We were all ruled by the studio system. I signed a contract for seven years.
—Leslie Caron
The studio system dominated the motion picture business from the 1920s to the 1960s. There were five significant players: Paramount, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, RKO, and MGM. They owned the production facilities and equipment required to make movies, held the creative talent to long-term, exclusive contracts, and controlled many theaters that showed those films.