Hollywood Independent

Reviews / Votes

Often overshadowed by United Artists, the Mirisch Company never received the scholarly attention it so richly deserved for having produced some of the best known films that United Artists released in the postwar era. Paul Kerr's new book fills this gap spectacularly! Not only is Hollywood Independent a tour-de-force account of a company's major contribution to Hollywood cinema but also a book that revises and rewrites American film history. This a major achievement! * Yannis Tzioumakis, Reader in Film and Media Industries, University of Liverpool, UK * Paul Kerr's Hollywood Independent makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the complicated transition from the postwar classical studio era to the New Hollywood of the 1970s. Kerr combines insightful scrutiny of corporate records, contemporaneous trade press, and the scholarly literature with original analyses of dozens of individual films, both famous and forgotten. Hollywood Independent uses the history of the Mirisch brothers, Hollywood's most prominent independent producers, to challenge many of the prevailing assumptions regarding this important but neglected moment in cinema history. Meticulously researched and engagingly written, Kerr's book offers a rich and convincing account of the lasting changes in cinematic style, thematic content, and industry practices pioneered by the Mirisch company, changes crucial in understanding the past half century of American cinema. * William Boddy, Professor of Film and Media Studies, Baruch College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, NY, and author of Fifties Television: The Industry and Its Critics (1992) *