in these settings. Variety was quick to proclaim that Hollywood was in a "'Sputnik Spurt.'" Members of the broadcasting industry in particular looked for shows that would teach audiences about the implications of the space race. Stations and network heads were well aware of how suburban expansion and a boom in consumer spending had transformed television from a novelty into a cultural fixture in American living rooms. So, too, were they aware of the Sputnik launch providing an occasion to link programming to their vaguely defined FCC obligation to program in the "public interest."

The quiz show scandals of 1956–59 further increased the appetite for educational television. The bombshell exposure of the rigging of Twenty-One (1956–58), The $64,000Question (1955–58), and Dotto (1958) drew attention to corporate greed and fraud within the entertainment industry. Critics raised questions about the ethical responsibilities of the networks and the corrupting role of commercial sponsors, declaring the need for more honest and edifying shows. Documentaries could satisfy the reformist initiative and improve the image of the film studios and networks. The wide variety of documentary formats, run times, and styles offered a flexible way to teach Americans about social issues and explain the country's geopolitical place in world affairs.

The Race for Space brought together Wolper's interests in show business, new media, and pedagogy. In interviews he would recall being transfixed by the early display of television at the RCA Pavilion at the New York World's Fair in 1939. As an undergraduate at USC in the late 1940s, he avidly watched movies, took photographs for the school newspaper, the Daily Trojan, and was head of publicity for campus functions. He left USC one semester shy of graduation to cofound Flamingo Films. Broadcasting called Flamingo a standout in the "big business" of "film bartering." The company distributed documentaries, serials, travelogues, and animation to independent television stations and network affiliates. Wolper was the organization's principal salesman and developed eclectic tastes through its catalog. Over the course of his travels, he became familiar with local television stations. He eventually settled in Hollywood to run West Coast operations. A serendipitous encounter with an old colleague, Nicholas Napoli, during a trip to New York provided the spark for an original documentary. Napoli was a former Communist Party USA member and cofounder and president of Artkino Pictures, the main distributor for Soviet films in the United States. From Napoli, Wolper purchased rare footage of the Soviet space program, including footage of the first Sputnik launch. The young producer saw an opportunity to make a film about a popular topic and to boost America's place in the race. Wolper separated from Flamingo Films and created his own company, Wolper Inc., in 1958. He soon changed the name to Wolper Productions. Wolper then recruited a small team, including Mel Stuart, who after studying music at New York University edited films for the avant-garde filmmaker Mary Ellen Bute. Stuart also worked on the documentary series Project XX (1954–70) and The Twentieth Century (1957–70). He had recently started his own footage-location company called Film Finders. Another key figure was Jack Haley Jr., who studied filmmaking at USC and the University of California, Los Angeles, before directing air force training documentaries during the 1950s. As the son of actor Jack Haley and former Ziegfeld dancer Florence McFadden, he had numerous Hollywood connections, which would become important for later projects.

Wolper distinguished The Race for Space from other accounts of the space race by adopting a broader historical perspective and aggressively drawing on tropes from television journalism and classical Hollywood storytelling. Wolper's team consulted with aerospace experts and acquired footage from North American Aviation and Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as well as government institutions in Washington, DC, London, and Moscow. They created a chronological narrative of global rocket development, binding it together with an authoritative voice-over and a dramatic orchestral score. The film aimed to inform audiences of the history of humanity's fascination with rocketry, but also to establish the United States as a longtime pioneer in the field and to sketch the Cold War stakes of the competition. In so doing, the film assumed a less political stance than some of the alarmist news reports in the days immediately following the launch of Sputnik 1, such as CBS's Special Report: Sputnik1 (1957). Still, the adversarial positioning of the American and Soviet space programs — indeed, the framing of the relationship in terms of a "race" — set The Race for Space apart from entertainment-oriented programs. These included Disney's "science factual" documentaries, which presented science as a kind of magical craft that seemed to exist independently of the Cold War.

The Race for Space opens with images of the launching of Sputnik 1 and the voice-over of broadcasting personality Mike Wallace. The suspenseful score by famed composer Elmer Bernstein draws the viewer into the audiovisual flow of information. Commenting on footage and photographs from the Department of Defense, the Library of Congress, Sovexport, and Artkino, Wallace defines rocketry as a way for the United States, the Soviet Union, and Germany to showcase national growth in the science of flight over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Wallace pays homage to the Soviet scientist-philosopher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's imaginative theories of space exploration; however, he proclaims that it is the American Robert Goddard, holder of 214 rocketry-related patents between the 1910s and the 1940s, who is "the pioneering genius of the new twentieth-century science."

