Hollywood in the years between 1929 and 1948 was a city of moviemaking empires. The great studios were estates of skill: sprawling, dense, diverse. It was the Golden Age group of the Movies, and each studio made its special contribution. But how did the studios, “growing up” in the same time and place, develop therefore differently? What combinations of talents and temperaments gave them their personal styles? They are the queries Ethan Mordden answers, with breezy erudition and irrepressible passion, in this fascinating and wonderfully readable reserve. Mordden illuminates how the design of each studio was mainly dictated from the personality, philosophy, and behaviour of its presiding mogul-and how each one of these elements affected the work and careers of individual actors, directors, authors, and technicians, and the success of the studio in general.

“Written having a flair and clarity which will delight even the casual movie lover, this study is a refreshing and convincing option to the auteurist method of film history.”-Web publishers Weekly