Gwenda Young's research for her study of the films directed by Clarence Brown is beyond excellent. It is extraordinary.
~Emily Leider, author of Myrna Loy: The Only Good Girl in Hollywood
Gwenda Young's extremely significant and impressive work provides a comprehensive historical overview of the life and career of an important Hollywood director of the 'Classical Era'—Clarence Brown.
~Lucy Fischer, author of Body Double: The Author Incarnate in Cinema and Art Direction and Production Design
This definitive study of the life and work of prolific MGM contract director Clarence Brown, whose career extended from the early silent era into the age of television, is exhaustively researched and skillfully written. It does not claim that Brown was a filmmaking genius, but rather a great visual stylist with an intense devotion to the artful logistics of production and direction who also had a poetic vision grounded in personal experience. It offers a vivid account of the industrial system in which he practiced, with special attention to the vexations of production code censorship and internal studio politics. Anyone who cares deeply about the history of American cinema should read this book.
~David A. Cook, author of A History of Narrative Film (Fifth Edition)
This is a pioneering study of an important but neglected American filmmaker. Gwenda Young has marshaled an astonishing range of resources in telling the story of Clarence Brown's life and work from his days as an apprentice in the silent era through his rise as a major director in the classical Hollywood studio system up to World War II and beyond. It is an epic tale, and Young gives it the scope and momentum of a great novel even as she brings to bear a wealth of scholarly research. A truly impressive accomplishment.
~James Morrison, author of Auteur Theory and My Son John
A sweeping and elegantly written biography. It is as gracefully told, as delicate and memorable, as the best work of its subject. Young's book effortlessly portrays a man who never let the Hollywood system interfere with his filmmaking instincts.
~Wall Street Journal
A well-annotated, comprehensive, academic biography. Highly recommended to anyone interested in the history of early American cinema, star power in early Hollywood, or Clarence Brown.
~Library Journal
Young makes a credible case for Brown's skillful craft and even artistry in the silent era. Young tells his story well.
~Shepherd Express
A biography of the unsung director Clarence Brown would be welcome under any circumstances. That it rates a ringing endorsement from Kevin Brownlow makes it required reading. Young's book is more than a career study, however; it is a full-fledged biography, extensively researched and annotated. The man who made Flesh and the Devil, Anna Karenina, The Human Comedy, National Velvet, The Yearling, and Intruder in the Dust (among many others) deserves no less.
~Leonard Maltin
Young's thorough and fascinating biography on MGM film director Clarence Brown goes a long way in making sure his contribution is noted as lasting and significant. Young not only provides us with a biography of a great director's life, she offers fascinating information about the approach to filmmaking during cinema's infancy, the power of the studio system, the many varied personalities whose work we continue to revere, marketing methods, critical reactions, box office stats, and how the work continues to impact us. Clarence Brown: Hollywood's Forgotten Master makes a real case for our better appreciation of a brilliant director, and does so in a manner that is informative, enlightening, interesting, and entertaining. It is a book that demands to be included in any library or research center, University or public, and in the personal collections of anyone interested in the richness of Hollywood cinema's history.
~James L. Neibaur
Throughout this elegant book, Young makes a watertight case for the reappraisal of her subject, a director who, in her words, 'soared in flights of poeticsm and romanticism that are still unequaled on the American screen.'
~Sight & Sound
It seems surprising that this is the first full-length biography on (Clarence) Brown, but it is certainly one worth of his legacy and contribution to Hollywood filmmaking....What (Young) has produced is a weighty volume that not only tells the story of the life and career of one of MGM's, and Hollywood's, most productive and consistently successful film directors, but it simultaneously details the wider story of the studio system, the star system, battles with the censors, the challenges of location shooting and the advancing technology of cinematic apparatus as film transitioned from silence to sound.
~Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television
A remarkable critical biography.
~Bertrand Tavernier
Brown...[is] getting his proper due, thanks to Gwenda Young's sprawling, massively detailed Clarence Brown: Hollywood's Forgotten Master.
~Directors Guild of America Quarterly