With the militarization of rocketry during World War II, the United States appears vulnerable in the Cold War. The Race for Space highlights this vulnerability in its contrasting portrayals of Americans and Soviets. While the former enjoy suburban amenities and leisure-time activities, their Soviet counterparts make math and science top priorities through instructional programs and by funding research. The launching of Soviet rockets, satellites, and even live animals into space does not necessarily convey Soviet superiority but nonetheless visualizes these accomplishments as tangible threats with unforeseen consequences that in turn compel a response. The United States then pursues a coordinated effort among federal officials, universities, and private industry to make up for lost ground in the race. After a failed Cape Canaveral launch, the flight of Explorer 1 shows the United States rising to the satellite challenge. The closing declaration in The Race for Space that the scientist-as-hero has found his revered place in American culture and will go on to explore the "new frontier" resonates with the familiar American narrative of expansion as a means to both social and technological progress. Anticipating Kennedy's own "New Frontier" rhetoric, The Race for Space uses space as a way to define national purpose and a horizon of opportunity.

The roadblocks the film met on its way to exhibition helped inflate its reputation and generate a buzz in the press. After it played overseas and won awards at film festivals in Edinburgh, Venice, and San Francisco, Wolper courted the triumvirate of networks. Despite the film's achievements, ABC, NBC, and CBS all refused to show it because the program was not made by their news departments. The rejection was as much about network concern over possible inaccuracies as it was about the networks' desire to retain a monopolistic position as producers of the news. Undeterred, Wolper used his extensive personal associations with individual stations to build an ad hoc network. He used KTTV in Los Angeles, WPIX in New York, and WGN-TV in Chicago to give the show a presence in significant markets. More than one hundred stations agreed to run the program. The story of Wolper's difficulties obtaining network exposure even surfaced on the front pages of many periodicals. Journalists expressed their enthusiasm for the film and dismay that the networks had barred its exhibition. Marie Torre of the New York Herald Tribune wrote:

It is not without irony that while the networks are intensifying public affairs programming to show that they're answering the call of duty, perhaps THE best documentary ever made on the vital subject of space flight is being withheld from the television audience by network decree. Or, should we say, network whim? ... In the case of "The Race for Space," which this viewer saw at a private showing, the rejection is akin to a literary magazine turning down an Ernest Hemingway original because he's not a member of the magazine staff.

The Race for Space went on to be nominated for an Oscar, exhibited at libraries, and shown as part of the curriculum at the US Military Academy at West Point. W.H. Pickering, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech, wrote Wolper a letter thanking him for creating a valuable object of study for scientists that would ultimately aid in the security of the country. A Los Angeles newspaper later noted that Kennedy himself commended The Race for Space for "clearly establishing the importance of America's space program to a mass audience." A shrewd showman and talented producer, Wolper would continue to cultivate a brand identity as an independent while solidifying his bonds with television stations, government institutions, and the entertainment industry. This strategy proved essential to the growth of Wolper Productions as it moved with full force into the field of documentary.

CROSSING INDUSTRIAL DIVIDES

Wolper Productions' specialization in documentary and its method of manufacture capitalized on the shifting state of film and television production. Mass suburbanization, the 1948 Supreme Court antitrust decision in United States v. Paramount Pictures Inc., and the increasing presence of television in homes and 16mm film in libraries, offices, and classrooms ensured the demise of the old studio system. No longer would Hollywood be an oligopolistic system predicated on long-term contract labor, control over exhibition venues, and a relatively guaranteed audience. Geographers Susan Christopherson and Michael Storper argue that the old majors responded to these "shocks" through a number of actions: they decreased their total output, invested in large-scale spectacular films, exploited foreign markets, and supplied programs for the big three networks or hired independents to do so for them. Newly created small studios such as Ziv Television Programs and American International Pictures focused specifically on niche areas of television or created theatrically released films for the youth audience. Production became "flexibly specialized," as larger numbers of smaller firms in subsectors of the industry worked on a variety of projects.

