Part Six: In the 1930s and 1940s, the battles between individual stars and their studios, epitomized by the battles of James Cagney and Bette Davis with Warner Bros., were often battles that these stars won by losing and lost by winning.

Particularly in the 1930s, the Hollywood community was a society unto itself. Everyone had a clearly defined place in the pecking order: major stars had fame and money but little control, whereas major studio executives (and their bosses back in New York) had little fame (Selznick being one notable exception), but even more money and nearly absolute control. The star's only real weapon was a refusal to report for work, which meant suspension (no money and a bit more fame, but of the ambiguous sort). In the 1930s, the situation at Warners, the most like an assembly line of all the studios, was probably the most restrictive: Harry Warner's "extreme fiscal conservatism led to an extremely paternalistic attitude toward labor. Warner Bros. took on protracted court battles against James Cagney and Bette Davis rather than give them more artistic freedom. And the company opposed unions" (Gomery, 112).

Cagney was as much a battler off the screen as on. Three times between 1931 and 1936 he left the studio. As Kevin Hagopian notes:

Cagney's grievances were at the heart of the star system. First, he complained that no matter how much straight salary he received--by 1938, more money per week than anyone else on the lot--he was unable to share in the profits of films that did particularly well. Second, he was often dissatisfied with the writers and directors the studio assigned to his films, as well as with many of his leading ladies. Third, he believed the studio was conspiring to type cast him in gangster parts. This role went against his self-image of a quiet, retiring gentleman farmer and poet. Finally, Cagney's straight salary income was falling under higher and higher tax brackets. (19)

Much of the time Cagney suffered, at least as he saw it, indignities and deprivations at the hands of the studio bosses. For instance, in 1936, when Cagney was making $4,500 a week, the studio withheld $1,500 of that against illness and bad behavior. Moreover, Jack Warner refused to lend him out, so Cagney did not even get a chance to expand his repertoire of roles.19 It was at this point Cagney rebelled: he won a court order against Warners (for not paying him his market value) and was released from his contract. Working with his brother William (a former minor actor and now his business manager), Cagney signed an independent production deal (pledging to pay 50% of costs) with Grand National Films, the newest studio in Hollywood. Unfortunately, Grand National was an ill-conceived and badly organized attempt to challenge the oligarchy of the five major studios by creating a network of independent production units. The two forgettable films (Great Guy and Something to Sing About) Cagney made for Grand National received poor distribution (the majors probably saw to that) and the company, whose greatest asset had been Cagney, lurched toward merger (with Educational Films, an outfit making short films) in 1938 and bankruptcy in 1940. Several years before that, Cagney had returned to Warners, perhaps "chastened by the experience" (Hagopian, 20), but also soon in a much better position than when he had left the company:

The contract that William Cagney negotiated for his brother remains a model of its sort. Cagney agreed to make eleven pictures for Warners--two or three per year for the next five years--plus one to fulfill the previous contract. In return, the actor was to receive $150,000 per picture plus 10 percent of the grosses over $1,500,000. Twelve weeks of continuous vacation. . . were guaranteed. William Cagney was assured an assistant producership (on brother Jimmy's pictures). And the Cagneys were given story refusal as well as the option to submit ideas of their own. . . . But the most remarkable aspect of the document was a "happiness clause". . . whereby Cagney could cancel his Warners' contract after any motion picture or at the end of any given year if his relationship with the studio was determined to be "obnoxious or unsatisfactory to him." This was a breakthrough. . . a contract that was the envy of every motion picture star in Hollywood. (McGilligan, 109)

In the mid-1940s, Davis would become a pioneer of another sort, being the first superstar to sign on with MCA, the talent agency (founded by Jules Stein and headed in Hollywood by Lew Wasserman) that would come to dominate the Hollywood scene in the following decade. In 1948, MCA was finally able to get Davis out of her contract at Warners, making effective use of the typical sort of squabble (here over Beyond the Forest) Davis had been having with Warners about mediocre films since the early 1930s. When Davis had to choose her all-important first picture as a non-contract player--much like Garland with A Star Is Born, Davis had an expectant public waiting for a bravura performance--she chose, very tellingly, the story of an independent, compelling, distinctly mannered stage actress, Margo Channing in All About Eve. (The film was made for Twentieth-Century Fox in 1950.) That many of the film's characters prey upon Margo Channing, exploiting her talent and taking advantage of her independent ways, was not without point as regards Bette Davis' own career.