Noah Isenberg at The American Scholar:
During the high point of Hollywood’s studio era, when motion pictures made their storied transition from silents to talkies, no studio was more glamorous, more lavish, more star-studded than Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (“more stars than there are in heaven” was its apt motto). It boasted such directorial luminaries as King Vidor, Victor Fleming, George Cukor, and Ernst Lubitsch; its contract writers included Lenore Coffee, Donald Ogden Stewart, Dorothy Parker, and Anita Loos; and its roster of A-listers was seemingly endless—Clark Gable, John Barrymore, Jean Harlow, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, and Fred Astaire were among its brightest talents.
At the helm of it all were two powerful producers: the irascible, relentlessly driven studio patriarch, Louis B. Mayer; and the soft-spoken, considerably younger (yet equally ambitious) vice president and head of production, Irving Thalberg. They are the twin subjects of Los Angeles Times film critic emeritus Kenneth Turan’s engrossing new book, Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg: The Whole Equation.
more here.
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