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Dick has composed an authoritative account of Paramount Pictures Corporation and accomplished the not inconsiderable feat of making it read less like business and more like history. -- Washington Times Astutely analyzes the role of outside corporate money in the film industry, and how the changes at Paramount heralded a new, inevitable trend in American film and arts.... Dick's in-depth analysis and research makes for great -- and shocking -- journalism. -- Publishers Weekly Everybody knows that Paramount was one of the major studios, but few know the twists and turns of the history of the studio over the years. -- Peter C. Rollins Uses Paramount Pictures to illustrate the evolution of the motion-picture industry from Thomas Edison to Michael Eisner.... Always erudite and entertaining. -- Kirkus Reviews The stories behind some of the greatest films ever made pale beside the story of the studio that made them. -- Hollywood Inside Syndicate Provides a helpful scaffolding of Paramount's fascinating history thus far and suggests that business historians would do well to engage the film industry further in their explorations of twentieth-century business and economic life. -- Enterprise and Society An important book not only about the history of a studio, but also about the apparently ineluctable direction big business has taken in American society. -- Donald Spoto Through the richness in cases, examples and anecdotes it gives a practical, nuts-and-bolts insight into the workings of the film business. -- Business History Dick lends the personalities and events so much emotional colour that his book is as compulsively readable as a biography. -- Sight and Sound Traces Paramount's lineage from its 1912 origins to its 1966 purchase by Gulf & Western and its present ownership by Viacom/CBS. -- Publishers Weekly This thoroughly researched story reveals the shift in the industry's primary focus from making fine film to making a successful, multifaceted business deal and prompts debate over which one is considered to be real art in modern Hollywood. -- Library Journal Provides historical insight into the death of Paramount Pictures as an autonomous studio and its fall to the conglomerate Gulf + Western in 1966. -- Journal of Economic History Clever, thought-provoking...Dick has the ability to explain the complex in-fighting among studio executives in the corridors of power in a movie studio -- and their even more complex negotiations with the conglomerates who own the studios -- in a way that is clear and incisive. -- Gene D. Phillips A breezy and informative six-reeler about the 'engulfing' of the once proud studio by a mega-conglomerate to which film art was merely another commodity. -- EH.NET Reviews Does a fine job of detailing the death of a studio and its reincarnation as a subsidiary of a conglom. Dick's forensics peel back history, revealing the passions, politics and power plays of filmmakers and dealmakers that culminated in the dissolution of a Hollywood empire. -- Daily Variety

"""A breezy and informative six-reeler about the 'engulfing' of the once proud studio by a mega-conglomerate to which film art was merely another commodity."" -- EH.NET Reviews ""An important book not only about the history of a studio, but also about the apparently ineluctable direction big business has taken in American society."" -- Donald Spoto ""Astutely analyzes the role of outside corporate money in the film industry, and how the changes at Paramount heralded a new, inevitable trend in American film and arts.... Dick's in-depth analysis and research makes for great -- and shocking -- journalism."" -- Publishers Weekly ""Clever, thought-provoking...Dick has the ability to explain the complex in-fighting among studio executives in the corridors of power in a movie studio -- and their even more complex negotiations with the conglomerates who own the studios -- in a way that is clear and incisive."" -- Gene D. Phillips ""Dick has composed an authoritative account of Paramount Pictures Corporation and accomplished the not inconsiderable feat of making it read less like business and more like history."" -- Washington Times ""Dick lends the personalities and events so much emotional colour that his book is as compulsively readable as a biography."" -- Sight and Sound ""Does a fine job of detailing the death of a studio and its reincarnation as a subsidiary of a conglom. Dick's forensics peel back history, revealing the passions, politics and power plays of filmmakers and dealmakers that culminated in the dissolution of a Hollywood empire."" -- Daily Variety ""Everybody knows that Paramount was one of the major studios, but few know the twists and turns of the history of the studio over the years."" -- Peter C. Rollins ""Provides a helpful scaffolding of Paramount's fascinating history thus far and suggests that business historians would do well to engage the film industry further in their explorations of twentieth-century business and economic life."" -- Enterprise and Society ""Provides historical insight into the death of Paramount Pictures as an autonomous studio and its fall to the conglomerate Gulf + Western in 1966."" -- Journal of Economic History ""The stories behind some of the greatest films ever made pale beside the story of the studio that made them."" -- Hollywood Inside Syndicate ""This thoroughly researched story reveals the shift in the industry's primary focus from making fine film to making a successful, multifaceted business deal and prompts debate over which one is considered to be real art in modern Hollywood."" -- Library Journal ""Through the richness in cases, examples and anecdotes it gives a practical, nuts-and-bolts insight into the workings of the film business."" -- Business History ""Traces Paramount's lineage from its 1912 origins to its 1966 purchase by Gulf & Western and its present ownership by Viacom/CBS."" -- Publishers Weekly ""Uses Paramount Pictures to illustrate the evolution of the motion-picture industry from Thomas Edison to Michael Eisner.... Always erudite and entertaining."" -- Kirkus Reviews"

