The Warner Brothers, Chris Yogerst
The Warner Brothers, Chris Yogerst
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The Warner Brothers

Author: Chris Yogerst

Narrator: Daniel Henning

Unabridged: 13 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/12/2023


Synopsis

Warner Bros. Studio is best known as a media conglomerate with a broad range of intellectual property, spanning movies, TV shows, and streaming content. Despite popular interest in the origins of this empire, the core of the Warner Bros. saga cannot be found in its commercial successes. It is the story of four brothers—Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack—whose vision for Hollywood helped shape the world of entertainment.

In The Warner Brothers, Chris Yogerst follows the siblings from their family's humble origins in Poland, through their young adulthood in the American Midwest, to the height of fame and fortune in Hollywood. With unwavering resolve, the brothers soldiered on against the backdrop of an America reeling from the aftereffects of domestic and global conflict. The Great Depression would not sink the brothers, who churned out competitive films that engaged audiences and kept their operations afloat. During World War II, they used their platform to push beyond the limits of the Production Code and create important films about real-world issues, openly criticizing radicalism and the evils of the Nazi regime. At every major cultural turning point in their lifetime, the Warners held a front-row seat. Paying close attention to the brothers' identities as cultural and economic outsiders, Yogerst chronicles how the Warners built a global filmmaking powerhouse.

About Chris Yogerst

Chris Yogerst is the author of Hollywood Hates Hitler! Jew-Baiting, Anti-Nazism, and the Senate Investigation into Warmongering in Motion Pictures and From the Headlines to Hollywood: The Birth and Boom of Warner Bros. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Review of Books, Journal of American Culture, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, and the Hollywood Reporter. He currently serves as an associate professor of communication in the Department of Arts and Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Andy on September 01, 2023

The book’s prologue, “Put Up or Shut Up,” could have stood as the subtitle of Chris Yogerst’s new book The Warner Brothers. After early struggles, triumphs, and failures, these Polish American siblings became the first movie studio to create a feature defying the Nazi threat with Confessions of a Na......more

Goodreads review by Anthony on September 07, 2024

I’ve been a fan of the Warner Brothers films from the Golden Age of Hollywood. It’s great fun to realize that the films really do mirror my beliefs and values. The back stories and history of the Warners is a fascinating look at siblings that lived The American Dream.......more

Goodreads review by Sarai on March 18, 2024

I was a little disappointed in this book because I expected there to be more information about the brothers and their interactions, and other family members, friends, actors, etc., but it seemed to cover more of the movies they put out than having any in-depth information about the family, after the......more

Goodreads review by AnnieM on September 12, 2023

This book is a must read for movie lovers and Hollywood history. It is a story of immigration, innovation and entrepreneurship. It is a Shakespearean family drama of four brothers who enter the movie business and end up building one of the seminal studios in Hollywood. This book covers the business......more

Goodreads review by Richard on February 22, 2024

The history of the classical and golden ages of Hollywood, through mid-century, makes for wonderful reading. Film buffs are reaping the benefits of viewing extensive film restorations that are preserving as much as possible of the movies of the early 20th century, and reading about the continuing re......more