Warner Bros: The Making of an American Movie Studio
Sign in to keep track of books you’ve read and want to read.
Behind the scenes at the legendary Warner Brothers film studio, where four immigrant brothers transformed themselves into the moguls and masters of American fantasy
Read more
Warner Broscharts the rise of an unpromising film studio from its shaky beginnings in the early twentieth century through its ascent to the pinnacle of Hollywood influence and popularity. The Warner Brothers—Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack—arrived in America as unschooled Jewish immigrants, yet they founded a studio that became the smartest, toughest, and most radical in all of Hollywood.
David Thomson provides fascinating and original interpretations of Warner Brothers pictures from the pioneering talkie The Jazz Singerthrough black-and-white musicals, gangster movies, and such dramatic romances as Casablanca, East of Eden, and Bonnie and Clyde. He recounts the storied exploits of the studio's larger-than-life stars, among them Al Jolson, James Cagney, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, Doris Day, and Bugs Bunny. The Warner brothers' cultural impact was so profound, Thomson writes, that their studio became "one of the enterprises that helped us see there might be an American dream out there."
Liked Warner Bros: The Making of an American Movie Studio? Here’s where I’d start.
These suit anyone who liked Warner Bros: The Making of an American Movie Studio. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.
-
The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called DreamWorks Shares nonfiction, film, business -
Hank & Jim: The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart Shares nonfiction, biography, film -
An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood Shares nonfiction, film, history -
The First King of Hollywood: The Life of Douglas Fairbanks Shares nonfiction, film, biography
“If you want more of the same (history about movies), start with these.”
“If it was the biography that hooked you, try one of these.”
“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”
-
"You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet": The American Talking Film: History and Memory 1927-1949
-
The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926-1930
-
Universal Studios Monsters: A Legacy of Horror
-
Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise, 1930-1939 (History of the American Cinema, Vol 5)