South Los Angeles in Los Angeles County, California — The American West (Pacific Coastal)

Love Affair with the Movies

— University of Southern California —

Photographed By J. J. Prats, November 29, 2018

1. Love Affair with the Movies Interpretive Panel

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Love Affair with the Movies. . , The curtain first rose on USC’s distinguished contributions to cinema on February 6, 1929, when Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., ascended the stage in Bovard Auditorium and delivered the opening lecture for the nation’s first university course in film. The 2-unit course, “Introduction to Photoplay,” was presented in collaboration with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and in addition to Fairbanks, it featured such celebrated guest lecturers as D. W. Griffith, Ernst Lubitsch, Irving Thalberg and William DeMille. , Enrollment in that first class was limited to 50 students, but the following year, a department of cinematography was formally established, and in 1935, the university awarded its first bachelor’s degree in cinema. By the early 1950s, USC’s cinema program had become so influential that its alumni began to garner a steady string of Academy Award nominations. Since then, scarcely a year has passed when at least one USC cinema alumnus has not been nominated for an Academy Award. At the same time, the ranks of the university’s celebrated alumni have swelled to include such luminaries as Ron Howard, James Ivory, George Lucas, John Singleton, David Wolper and Robert Zemeckis. As of 1997, USC alumni held key creative and/or production positions in nine of the 12 all-time highest-grossing films. , In the early 1980s, many of USC’s alumni, now well-known film and television professionals, joined some of the most renowned figures in Hollywood to provide the nation’s first film school with the facilities it needed to retain its position of prominence. George Lucas made a lead gift toward the five-building cinema-television complex, with other gifts coming from Johnny Carson, the Cecil B. DeMille Trust, the Harold Lloyd Foundation, Marcia Lucas, Jack Nicholson, Steven Spielberg, 20th Century-Fox, the Warner Brothers/Ladd Company and Robert Wise. Today, USC cinema-television students use these facilities to produce the equivalent of 20 feature-length films each year, and the School of Cinema-Television has endowments named for Alma and Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston, Jack Nicholson and Mary Pickford. And the list of USC’s credits continues to grow.

The curtain first rose on USC’s distinguished contributions to cinema on February 6, 1929, when Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., ascended the stage in Bovard Auditorium and delivered the opening lecture for the nation’s first university course in film. The 2-unit course, “Introduction to Photoplay,” was presented in collaboration with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and in addition to Fairbanks, it featured such celebrated guest lecturers as D. W. Griffith, Ernst Lubitsch, Irving Thalberg and William DeMille.

Enrollment in that first class was limited to 50 students, but the following year, a department of cinematography was formally established, and in 1935, the university awarded its first bachelor’s degree in cinema. By the early 1950s, USC’s cinema program had become so influential that its alumni began to garner a steady string of Academy Award nominations. Since then, scarcely a year has passed when at least one USC cinema alumnus has not been nominated for an Academy Award. At the same time, the ranks of the university’s celebrated alumni have swelled to include such luminaries as Ron Howard, James Ivory, George Lucas, John Singleton, David Wolper and Robert Zemeckis. As of 1997, USC alumni held key creative and/or production positions in nine of the 12 all-time highest-grossing films.

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the early 1980s, many of USC’s alumni, now well-known film and television professionals, joined some of the most renowned figures in Hollywood to provide the nation’s first film school with the facilities it needed to retain its position of prominence. George Lucas made a lead gift toward the five-building cinema-television complex, with other gifts coming from Johnny Carson, the Cecil B. DeMille Trust, the Harold Lloyd Foundation, Marcia Lucas, Jack Nicholson, Steven Spielberg, 20th Century-Fox, the Warner Brothers/Ladd Company and Robert Wise. Today, USC cinema-television students use these facilities to produce the equivalent of 20 feature-length films each year, and the School of Cinema-Television has endowments named for Alma and Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston, Jack Nicholson and Mary Pickford. And the list of USC’s credits continues to grow.

Erected 1998 by USC History Project, USC General Alumni Association. Sponsored by USC Trustee Bill and Marie Allen.

Topics. This historical marker is listed in these topic lists: Education • Entertainment. A significant historical date for this entry is February 6, 1929.

Location. 34° 1.37′ N, 118° 17.179′ W. Marker is in Los Angeles, California, in Los Angeles County. It is in South Los Angeles. Marker is on Watt Way south of West 34th Street, on the right

Photographed By J. J. Prats, November 29, 2018

2. Love Affair with the Movies Interpretive Panel

when traveling south. Touch for map. Marker is in this post office area: Los Angeles CA 90089, United States of America. Touch for directions.

Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within walking distance of this marker. Douglas Fairbanks (within shouting distance of this marker); Annenberg School for Communication (about 300 feet away, measured in a direct line); Student Musical Traditions (about 400 feet away); University Religious Center (about 500 feet away); Physical Education Building (about 500 feet away); Cesar Estrada Chavez (about 500 feet away); The Trojan Column (about 600 feet away); USC and the World Wars (about 600 feet away). Touch for a list and map of all markers in Los Angeles.

More about this marker. This panel shows a timeline from 1870 to 2000 marking when USC was founded, the nation’s first cinema course was offered, the first bachelor’s degree in cinema was awarded, the first degree in cinema-television was awarded, Hollywood leaders joined forces to fund the cinema-television complex, and USC became the first university to establish an independent school of cinema-television.

It has a number of illustrations (clockwise from top left) beginning with the cover to the 1929 “Introduction to Photoplay” course; a movie still captioned “sometimes USC itself has been the star, as in this Laurel and Hardy comedy shot adjacent to the campus;”

Douglas Fairbanks Statue image. Click for full size.

Photographed By Craig Baker, 2023

3. Douglas Fairbanks Statue

At the George Lucas Building on the USC Campus. 2009 bronze by Jay Hall Carpenter.

three un-captioned photographs of USC students filming and editing; a color photograph of “USC student filmmakers on location;” a photograph of “George Lucas as a USC Cinema student;” a photograph of “Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., shown with USC President Von KleinSmid, inaugurated USC’s ‘Introduction to Photoplay’ course.”

Also see . . . USC School of Cinematic Arts. Wikipedia entry (Submitted on May 15, 2022, by Larry Gertner of New York, New York.)

Credits. This page was last revised on February 4, 2024. It was originally submitted on February 28, 2019, by J. J. Prats of Powell, Ohio. This page has been viewed 312 times since then and 127 times this year. Last updated on March 6, 2019, by Douglass Halvorsen of Klamath Falls, Oregon. Photos: 1, 2. submitted on February 28, 2019, by J. J. Prats of Powell, Ohio. 3. submitted on July 28, 2023, by Craig Baker of Sylmar, California. • Andrew Ruppenstein was the editor who published this page.