City of Nets
A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940's
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Narrated by:
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P.J. Ochlan
About this listen
In 1939, 50 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.
©1986 Otto Friedrich; Foreword copyright by Glen David Gold (P)2021 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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- By: Mark Harris
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 20 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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It was the best of times and the worst of times for Hollywood before the war. The box office was booming, and the studios’ control of talent and distribution was as airtight as could be hoped. But the industry’s relationship with Washington was decidedly uneasy - hearings and investigations into allegations of corruption and racketeering were multiplying, and hanging in the air was the insinuation that the business was too foreign, too Jewish, too "un-American" in its values and causes. Could an industry this powerful in shaping America’s mind-set really be left in the hands of this crew?
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Had a lot of fun with this book!
- By Detail-oriented on 08-11-14
By: Mark Harris
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American Rebel
- The Life of Clint Eastwood
- By: Marc Eliot
- Narrated by: Marc Eliot
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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From the New York Times best-selling author Marc Eliot comes the definitive biography of one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful actors, producers, and directors in the history of American motion pictures. Marc Eliot examines the ever-exciting, often tumultuous arc of Eastwood's life and career, from his days as a disaffected college dropout, to his rise to fame as the archetypal loner, to his acceptance into the pantheon of the Academy as a multiple Oscar Award winner.
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I learned the hard way.
- By Ty Pritchard on 07-23-10
By: Marc Eliot
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Going Clear
- Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief
- By: Lawrence Wright
- Narrated by: Morton Sellers
- Length: 17 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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A clear-sighted revelation, a deep penetration into the world of Scientology by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower, the now-classic study of al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack. Based on more than two hundred personal interviews with current and former Scientologists—both famous and less well known—and years of archival research, Lawrence Wright uses his extraordinary investigative ability to uncover for us the inner workings of the Church of Scientology.
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Shockingly Great
- By Michael on 01-27-13
By: Lawrence Wright
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Starmaker
- Life as a Hollywood Publicist with Farrah, The Rat Pack, & 600 More Stars Who Fired Me
- By: Jay Bernstein
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Revealingly candid, this Hollywood memoir is the story of Jay Bernstein, an entertainment industry fixture who helped launch and sustain the careers of many celebrities including Farrah Fawcett and Suzanne Somers. From his childhood in Oklahoma City and his first job in a Hollywood mail room to the ownership of his own public relations firm and his work as a television producer, Bernstein’s life is chronicled in his own words.
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Very Entertaining
- By patrick on 09-27-15
By: Jay Bernstein
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Can I Go Now?
- The Life of Sue Mengers, Hollywood's First Superagent
- By: Brian Kellow
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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A lively and colorful biography of Hollywood's first superagent - one of the most outrageous showbiz characters of the 1960s and 1970s, whose clients included Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, Faye Dunaway, Michael Caine, and Candice Bergen. Before Sue Mengers hit the scene in the mid-1960s, talent agents remained quietly in the background. But staying in the background was not possible for Mengers.
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A little long.
- By Doris on 11-29-15
By: Brian Kellow
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The Curse of Beauty
- The Scandalous & Tragic Life of Audrey Munson, America's First Supermodel
- By: James Bone
- Narrated by: Marianne Fraulo
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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As America was stepping into the modern era, one great beauty became the artist's model of choice. Her perfect form became the emblem of the Gilded Age and appears on the greatest monuments of New York and the nation. Supermodel, actress, icon - her beauty paved the way for a life of glamour, passion, and ultimately tragedy. Her name is Audrey Munson.
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Fascinating
- By Аmazon Customer on 04-06-17
By: James Bone
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The Collaboration
- Hollywood's Pact with Hitler
- By: Ben Urwand
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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To continue doing business in Germany, Hollywood studios agreed not to make films attacking Nazis or condemning persecution of Jews. Ben Urwand reveals this collaboration and the cast of characters it drew in, ranging from Goebbels to Louis B. Mayer. At the center was Hitler himself - obsessed with movies and their power to shape public opinion.
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Making mountains out of molehills
- By M. S. Cohen on 11-05-13
By: Ben Urwand
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Something Wonderful
- Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution
- By: Todd S. Purdum
- Narrated by: Todd S. Purdum
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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They stand at the apex of the great age of songwriting, the creators of the classic Broadway musicals Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music, whose songs have never lost their popularity or emotional power. Even before they joined forces, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II had written dozens of Broadway shows, but together they pioneered a new art form: the serious musical play.
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Fabulous book about Rodgers & Hammerstein!!!
- By BigWally on 06-27-18
By: Todd S. Purdum
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The Last Love Song
- A Biography of Joan Didion
- By: Tracy Daugherty
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 26 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Joan Didion lived a life in the public and private eye with her late husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, whom she met while the two were working in New York City, when Didion was at Vogue and Dunne was writing for Time. They became wildly successful writing partners when they moved to Los Angeles and cowrote screenplays and adaptations together. Didion is well known for her literary journalistic style in both fiction and nonfiction.
