The massive amount of information that is in Moguls & Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood is nothing short of impressive. The series starts out with the very beginning of the film industry; literally the birth of film. From Edison’s invention of ‘film’ in every sense of the word to the creation of the first nickelodeons (movie theaters for you young ones) to the first movie stars of the silent era, you get a load of information that is both accurate and interesting.
The series, after giving you the proper introduction dives into separate stories of the creation of all the big name studios and the smaller ones. You learn about the ‘moguls’ of the industry and what background they came from. You will be amazed about how absolutely poverty stricken the group was when they first started their lives. For example, you get to see stories of Adolph Zukor (founder of Paramount Pictures), Carl Laemmle (founder of Universal Studios) and the Warner brothers. This series covers pretty much all gambits of the industry’s founders/moguls and gives you a pretty good idea of who they were and how they did it. It’s extremely impressive to watch.
After establishing the industry and moguls, the TCM series dives right into the stars and their lives. You’ll find Charlie Chaplin, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle and several others that contributed to the birth of stardom. For example, I had no idea that Chaplin was the first big ‘merchandiser’ in Hollywood. George Lucas would have been proud, as Chaplin’s figures, costumes and more made him profit on the side of his very rich acting career. You’ll also be treated with in-depth information about directors, such as the famous Cecil B. DeMille (imdb.com if you don’t know the guy) and the infamous D.W. Griffith, who’s Birth of a Nation is still one of the most talked about films today. If you have never seen Birth of a Nation it’s one of the greatest examples in film classes across America in regards to how controversial a story could be in such early times for the nation (KKK as heroes? That’s indescribably bad — even for that time).
Rounding out the series, which does follow the moguls’ empire from birth to death (which is a farce, sorta), you’ll also see how the industry had to change with the times. I found it interesting on how well it survived during the ‘The Great Depression’, World War II and the Red Scare. What’s remarkable about this is that none of those things did the industry in; rather it was changing times that pretty much ousted the moguls, which the series explains quite well.
The DVD set is divided into three discs. There are two to three episodes on each disc that covers different time periods, which starts at the 1889 and ends in 1969. For me, I found the set incredibly interesting, as there were quite a few things I didn’t know about the industry. I had no idea who the original owners were, or what they went through to get their empires going. I also had no idea that most directors/writers never considered themselves artists; rather they were more business oriented. The series definitely brought to light some harsh realities, such as the blacklisting of Hollywood. It also cast a better light on movies as we know them today. Seeing a definite end to a certain time period and how absolutely quick the change from old to new was simply fascinating; at the same time it was also quite sad. TCM did a fantastic job with putting this series together and keeping it on track. Moguls & Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood will quickly connect with viewers and keep you glued to the set until the last disc is finished, as it did to me. There’s so much information to be soaked in with this collection that you’ll appreciate the effort that went into it, as I do.
With all this said, it’s not perfect. Getting back to the first question up top, I was worried that the content might seem a bit one-sided. I watched a documentary about a studio a while ago that seemed to shed more light on the good than the bad. It seemed to pick on one party, when all parties seem to be a just a bit responsible. This series certainly made that one more shallow and hollow than I could have imagined. At the same time, I think that this series rushed the show just a bit. While I know that time constraints on material is certainly always going to be there, I think that this series needed more details and less rush. There were times where you would get some great information (the creation of the studios and where the moguls came from), but there were other times where it seemed to rush by the information just so it could get to the next part (explaining the Warner brothers a bit better would have been nice — instead of two paragraphs dedicated to them). It also seemed a bit disjointed in places. It jumped around a bit to get to the point on thing, but backtracked to get into some years it had jumped over. Ultimately, it would return to the right place, but there was quite a bit jumping back/forth in the series.
With those complaints aside, I certainly will watch this series again. It could definitely offer some valuable insight to budding filmmakers and to film school teachers across the world. Without even going into explanation it already gave me a different point of view about the two very different lives the industry has lived.
On top of some great content, there are also some panel discussions that are great and a really nice DVD case and booklet included. The set as a whole is really quite eloquent and methodically put together.