"Before the Deluge" is, as I recall, a good book. Berlin in the 20s is a genuinely fascinating place and the author seems to have a feeling for the subject. This book on Hollywood, however seems terribly stale. I can't grasp the theme, save that of a kind of rehash of old Hollywood lore, told by a typically right-thinking type with a sentimental concern for the "little guy" and an unreflective scorn for the "bosses." We get a little of this and a little of that, from Brecht to Reagan. The author has little to commend himself: there is no trove of never-before-seen photos, no insider take on matters known to all, nothing really worth being retold for the hundredth time. When the author is on to something potentially hot, such as the German literary community about which the author seems to know a lot, he gives it no more attention that the boring story of Reagan's star turn as the guy who lost two legs. The topic itself is of course wildly interesting; after all, Hollywood is one of the few successful experiments in utopian community-building. Perhaps the author is simply out of his league. Hollywood is often written about about by people who don't take it seriously.

"City of Nets" is far and away the best popular history of a Hollywood era yet written, or likely to be. Friedrich's rich, evocative overview is at once sweeping and intimate, meticulous and eminently readable, elegiac and hilarious. He captures the studio era on the cusp of a greatness largely undone by war and the elevation of mediocrity, yet limns as well the rise of the great Billy Wilder and others who would continue to nettle and challenge moviegoers -- and the movie business -- for decades to come. (Fittingly, he ends his book with the advent of Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard," the greatest satire on Hollywood ever made.) The book is a must for serious students of the movies as well as the casual reader who doesn't yet know a great deal about the subject. This is captivating stuff. I've never read a book on Hollywood I've loved more or gone back to more often.

More than a "portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s, "City of Nets" is a whirlwind tour of the American movie industry during its most tumultuous -and artistically successful- decade. In his forward, author Otto Friedrich describes Hollywood's golden decade as beginning in prosperity and ending with the studio system falling to anti-trust laws, audiences flocking to television, and much of the film industry's artistic talent blacklisted as the Red Scare swept the nation. And yet, during the intervening years, Hollywood produced its smartest and most iconic films ever in the greatest numbers ever. "City of Nets" covers the years 1939-1950. Unfortunately, the book says very little about the city of Hollywood, the economics of the film industry, or the social customs of its population. This is a book about Hollywood personalities of the 1940s -actors, producers, directors, writers, and composers.

I was disappointed by "City of Nets". I had hoped for more information about the city, about different strata of people in the film industry, about the realities of Hollywood social life -in other words, something I didn't already know. What I got was a book about prominent Hollywood personalities that tries to cover so much ground that it is superficial. Most of the stories lack depth or analysis. Readers already knowledgeable on the subjects will spot some inaccuracies and misleading omissions. "City of Nets" is best taken as an overview of the most notable Hollywood celebrities of the 1940s, their films, marriages, divorces, and legal problems. Among them are: Producers David O. Selznick, Howard Hughes, Jack Warner, Darryl Zanuck, and Louis B. Mayer. Actors Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn, Charlie Chaplin, and Rita Hayworth. Directors Orson Welles, Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger, Preston Sturges, Howard Hawks, and Billy Wilder. Writers James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, William Faulkner, and Bertolt Brecht. Composers Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg.

I'm giving "City of Nets" four stars because Otto Friedrich becomes more analytical in the book's final chapters, as the decade nears its close and the House Un-American Activities Committee spawns the Hollywood black list, turning an already bizarre culture of make-believe into a "nebulous world where nothing could be proved or disproved because nothing has been officially charged." "City of Nets" is also a good introduction to the personalities of 1940s cinema and how the European émigrés, the War, and partisan politics shaped the films. There is nothing here for film noir fans, as the author does not address issues of film technology, renewed interest in Freudian psychology, or the social environment that might have made audiences hungry for cynical, introverted, uneasy films. Granted, 1940s Hollywood is a subject of more breadth and depth than can be managed in one volume, but "City of Nets" isn't a social, economic, or an urban history. It's a lot of industry anecdotes strung together.