Hearst Over Hollywood [Hardcover]

Louis Pizzitola (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0231116462 | ISBN-13: 978-0231116466 | Edition: 1St Edition

<P>Hollywood -- crossroads of filmmaking, mythmaking, and politics -- was dominated by one man more than any other for most of its history. It was William Randolph Hearst who understood how to use cinema to exploit the public's desire for entertainment and to create film propaganda to further his own desire for power. From the start, Hearst saw his future and the future of Hollywood as one and the same. He pioneered and capitalized on the synergistic relationship between yellow journalism and advertising and motion pictures. He sent movie cameramen to the inauguration of William McKinley and the front lines of the Spanish-American War. He played a prominent role in organizing film propaganda for both sides fighting World War I. By the 1910s, Hearst was producing his own pictures -- he ran one of the first animation studios and made many popular and controversial movie serials, including <I>The Perils of Pauline</I> (creating both the scenario and the catchphrase title) and <I>Patria</I>. As a feature film producer, Hearst was responsible for some of the most talked-about movies of the 1920s and 1930s. Behind the scenes in Hollywood, Hearst had few equals -- he was a much-feared power broker from the Silent Era to the Blacklisting Era.</P><P> <I>Hearst Over Hollywood</I> draws on hundreds of previously unpublished letters and memos, FBI Freedom of Information files, and personal interviews to document the scope of Hearst's power in Hollywood. Louis Pizzitola tells the hidden story of Hearst's shaping influence on both film publicity and film censorship -- getting the word out and keeping it in check -- as well as the growth of the "talkies," and the studio system. He details Hearst's anti-Semitism and anti-Communism, used to retaliate for Citizen Kane and to maintain dominance in the film industry, and exposes his secret film deal with Germany on the eve of World War II. </P><P>The author also presents new insights into Hearst's relationships with Marion Davies, Will Hays, Louis B. Mayer, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mussolini, Hitler, and the Kennedys. <I>Hearst Over Hollywood</I> is a tour de force of biography, cultural study, and film history that reveals as never before the brilliance and darkness of Hearst's prophetic connection with Hollywood.</P>

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This admirable addition to Columbia's expansive Film and Culture series explores an underreported facet of William Randoph Hearst's media dominance: his command of early cinema. Although Citizen Kane etched W.R. in popular memory as a newspaperman, Hearst understood film's "enormous attention-getting potential for communication for the masses" and used it to create fiction and nonfiction forms in the medium that promoted positions ranging from pro-German WWI sentiment to anticommunism. His efforts spanned multiple studio affiliations and international film alliances, and all demonstrated Hearst's overriding aim of exercising worldwide influence. Befitting that reach, Pizzitola's book sports big names like Edison, L.B. Mayer, Hitler, Mussolini and Hearst paramour Marion Davies. And making the requisite nod to Citizen Kane, amateur filmmaker Pizzitola analyzes differences between Welles's Kane and Hearst, but also opens up the subject to discuss earlier film satires of Hearst and how Kane endures in part as "a reluctant homage to Hearst's significance" that employs Hearst's own yellow-journalistic techniques in its storytelling. Other neat film analyses pepper the text, with many, like that on the pro-FBI `G' Men, illustrating the intertwining of government-related aims (a positive view of law enforcement) with movie realities (the need for a new Cagney vehicle) and the print media (a Hearst newspaper anticrime campaign). While the book's massive detail, long citations, discourses on tangential players and lack of a simple, driving thesis will deter lightweights, it stands as a comprehensive examination of how movie truth is created and how Hearst helped set its boundaries. 46 photos.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

William Randolph Hearst set the pattern for today's flamboyant media tycoons. His rise paralleled the birth of movies, and, as a lifelong photography buff, he quickly saw film's potential for both entertainment and propaganda. In his first book, filmmaker Pizzitola explores Hearst's role as an early movie producer and covers his failed efforts to promote the talents of his longtime mistress, Marion Davies. (She was best suited to comic roles, but Hearst insisted she tackle romantic and dramatic ones, which poorly suited her and ultimately damaged her career.) Using newly opened FBI files, the author reveals Hearst's relationships with the rich and powerful, including FDR, Hitler, Joe Kennedy, and Charles Lindbergh. Hearst never hesitated to use movies to promote his pet causes, notably anticommunism and pre-World War II isolationism, nor was he bashful about using his press to wield power over studios, punish enemies, or support the projects of friends. Hearst's life was the stuff of drama, and the author provides extensive coverage of the many fictional Hearst portraits on film, particularly the epic battle over Orson Welles's classic Citizen Kane. By emphasizing his human relationships, this well-written, meticulously researched biography of a flawed figure reveals a more complex portrait of Hearst than previous biographies. Highly recommended for biography collections. Stephen Rees, Levittown Regional Lib., PA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 540 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press; 1St Edition edition (February 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231116462
• ISBN-13: 978-0231116466
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #856,650 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprising book, January 6, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Hearst Over Hollywood (Hardcover)

I just finished this terrific book which I just happened upon (has it been reviewed anywhere?). As a journalist myself (not yellow)I always thought of Hearst as a publisher. This book completely surprised me in the way it builds the case for Hearst as the world's first media mogul. There are great details about Hearst's controlling role in Hollywood and puts Citizen Kane in an entirely new light. Great reading.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Overstuffed with insight and information, July 30, 2004

By 

Daniel Friedman "dfja17" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hearst Over Hollywood (Hardcover)

Hearst Over Hollywood is a book that could appeal to a large cross-section of readers - historians, movie buffs, those with interests in journalism and media, etc. Louis Pizzatola has done an incredibly admirable job in compiling sources and data on William Randolph Hearst and presenting him in a new light - something very difficult to do after over 100 years of Hearst representations in the media and popular culture. That in itself makes it a worthwhile read.

While I hate to be the one to knock down this book's perfect customer rating to date, I feel that an honest review on my part would require that I also point out some of the book's flaws. Because it is so densely filled with information, many chapters bog down over sequences that perhaps could have been better conveyed if streamlined. I can appreciate the fact that it would be hard to determine exactly where to streamline, so I suppose that some readers who possess some knowledge on the subject going in will be able to pick out what interests them.

The book is about as objective as any work on Hearst could be and it is a pleasure to re-think Citizen Kane from the context of knowing more about its erstwhile main character. If you've never seen it or haven't in a while, I would recommend watching the film, reading the book, and then watching it again.

Pizzitola's thoroughness does serve him very well in exploring how Hearst built his media empire from the publishing industry through the nascent Hollywood studio system and balances nicely the clinical examinations with the gossipy show-business scandal aspects of the man's life.

Very well done.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insanely great!, August 23, 2002

By 

Ken McCarthy (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hearst Over Hollywood (Hardcover)

The author describes himself as a visual artist and amateur film maker. I've got news for him: he's a first rate scholar too. I cannot remember the last time I've read a book on history that was so well presented and so amply documented. If you want to understand how the US came to become a "wag the dog" TV-ocracy and how CNN could morph into a televised version of the National Enquirer, check out this masterpiece. The source of our present day media sewer can all be traced back to Hearst's turn-of-the-century and-beyond media 'experiments.' This book belongs on the bookshelf - in a featured location - of anyone who is interested in 20th century American history. It's an absolutely stunning work of scholarship, packed with well documented detail, and completely approachable.