d they always went back. The visibly attractive and glamorous Hollywood movies often depicted the success of the underdog over unjust authority. Values of cash over culture were often a theme in the early American films and societies with restricted social mobility, such as those in Europe, could dream of such a triumph. The working class and unemployed could fantasise about wealth, fame and freedom which America as a country was portrayed as offering.The stars, particularly Hollywood stars, made a huge contribution to attracting vast numbers of people to the cinema. Movie stars were only relatively new during the First World War. However, by 1920 there were a number of actors and actresses that had made a name for themselves worldwide. They included names such as Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chapman.. Audiences of the era looked to the stars with a great deal of admiration. Mary Pickford for example, did not represent the typical pure women of the late 19th Century and early 20th Century. She was often depicted as a modern working women who was in support of womens suffrage and who moved beyond spheres that so many women only dreamed of doing. She was economically free and morally emancipated, an inspiration to all women of the time and a reason why so many women went to see her movies. (May 1980 p, 119)The injection of sound into the movies making industry provided a new incentive for moviegoers in the interwar period. The arrival of sound did not make a significant development until after the World War One. Initially, two different systems were introduced. The first was invented by Lee de Forest and was referred to as the audion tube. It was used to amplify the incoming electromagnetic waves of a radio receiving set and was used as an amplification system for sound motion pictures. De Frost also developed a method whereby sound could be directly recorded on the film in synchronization with the picture. The other syst...
