Moguls & Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood

7 part documentary showing how Hollywood came into being and how a group of immigrant moguls developed the studios and ran them. It follows them from 1889 to 1969. However if you're looking for a documentary on the stars this isn't it. This focuses entirely on the moguls and their hold on the studios. if you're a movie fan (like me) you'll find nothing new here. Also at 7 hours it is rather long. Still it's well-done and beautifully narrated by Christopher Plummer. SO it's OK but nothing more'

This series of documentary shows which has been running on the Turner Classic Movies cable station in the United States, gives a very good if standard view of the history of motion pictures -- anyone who has read a lot on the subject will find many 'facts' offered which he or she 'knows' to be false.

Nonetheless, this is a very good introduction to the history of the movies and will give people just discovering old films a good idea of the general thrust of their evolution. Filled with sound bites from experts as well as clips and images, it shows, first that movies did no arise from nowhere, but grew out of half a millennium of technical evolution and the peculiar combination of events that led diverse people to become the leaders in what was the major entertainment industry for a good part of the 20th century.

If you're coming to this seven part series expecting something like Brownlow's encyclopedic work "Hollywood" you'll be disappointed. This history really limits itself to the joint story of Hollywood and the moguls that formed and sustained the industry from the 1890's until the 1960's. The end of this period is marked by the retirement of Jack Warner, the last of the founding fathers of the industry and the last movie mogul.

What may confuse some people is that the first episode of the series really concentrates on the beginning of the movies and what led up to the invention of the motion picture. The early moguls are mentioned but not stressed in this first episode as they are in all the others. Movie stars are mentioned throughout the series as are important directors, but ultimately it is the story of the men who founded the first motion picture studios and how they navigated an industry through the changing times and the first 80 years of film history.

I enjoyed the first episode which explains in some good level of detail how the actual film camera was invented, then became a competition globally to improve the quality of the camera and film, and only then did the European immigrants who arrived in America assess that the film industry could become a very lucrative business.

Even with seven (7) episodes in total and over 7 hours of movie history which touched on the Hollywood motion picture industry leaders which were the studio presidents of the largest production theaters such as MGM, Paramount, Warner and Fox, this documentary series barely touches on how these movie moguls created their movie empires and more importantly held off at bay the many lawsuits which were to follow both for personal and commercial reasons. In fairness there is over 120 years of history to cover in this trillion dollar movie industry if you include anyone who made their living from the movie industry.

I did learn a few new personal things about the moguls and movie stars but overall I found this documentary exaggerated the "cinderella stories" of some of the moguls and movie stars and deliberately refrained from providing any real insight into the personal lives of the most influential moguls and movie stars.

I didn't find that any of the seven (7) episodes other than the first episode enticed me to want to watch each successive episode. There are quite a few instances in this series where we hear directly from the children and/or the grandchildren of these famous movie moguls, directors and movie stars, but rarely did they provide any real insight into the pros and cons of their famous fathers/grandfathers, rather, they kept their images as if they were all kind and hard working renaissance men/women.

Let's face it, the Hollywood of the 1900's -2000's was a cess pool of debauchery, lawsuits, lies and backstabbing. That's what made Hollywood and America great.

I should be clear that I am a film history buff, and i really thought I knew pretty much everything there was to know, until I saw Moguls and Movie stars.

The documentary starts off in the penny arcades, where we are told that films are considered the entertainment choice of the poor and less educated. This quickly dismissed medium soon takes the world by storm.

We then learn how powerful women where at the beginning stages of Hollywood, working as writers and directors, and producing some of the biggest films of the era. The documentary examines the pre-Hayes code films, and what Hollywood did to clean up its own image.

Hollywood's handling of Hitler and World War II is told with amazing insight, and it contains a real eye opening story on how Casleblanca may never had been made if it weren't for Pearl Harbor.

We then move on to the films of the 50's and 60's, and the story of James Dean is told. The series does end way too soon, as the 1970's, and the era of the cheap drive in flick don't get this stories told.

Christopher Plummer is amazing as the narrator, and makes the entire series enjoyable. Hopefully, another installment will be produced, connecting a hundred plus years of Hollywood. This is a must series for not only the true film buff like myself, or the novice with a new interest in the history of Hollywood.