Moguls & Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood (TV Mini Series) Brother, Can You Spare a Dream?: 1929-1941 (2010) User Reviews

Trying To Make It In The 'Era Of Sound"

[ccthemovieman-1 · 8/10 · 22 December 2010]

This fourth episode covers the period from 1929-1941. It's primary focus remains, as the title to this series notes, the movie "moguls." It was in this era that the one-man boss was over. Oh, the big-shots still had a lot of say, but not the money anymore to make costly "sound" movies. Once the public, narrator Christopher Plummer says, got a taste of sound, the silent movies were over - almost immediately.

What also happened to the big boys, men like William Fox and Sam Warner, to name two, wasn't just the stock market crash of 1929 but sudden illness and death. Soon, banks were funding the films.

Anyway, this episode gives us more very interesting looks at the famous people of the era: Jimmy Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, The Marx Brothers, screenwriter Ben Hecht, Busby Berkely, Bette Davis, Fred Astaire, Shirley Temple, Mae West, the Selznick brothers, Irving Thalberg, Howard Hughes, Katharine Hepburn, Jean Harlow, Darryl Zunuck, Harry Cohn, Frank Capra, Clark Gable, Paul Muni, Judy Garland, on and on.

It explains the hows-and-whys of the big change in films from the silent to "talkies," why some performers made it and others didn't, how the musicals were transformed and much more. Clara Bow's story was most interesting.

The series just seems to be getting better and better, although part of that might be the familiarity of all these names. I think most of us know these actors, for one, better than we do the names of the era before it.

Hollywood - from Vitaphone to the winds of war

[AlsExGal · 9/10 · 20 September 2015]

This is the time period covered with probably the most change in film due to the changes in society and technology. The beginning of the documentary talks about how the sound revolution - starting with The Jazz Singer but really taking about three years - threw both actors and directors out of work and a fresh new wave of talent descended on Hollywood. As one of the narrators said - Talking film was not a hybrid that evolved from silent film, it was a new creation entirely that choked out the existence of the former. Sound coupled with the Great Depression brought the money men - pure bankers - into the business and imposed a new discipline. It also greatly shrank the number of studios.

Independent African American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux's contributions are brought up, although I thought it was odd to do that in this installment since Micheaux had been writing, directing and producing films since 1920. It seemed to be brought up here in parallel with Hattie McDaniel winning her Academy Award to note that progress was being made in race relations on film, but the documentary did mention that there was still very much progress to be made.

New moguls entering the field include David O. Selznick and Walt Disney, and it is mentioned how Louis Mayer used Irving Thalberg's illness to dilute his power during his recovery. New stars entering the field that are mentioned include Bette Davis, James Cagney, Mae West, Clark Gable, and Jean Harlow. Although Columbia was formed in the 20's, this is the episode in which Columbia is first mentioned, primarily because their premiere director, Frank Capra, rose to prominence during this period.

As Hitler rose to power in Europe, it is mentioned that the moguls - many Jewish - did not put out any films remotely criticizing the Nazis because they did not want to lose German audiences. The only exception was the Warner Brothers.

The end of the documentary makes a very interesting observation - that perhaps people identified with Scarlet O'Hara in Gone with the Wind because of her going suddenly from a life of abundance to poverty to the point of hunger and her promise to never go hungry again mirrored audiences' own experience in having just come out of the Depression.

The production code is mentioned briefly, but in my opinion it can't be emphasized enough how the production code changed films from being realistic sometimes to the point of pain to so idealistic and neutered that many studios turned to period pieces in the mid 30's, many of which were inconsistent, silly and even boring disasters, just because the moguls figured the now all powerful censors would not object because nobody could be having sex if so many layers of petticoats were involved.

Again, as in all of the episodes, an after-discussion is held with Robert Osborne presiding. You only get to see this if you recorded the original broadcast in 2010 or if you bought the DVD of the series. Recommended as a good overview, but you'll need to dig deeper for the details, and in the after discussion the panel even admits this.

Perhaps the Best Entry So Far

[Michael_Elliott · 23 November 2010]

Moguls & Movie Stars: Brother, Can You Spare a Dream? (2010)

*** (out of 4)

Fourth installment in TCM's look at the history of Hollywood suffers the same problems as the previous films but this is probably the best of the bunch so far. In the film we kick off with THE JAZZ SINGER pretty much killing silent movies and their stars and then we look at a few big folks who didn't make it in the sound era including Clara Bow who would be forced out of movies at the age of 28. We then see how many major players would push for sound only to die before their dreams came to be but we also see Hollywood's new line of stars including Cagney, Robinson, Hepburn and of course Mae West who proved that sex could still sell. The documentary comes to an end just as GONE WITH THE WIND was breaking records and Hitler's impact was about to be felt. Once again, if you've got the smallest knowledge of Hollywood then it's doubtful this thing is going to teach you anything you didn't already know but this episode also benefits from better story telling. I'm really not sure what it was but the history is told a lot better here and one reason might be because the documentary centers more on the stars and the power that they held. Previous entries were quite uneven because of the story jumping back and forth from the stars to the moguls but it's quite clear here that the stars were winning the battles. With that said, there are still countless major names that don't get even a brief mention and you might also scratch your head as to why D.W. Griffith wasn't mentioned when there was talk about the big guys no longer in the game.