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Riveted for 1591 miles
- By Kaysi12 on 04-11-16
By: Tracy Daugherty
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Furious Love
- Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century
- By: Sam Kashner, Nancy Schoenberger
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 17 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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He was a tough-guy Welshman softened by the affections of a breathtakingly beautiful woman; she was a modern-day Cleopatra madly in love with her own Mark Antony. For nearly a quarter of a century, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were Hollywood royalty, and their fiery romance - often called "the marriage of the century" - was the most notorious, publicized, and celebrated love affair of its day.
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Paul Boehmer needs more practice
- By Brenda Miller on 06-16-10
By: Sam Kashner, and others
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Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, a classic film noir and also a damning dissection of the Hollywood dream factory, evokes the glamour and ruin of the stars who subsist on that dream. It’s also one long in-joke about the movie industry and those who made it great - and who were, in turn, destroyed by it. One of the most critically admired films of the 20th century, Sunset Boulevard is also famous as silent-star Gloria Swanson’s comeback picture.
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Hollywood in the 1950s was a period when the film industry both set conventions and broke norms and traditions—from Cinerama, Cinemascope and Vistavision to the epic film and lavish musical. It was a decade that saw the rise of the anti-hero; the smoldering, the hidden, and the unspoken; teenagers gone wild in the streets; the sacred and the profane; the revolution of the Method; the socially conscious; the implosion of the studios, the end of the production code; and the invasion of the ultimate body snatcher: the “small screen” television.
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Madness Under the Royal Palms
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In March 1999, a Palm Beach matron and her socially ambitious husband invited the elite of the island for a dinner dance honoring Prince Edward. Among those dancing to the string orchestra that evening would be those accused of murder and spousal abuse, and others who would suffer fates both unseemly and unspeakable. Among the outer circle there would be murders, suicides, and fatal fires.
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A good (but a little corny) history of LA
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Scandals of Classic Hollywood
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Believe it or not, America's fascination with celebrity culture was thriving well before the days of TMZ, Perez Hilton, Charlie Sheen's breakdown, and allegations against Woody Allen. And the stars of yesteryear? They weren't always the saints that we make them out to be. Part biography, part cultural history, the stories contained in this book cover the stuff that films are made of: love, sex, drugs, illegitimate children, illicit affairs, and botched cover-ups.
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Riveting journey
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Tinseltown
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By 1920, the movies had suddenly become America's new favorite pastime and one of the nation's largest industries. Never before had a medium possessed such power to influence; yet Hollywood's glittering ascendancy was threatened by a string of headline-grabbing tragedies - including the murder of William Desmond Taylor, the popular president of the Motion Picture Directors Association, a legendary crime that has remained unsolved until now.
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Everybody's a dreamer...
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Hollywood: The Oral History
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From the archives of the American Film Institute comes a unique picture of what it was like to work in Hollywood from its beginnings to its present day. Gleaned from nearly three thousand interviews, involving four hundred voices from the industry, Hollywood: The Oral History, lets a listener “listen in” on candid remarks from the biggest names in front of the camera—Bette Davis, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Harold Lloyd—to the biggest behind it—Frank Capra, Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock, Jordan Peele, as well as the lesser known individuals that shaped what was heard and seen on screen.
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Marlene Dietrich
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With intimate detail, author Maria Riva reveals the rich life of her mother, Marlene Dietrich, the charismatic star of stage and screen whose career spanned much of the 20th century. Opening with Dietrich's childhood in Schöneberg, Riva's biography introduces us to an energetic, disciplined, and ambitious young actress whose own mother equated show business with a world of vagabonds and thieves.
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What listeners say about City of Nets
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Robert
- 11-24-23
The history of old Hollywood is always fascinating!
I loved the stories about various Movie Stars, their lives, careers, marriages, movies they were in, as well as all the little side notes, overall a very enjoyable book!
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- Patrick Braue
- 03-04-23
Entertaining book AWFUL NARRATOR!
Loved this book when I was reading it on my own but the narrator on this audiobook read this interesting and often humorous book like it was the most dull writing he had ever read!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Truthseeker
- 02-01-22
Difficult to listen to
I have loved this book since I first read it in hard cover. Friedrich's unique storytelling and marvelous anecdotes are a joy to read; especially about the refugees like Brecht and Lorre.
But my GAWD. The narrator is loud, brassy, yet flat and emotionless. The humor is lost, the jokes heavy- handed and unpleasant. In a word, yuck.
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- redheadmomx2
- 08-28-24
Some Deep Dives into Hollywood People and Events
There’s one bad mistake in the telling of the demise of a star of of the twenties and it makes me wonder what else the author got wrong
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- A. N. Onymous
- 01-18-22
Disjointed and flawed
A rather entertaining book but the style made it hard to follow. I was surprised at the inaccuracies that were presented as fact. These were so prevalent that it made me doubt the validity of the rest of what the author presented. It just felt more like you were listening to gossip told by someone who heard it from their cousin's sister's boyfriend.
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3 people found this helpful