Chris Yogerst is assistant professor of communication at the University of Wisconsin Colleges where he teaches courses in film, media, and popular culture. His work has been published in Senses of Cinema, Journal of Film and Video, Journal of Religion and Film, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and Atlantic Monthly.
In its early years, which were also the early years of Hollywood,
Warner Brothers was a film studio known for both gritty movies,
often about crime and punishment (Little Caesar and The Public
Enemy), and for award-winning, glossier films (The Life of Emile
Zola and The Story of Louis Pasteur). What set the studio apart
from its competitors? In this perceptive study, Yogerst suggests it
was the approach: Warner Brothers told stories that managed to
speak directly to their audience. The author backs up his thesis by
looking at numerous movies, showing how the films’ themes and even
sometimes their scripts drew on issues being talked about in the
media and in public discourse. It was a shrewd business model that
paid off big-time, and the book is a shrewd look not just at one of
the original Golden Age movie studios but also at the film
industry’s birth and early years.
*Booklist*
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