| From Double Indemnity to The
Godfather, the stories behind
some of the greatest films ever made pale beside the story of the studio
that
made them. In the golden age of Hollywood, Paramount was one of the Big
Five
studios. Gulf + Western’s 1966 takeover of the studio signaled the end of
one
era and heralded the arrival of a new way of doing business in
Hollywood.
Bernard Dick reconstructs the battle that culminated in the reduction
of the
studio to a mere corporate commodity. He then traces Paramount’s
devolution from
free-standing studio to subsidiary—first of Gulf + Western, then Paramount
Communications, and currently Viacom-CBS. Dick portrays the new
Paramount as a
paradigm of today’s Hollywood, where the only real art is the art of the
deal.
Former merchandising executives find themselves in charge of production,
on the
assumption that anyone who can sell a movie can make one. CEOs exit in
disgrace
from one studio only to emerge in triumph at another. Corporate raiders
vie for
power and control through the buying and selling of film libraries, studio
property, television stations, book publishers, and more. The history of
Paramount is filled with larger-than-life people, including Billy Wilder,
Adolph
Zukor, Sumner Redstone, Sherry Lansing, Barry Diller, Michael Eisner,
Jeffrey
Katzenberg, and more.
Bernard F. Dick, professor of communications and English
at Fairleigh Dickinson University, is the author of numerous books on film
history, including Hall
Wallis,
Radical
Innocence: A Critical Study of the Hollywood Ten, City
of Dreams: The Making and Remaking of Universal Pictures, Columbia
Pictures: Portrait of a Studio, and The
Star Spangled Screen: The American World War II Film.
|
Reviews:
“Clever, thought-provoking…Dick has the ability to
explain the complex in-fighting among studio executives in the corridors
of power in a movie studio—and their even more complex negotiations with
the conglomerates who own the studios—in a way that is clear and
incisive.”—Gene D. Phillips
“Provides a helpful scaffolding of Paramount’s fascinating history thus far
and suggests that business historians would do well to engage the film
industry further in their explorations of twentieth-century business and
economic life.”—Enterprise and Society
“Through the richness in cases, examples and anecdotes it gives a
practical, nuts-and-bolts insight into the workings of the film
business.”—Business History
“Everybody knows that Paramount was one of the major studios, but few
know the twists and turns of the history of the studio over the years.”—Peter
C. Rollins
“An important book not only about the history of a studio, but also about
the apparently ineluctable direction big business has taken in American
society.”—Donald Spoto
“Traces Paramount’s lineage from its 1912 origins to its 1966 purchase by
Gulf & Western and its present ownership by Viacom/CBS.”—Publishers
Weekly
“Uses Paramount Pictures to illustrate the evolution of the motion-picture
industry from Thomas Edison to Michael Eisner. . . . Always erudite and
entertaining.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Does a fine job of detailing the death of a studio and its reincarnation as a
subsidiary of a conglom. Dick’s forensics peel back history, revealing the
passions, politics and power plays of filmmakers and dealmakers that
culminated in the dissolution of a Hollywood empire.”—Daily Variety
“Astutely analyzes the role of outside corporate money in the film industry,
and how the changes at Paramount heralded a new, inevitable trend in
American film and arts. . . . Dick’s in-depth analysis and research makes
for great—and shocking—journalism.”—Publishers Weekly
“This thoroughly researched story reveals the shift in the industry’s primary
focus from making fine film to making a successful, multifaceted business
deal and prompts debate over which one is considered to be real art in
modern Hollywood.”—Library Journal
“Dick has composed an authoritative account of Paramount Pictures
Corporation and accomplished the not inconsiderable feat of making it
read less like business and more like history.”—Washington Times
“The stories behind some of the greatest films ever made pale beside the
story of the studio that made them.”—Hollywood Inside Syndicate
“Dick lends the personalities and events so much emotional colour that his
book is as compulsively readable as a biography.”—Sight and Sound
“A breezy and informative six-reeler about the ‘engulfing’ of the once proud
studio by a mega-conglomerate to which film art was merely another
commodity.”—EH.NET Reviews
“Provides historical insight into the death of Paramount Pictures as an
autonomous studio and its fall to the conglomerate Gulf + Western in
1966.”—Journal of Economic History
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