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"Hollywood’s Democratic Art, 1938-1942"
Catherine Jurca, Associate Professor of English, Cal Tech
December 1, 2005

By the late 1930s Hollywood filmmakers, exhibitors, and industry commentators of all kinds had become conscious of the public as a crucial collaborator in, and not simply a consumer of, its mass entertainment.  This paper explores the impact of this presumed collaboration on films and filmmaking by considering pollster George Gallup’s contribution to answering the perennial Hollywood question:  what does the public want?   What the movie-going public wanted, according to Gallup, was for its opinion to be heard and its box-office “vote” to count.  As Gallup strived to recast the possibilities of film as a democratic art, such films as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Boom Town, and Strike Up the Band demonstrated the extent to which various Hollywood products might actively promote themselves as a tender solicitation of public preferences, as a heartfelt appeal for one’s vote.