The classic Hollywood system had many well-known aspects to it, one of the most important of which is contract talent which the big studios employed. This method of contractually binding certain stars to a studio was known as the “star system.” Unlike today, one actor would sign a contract to work for a film studio for a given number of years. This strategy was immensely important for the studios because during the Golden Era, stars were vital to drawing audiences to a film; they were often more of a magnet than the film itself was and their names were placed above the film title.
Once signed, these contracts required actors to take leading roles in movies that the studio wanted them to, regardless of whether or not the star necessarily wanted to. Today most actors don’t belong to such intense contracts of this kind, however contracts certainly still do exist. The practice of contract talent affected the types of films that were made because the studios would pump out as many films with their “star” as they could. Back then, a studio could produce four or five movies per year with their star talent in a mass-produced, factory-based system. Since most everything was in-house, this strategy proved to be profitable and effective.
One classic example of contract talent is Humphrey Bogart, who signed on with Warner Brothers. From 1936 to 1940 Bogart was in 28 films, which shows how much a studio took advantage of its signed talent. That large a number of films being released in that amount of time is unheard of now, but there is also a greater variety of talent working for different studios. Bogart was one of the biggest stars then, and he drew audiences to Warner Brothers’ films. In 1941 he played a role in The Maltese Falcon and in 1942 he took a lead role in Casablanca; both these films are now iconic. Bogart ultimately was a hugely successful actor and provided the fame and talent for many of Warner Brothers’ films that are now considered classics.
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