Los Angeles (often known by its initials L.A.) is the second largest city in the United States with about 9 million people. It takes hours to drive from one side of the city to the other. And the population is still growing, as people from inside and outside the US continue to move in, attracted by the warm climate and many jobs opportunities.

The first settlement in 1781 was called ‘El pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles’. It became part of Mexico in 1821 and in 1848, at the end of the Mexican-American war, became part of the United States with the rest of California.

In 1876 the railway reached Los Angeles bringing thousands of immigrants. In 1892 oil was discovered in the area and this produced a twenty-year boom. In the 1920s the movie industry moved there. Most African Americans moved to L.A. in the 1940s when it became the center of the USA aircraft industry. Mexican immigrants have come from the beginning, while Asian people have increased their numbers in recent years and are now over 10%. Hispanics make up nearly half the population.

Therefore, L.A. has always been a multicultural city. But it is also a segregated city, with ethnic groups concentrated in particular areas. This has produced violent conflicts between people of different races, and some of the USA’s worst ever urban riots.

The city has one of the world’s largest road systems. Miles of roads and freeways connect its about one hundred districts, from the famous residential areas of Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Bel Air, Malibu and Santa Monica, where people have a very high standard of life, to the poor African American and Hispanic districts dominated by poverty and violence.

Two major problems of L.A. are traffic and pollution mainly caused by emission from motor vehicles. Air pollution is worsened by cool air that blows from the Pacific Ocean and brings fog inland, especially during the summer. This traps the fumes from cars and industry and causes the famous L.A. smog. Very strict air quality standards, the development of the railway system and a campaign to encourage people to use public transport as much as possible are some of the pollution reducing measures taken in recent years.

 

 

 

 

1. where Hollywood is located.

2. when the film industry started there.

3. when the first film in Technicolor was made.

4. when the first sound film was made.

5. what the most successful film of all time is.

6. when Hollywood became world famous.

7. when it started to decline and why.

8. when and how it regained its leading role in the film industry.

9. what the ‘Big Six’ are.

10. what Hollywood Walk of Fame is.

 

 

 

Hollywood is a famous neighborood in Los Angeles where the American movie industry is based.

The earliest cinemas opened in the Northeast of the United States at the beginning of the 20^th century, but around 1910 some film companies decided to move to southern California. They were attracted by the mild climate, the quality of light and the beautiful scenery that enabled them to film outdoor scenes all the year round. Great studios such as Paramount, Metro Goldwin Mayer, Twentieth Century Fox, etc. were opened and Hollywood became the center of the film industry in the world.

The first film in Technicolor was produced in 1922, while the first ‘talkie’(The Jazz Singer) was made in 1927. During Hollywood’s ‘Golden Age’, which lasted from the late 1920s to the late 1950s, thousands of movies were issued from the Hollywood studios. MGM dominated the film screen and had the top stars in Hollywood. They created the Hollywood star system while many movie stars came to live in the luxurious mansions of Beverly Hills, and Hollywood became world famous.

Movie-making was a big business. The major studios kept thousands of people on salary – actors, producers, directors, writers, stuntmen, craftspersons, and technicians. They owned or leased ranches and land for location shooting, and they owned hundreds of theaters in cities and towns across the nation, that showed their films.

In 1937, Walt Disney created the most successful film of its time, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,whilein 1939, MGM would create what is still the most successful film of all time, Gone with the Wind.

In the 1950s, competition from television caused a decline in film industry, while in the 1960s many companies began making films in other countries where costs were lower. Some of the big studios closed down and most actors went to live elsewhere.

But in the 1970s and 1980s new directors and producers such as George Lucas (Star Wars), Steven Spielberg (Jaws, ET, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park), and Francis Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now), with their spectacular and extremely successful films, helped to give rise to the modern 'blockbuster' and to restore Hollywood’s leading role in the world film industry.

Today’s ‘Big Six’ (the six major film studios: Warner Bros., 20^th Century Fox, Paramount, Columbia, Walt Disney, Universal), whose movie production and distribution covers approximately 90 percent of the US box office revenues, are the primary source of the most commercially successful movies in the world, such as Star Wars (1977), Titanic (1997), and Avatar (2009), and the products of Hollywood dominate the global film industry.

Today Hollywood is a popular destination for nightlife, tourism, and is home to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a 1.7-mile walk that serves as a permanent public monument to achievement in the entertainment industry: an eclectic mix of actors, musicians, directors, producers, musical and theatrical groups, fictional characters, and others.