On Tue, 2 Aug 1994, Gene Stavis wrote: > James Cagney made dozens of > films in his first two or three years at Warner Brothers. Today a star is > lucky to get a film every other year. Which implies that stars would prefer to make MORE than a film every other year, if only they could? I doubt it. Quite the contrary; it's the old studio-star system which was onerous, if we think of the star as a worker (particularly the 7 year/6 month aspect of contract renewals). Now, by being free agents, stars can actually make more money by making fewer movies; their labor, governed by laws of supply and demand, becomes more valuable as it is less in evidence. (Of course, this is not to imply that star salaries are determined soley, or even primarily, in this regard -- or even that such determinations are rational.) And, of course, audience perceptions of how often an actor is working have also changed; in the late 30s, in his second-male-lead period, Bogart was making 3-4 films a year as a matter of course, whereas Tommy Lee Jones is arguably in the same phase of his career and seems (to me at least) overexposed by being in two films this summer. JRG ______________________________________________________________________________ John R. Groch <[log in to unmask]> | "Work! FINISH! THEN sleep." English Department/Film Studies Program | -- The Monster, Univ. of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 | "Bride of Frankenstein" ______________________________________________________________________________