Wolper Productions grew during this period of transition, making documentaries on the space race, compilation films on Hollywood history, specials on important figures and events of the twentieth century, and series about the professional routines of American citizens. The company hired more employees and eventually occupied a cluster of buildings on the Sunset Strip. According to a special issue of the glossy trade publication Television, the studio helped make Hollywood the center of television production. Wolper's company was within the general proximity of the foremost television studios but nearer to other commercial sites. The converted rock 'n' roll club Ciro's, the elegant Scandinavian restaurant Scandia, and the hip lounge and restaurant Dino's Lodge, which appeared as a backdrop on 77 Sunset Strip (1958–64), were all close by. Wolper would later write in 1966 that the organization's location afforded them the chance to be "in the midst of leading laboratories, unparalleled sound stages, vast studios and every variety of camera and movie making equipment." The organization also relied on filmmakers who could be hired on a project-by-project basis.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Los Angeles Documentary and the Production of Public History, 1958–1977"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Joshua Glick.
Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS.
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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction. Beyond Fiction: Institutions of the Real Los Angeles

Part One. New Frontier Visions in the Light and Shadow of Hollywood, 1958–1964
1. Studio Documentary in the Kennedy Era: Wolper Productions Begins
2. Downtown Development and the Endeavors of Filmmaker Kent Mackenzie

Part Two. After theWatts Uprising: Community Media from the Top Down and the Bottom Up, 1965–1973
3. The Rise of Minority Storytelling: Network News, Public Television, and Independent Collectives
4. Hard Lessons in Hollywood Civics: Managing the Crisis of the Liberal Consensus
5. Wattstax and the Transmedia Soul Economy

Part Three. Bicentennial Screens, 1974–1977
6. Roots/Routes of American Identity
7. Numbering Our Days in Los Angeles, USA
Conclusion: The 1984 Olympics and the Neoliberalization of Culture

Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"An essential contribution to an emerging field of documentary research that seeks to synthesize connections among otherwise coterminous yet parallel strands of documentary histories. . . . Above all, the book makes a point about the value of avoiding the binary cliché of an independent documentarian as an atomized private individual in opposition to government, while shedding light on Cold War documentary culture in general."

Film Quarterly

"The book is an encouragement to engage, now, with documentaries being made at the grassroots level by activist filmmakers and collectives, rather than waiting for the glossy, neutered account of the struggle."

Los Angeles Review of Books

"Los Angeles Documentary deserves great attention not only as a deeply researched cinema-history book, but as a nuanced and sharp cultural and political study as well."

Synoptique - Andrea Mariani

"[This book] sheds a renovated and original light on the history of the twentieth century media culture(s) of L.A., and in the same way it reveals the potentialities of meticulous discursive excavations into the non-fiction realm, reversing film canons and stressing social and cultural functions that make this book be a relevant one in the field of film history, certainly, but in the field of contemporary history at large too: it is a passionate interrogation of moving image as a source of historiography and a productive factor of history. . . . Los Angeles Documentary deserves great attention not only as a deeply researched cinema-history book, but as a nuanced and sharp cultural and political study as well."

Synoptique

"Los Angeles Documentary and the Production of Public History, 1958–1977 proves there is still much to be investigated in the timeline of America’s film production past. The acute specificity of Glick’s historical narrative makes his book a unique and necessary resource for understanding the evolution of Los Angeles documentary production, the works that were produced, and their impact on the formation of American identity."

Journal of Film and Video

"Joshua Glick’s book is an exemplary investigation into and deconstruction of the varying visions set forth through documentary practice."

Film Matters

"Documentary makers who value the opportunity to understand how films of that era got made, and how the production and distribution practices established then continue to influence the market today, will profit greatly from reading this book." 

Documentary

"Documentary makers who value the opportunity to understand how films of that era got made, and how the production and distribution practices established then continue to influence the market today, will profit greatly from reading this book." 

Documentary - Betsy McLane

"An essential contribution to an emerging field of documentary research that seeks to synthesize connections among otherwise coterminous yet parallel strands of documentary histories...Above all, the book makes a point about the value of avoiding the binary cliché of an independent documentarian as an atomized private individual in opposition to government, while shedding light on Cold War documentary culture in general."

Film Quarterly - Hadi Gharabaghi

"The book is an encouragement to engage, now, with documentaries being made at the grassroots level by activist filmmakers and collectives, rather than waiting for the glossy, neutered account of the struggle."

Los Angeles Review of Books - Nora Stone