Warner Bros: The Making of an American Movie Studio - David Thomson Audiobook

Written by David Thomson
Read by David Thomson
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

· Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
· Release date: 03-27-18
· Publisher: Audible Studios

Series: Jewish Lives

From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, behind the scenes at the legendary Warner Brothers film studio, where four immigrant brothers transformed themselves into the moguls and masters of American fantasy

Warner Bros charts 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 Singer through 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 Rin Tin Tin , 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.”

Library Journal…
“In the 1960s, communication theorist Marshall McLuhan famously declared that the “medium is the message,” recognizing that the media formats used to distribute content are as influential as the content’s messages. Film critic Thomson certainly prescribes to McLuhan’s theory as he turns away from his usual medium of choice, the big screen, and tackles the history of the “elephant” in our living rooms–television. This is not an appraisal of hit TV shows and their players, although there is some of that, but rather a sharp analysis of its impact on collective consciousness. Thomson also provides valuable insight into the different organizational and philosophical structures of British and American TV, i.e., socialized vs. commercial productions and how that affects programming. VERDICT Thomson’s discussion of a “crowded medium” can feel haphazard at times, and frequent references to current political figures seem tacked on in an otherwise readable examination of this pervasive medium over the past 60 years.”

About Jewish Lives:
Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present.