Film historian Dick ( City of Dreams , 1997) uses Paramount Pictures to illustrate the evolution of the motion-picture industry from Thomas Edison to Michael Eisner. Paramount was started by Adolph Zukor, a Hungarian immigrant who loved dime novels and began his career in New York City as a two-dollar-a-week upholsterer. By the time he died (in 1976, at 103), he could look upon the film industry as one of his children. Dick knows his Hollywood history, and so we learn of the 1912 origin of the famous Paramount logo (mountain and stars), revisit the Fatty Arbuckle sex scandal, and follow the acting career of Ronald Reagan. The dominance of the studios really lasted only into the 1950s, says the author: Hollywood's golden Age had quickly turned to silver and was starting to rust. He examines the competition (and then the cooperation) with television and cable, and he ends with an analysis of the corporate-merger mania that emerged in the 1980s and continues to dominate. No longer do projects originate at a studio, notes the author; they come from production companies to which the studio plays host, financing their films in whole or in part. The principal strength of the volume is Dick's ability to humanize (and, in some cases, to demonize) the generally faceless studio and corporate executives whose names range from the unknown to the renowned. George Weltner joined Paramount in 1922 and stayed his entire career; Charles G. Bluhdorn arrived in 1966 from Gulf + Western (which had gobbled up Paramount). Barry Diller and Don Simpson and Frank Mancuso and David Kirkpatrick-all are important players at whom Dick points his camera. Far more familiar names played at Paramount, too, including Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg. The author sometimes stretches analogies to the snapping point (allusions to Shakespeare and Roman history sometimes intrude more than illuminate), but by and large he strikes just the right tone. At times breezy, at times complex, always erudite and entertaining. (24 pages b&w photos) (Kirkus Reviews)

-Dick has composed an authoritative account of Paramount Pictures Corporation and accomplished the not inconsiderable feat of making it read less like business and more like history.- -- Washington Times

Dick has composed an authoritative account of Paramount Pictures Corporation and accomplished the not inconsiderable feat of making it read less like business and more like history. -- Washington Times Astutely analyzes the role of outside corporate money in the film industry, and how the changes at Paramount heralded a new, inevitable trend in American film and arts.... Dick's in-depth analysis and research makes for great -- and shocking -- journalism. -- Publishers Weekly Everybody knows that Paramount was one of the major studios, but few know the twists and turns of the history of the studio over the years. -- Peter C. Rollins Uses Paramount Pictures to illustrate the evolution of the motion-picture industry from Thomas Edison to Michael Eisner.... Always erudite and entertaining. -- Kirkus Reviews The stories behind some of the greatest films ever made pale beside the story of the studio that made them. -- Hollywood Inside Syndicate A breezy and informative six-reeler about the 'engulfing' of the once proud studio by a mega-conglomerate to which film art was merely another commodity. -- EH.NET Reviews An important book not only about the history of a studio, but also about the apparently ineluctable direction big business has taken in American society. -- Donald Spoto Does a fine job of detailing the death of a studio and its reincarnation as a subsidiary of a conglom. Dick's forensics peel back history, revealing the passions, politics and power plays of filmmakers and dealmakers that culminated in the dissolution of a Hollywood empire. -- Daily Variety Dick lends the personalities and events so much emotional colour that his book is as compulsively readable as a biography. -- Sight and Sound Traces Paramount's lineage from its 1912 origins to its 1966 purchase by Gulf & Western and its present ownership by Viacom/CBS. -- Publishers Weekly This thoroughly researched story reveals the shift in the industry's primary focus from making fine film to making a successful, multifaceted business deal and prompts debate over which one is considered to be real art in modern Hollywood. -- Library Journal Provides historical insight into the death of Paramount Pictures as an autonomous studio and its fall to the conglomerate Gulf + Western in 1966. -- Journal of Economic History Clever, thought-provoking...Dick has the ability to explain the complex in-fighting among studio executives in the corridors of power in a movie studio -- and their even more complex negotiations with the conglomerates who own the studios -- in a way that is clear and incisive. -- Gene D. Phillips Provides a helpful scaffolding of Paramount's fascinating history thus far and suggests that business historians would do well to engage the film industry further in their explorations of twentieth-century business and economic life. -- Enterprise and Society Through the richness in cases, examples and anecdotes it gives a practical, nuts-and-bolts insight into the workings of the film business. -- Business History

<p> Dick has composed an authoritative account of Paramount Pictures Corporation and accomplished the not inconsiderable feat of making it read less like business and more like history. -- Washington Times

Everybody knows that Paramount was one of the major studios, but few know the twists and turns of the history of the studio over the years. -- Peter C. Rollins

Dick has composed an authoritative account of Paramount Pictures Corporation and accomplished the not inconsiderable feat of making it read less like business and more like history. -- Washington Times

Author Information

Bernard F. Dick, professor of communications and English at Fairleigh Dickinson University, is the author of numerous books on film history, including Engulfed: the Death of Paramount Pictures and the Birth of Corporate Hollywood and Hal Wallis: Producer to the Stars.

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