City of Nets, Otto Friedrich
City of Nets, Otto Friedrich
List: $35.99 | Sale: $25.20
Club: $17.99

City of Nets
A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940's

Author: Otto Friedrich, Glen David Gold

Narrator: P.J. Ochlan

Unabridged: 25 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/31/2021


Synopsis

In 1939, fifty million Americans went to the movies every week, Louis B. Mayer was the highest-paid man in the country, and Hollywood produced 530 feature films a year. One decade and five thousand movies later, the studios were faltering. The 1940s became the decade of Hollywood's decline: anticommunist hysteria excommunicated some of its best talent, while a 1948 antitrust consent decree ended many of the business practices that had made the studio system so profitable.

In this masterful work of cultural history, the legendary Otto Friedrich tells the story of Hollywood's heyday and decline in a vivid narrative featuring an all-star cast of the actors, writers, musicians, composers, producers, directors, racketeers, labor leaders, journalists, and politicians who played major parts in the movie capital during the turbulent decade from World War II to the Korean War.

Friedrich draws on sources from celebrity biographies to trade-union history, mingling lively gossip with analysis of Hollywood's seedier business dealings and telling the stories of legendary movies such as Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, and All About Eve.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Tosh on January 01, 2008

If you were going to have only one book on Hollywood, this is it. Beyond essential. Beyond ... well anything. Any book that combines the Marx Brothers with Thomas Mann with Howard Hughes with Brecht with Sam Goldwyn with ... It just goes on and it's one great story after another. The key thing is tha......more

Goodreads review by Sketchbook on July 06, 2023

Born in Minsk, Russia, the semi-literate Louis B Mayer, who first bought a former burlesque theatre when he was 22 and became a monarch of Hollywood until he was toppled in 1951, was quivering w rage when his 2d-in command Dore Schary started to eclipse him. "Sit down," Mayer snarled, "You little ki......more

Goodreads review by N.N. on June 07, 2018

I've been in love with Hollywood, the classic Hollywood, ever since I was a little girl. Films of that era appealed to my HEA obsession and fed my imagination. City of Nets takes us deep into the dark side of Hollywood, it's decline and struggle to remain relevant in American society. I found the ri......more

Goodreads review by Ian on October 21, 2024

This is an enthralling account of Hollywood in the forties. 1939 is generally regarded as Hollywood’s greatest year, with the release of Gone with the Wind, The Grapes of Wrath, The Wizard of Oz, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Stagecoach and Wuthering Heights, among others. The thirties good times cont......more

Goodreads review by Aaron on August 04, 2009

A fine book about Hollywood in the important decade of the 40s, which began with Andy Hardy and ended with noir. Friedrich is more honest than most; he can almost bring himself to admit that the Hollywood Ten were, in fact, Communists. (Which is not to say they should have gone to jail for the absur......more