There were eight studios in Hollywood during its Golden Age and this study day provides a helpful history from their early, tentative beginnings through their full glory in the 1930s and 1940s to their decline and dissolution in the 1950s and 1960s with the death of the founding movie moguls.

The study day will move from the silent stars Pickford, Fairbanks, Chaplin and Valentino through the films of the durable stars - Gable, Cooper, Garbo, Dietrich, Flynn and Davie. The day concludes with the decline of the studios and their takeover by conglomerates like Sony, Mitsubishi and Murdoch's News Corporation.