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Marina Hyde's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Marina Hyde recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Marina Hyde's favorite book recommendations of all time.

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Recommended by Marina Hyde, and 1 others.

Marina HydeHeaven’s Gate was not just a flop, it collapsed United Artists – the studio that was founded by DW Griffiths, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, and it’s ridiculous that one man and one movie could do that. For its faults, the studio system wouldn’t have let that happen. Steven Bach, the author of this book, was the head of production at United Artists and he writes just beautifully: you can’t... (Source)

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2
At a time when the studio is making a stunning comeback, film historian Thomas Schatz provides an indispensable account of Hollywood's tradional blend of business and art. This book lays to rest the persistent myth that businesspeople and producers stifle artistic talent and reveals instead the genius of a system of collaboration and conflict. Working from industry documents, Schatz traces the development of house styles, the rise and fall of careers, and the making-and unmaking-of movies, from Frankenstein to Spellbound to Grand Hotel. Richly illustrated and highly... more
Recommended by Marina Hyde, Jane Root, and 2 others.

Marina HydeIt’s about how gradually the stars became more savvy: they started saying I want to do this or that kind of movie, because people don’t like to be told they’re one sort of star. But people didn’t want to see Bogart going insane for example: he’s a cynic, and also a romantic, and you want to see that Warners’ style. That’s something Schatz deals with ­– that all the major studios developed a very... (Source)

Jane RootThis is an amazing book. It’s an academic book, but it reads like a novel. It was a very important book for me when I was studying film and television. Film theory was dominated for many years by the idea of the auteur, the single visionary director who managed, in the hell of the industrial system that was Hollywood’s studio system, to nonetheless produce amazing individual work. Thomas Schatz’s... (Source)

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3

The Love of the Last Tycoon

The Last Tycoon, edited by the renowned literary critic Edmund Wilson, was first published a year after Fitzgerald's death and includes the author's notes and outline for his unfinished literary masterpiece. It is the story of the young Hollywood mogul Monroe Stahr, a character inspired by the life of boy-genius Irving Thalberg, and is an exposé of the studio system in its heyday. less
Recommended by Marina Hyde, and 1 others.

Marina HydeIt’s about a studio executive called Monroe Stahr. Stahr is based on Irving Thalberg, who was the right-hand man to Louis B Meyer at MGM and brought Fitzgerald out to write for him. Fitzgerald never really did make anything much at the movies, but he wrote this wonderful book which is his last and, though it’s sadly unfinished, I think would have been maybe his best. Fitzgerald went out to... (Source)

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4
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for history, this "wonderful history of the golden age of the movie moguls" (Chicago Tribune ) is a provocative, original, and richly entertaining group biography of the Jewish immigrants who were the moving forces behind the creation of America's motion picture industry. less
Recommended by Marina Hyde, and 1 others.

Marina HydeI’ll start with An Empire of Their Own, because it’s just so difficult for us to understand what Hollywood was like then, particularly for these guys who were either first generation, or immigrant German, or East European Jews, who’d come largely from running things like nickelodeon outfits on the East Coast, and ended up creating this extraordinary confection out in California. Bearing in mind... (Source)

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5

What Makes Sammy Run?

What Makes Sammy Run?

Everyone of us knows someone who runs. He is one of the symp-toms of our times—from the little man who shoves you out of the way on the street to the go-getter who shoves you out of a job in the office to the Fuehrer who shoves you out of the world. And all of us have stopped to wonder, at some time or another, what it is that makes these people tick. What makes them run?

This is the question Schulberg has asked himself, and the answer is the first novel written with the indignation that only a young writer with talent and ideals could concentrate...
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Ryan HolidayBudd Schulberg’s (who wrote the screenplay for On the Waterfront) whole trilogy is amazing and each captures a different historical era. His first, What Makes Sammy Run? is Ari Gold before Ari Gold existed–purportedly based on Samuel Goldwyn (of MGM) and Darryl Zanuck. His next book, The Harder They Fall is about boxing and loosely based on the Primo Carnera scandal. All you need to know about... (Source)

Brian KoppelmanA legendary book about how somebody makes their way in Hollywood. (Source)

Marina HydeIt’s a novel by Budd Schulberg about a copyboy who’s worked his way up from absolutely nothing to become an incredibly grasping self-motivated amoral movie producer. I think it was really based on Jerry Wald who was a Warners executive and then an independent who made lots of fantastic movies. Louis Meyer of MGM was appalled, and told Schulberg’s parents – Schulberg was the son of a movie exec –... (Source)

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