The Studio

An nteresting story full of detail and name-dropping, very similar to the style of brother Dominick, which I also like.

This book is a pointed description of the workings of 20th Century Fox in 1966, a year fascinating mostly for how lousy and forgettable the studio’s movies were. Most of the films discussed in this book were released in 1967 or 1968, if at all. The only real successes among them were Planet of the Apes and Valley of the Dolls. The year’s two tentpole productions, Dr. Dolittle and Star!, failed in the market.So there isn’t much here for fans of cinema, but those with an interest in studio politics and personalities will find much to like. Dunne found the producers, writers, and studio executives that he dealt with to be pompous and ignorant, and he quotes them in this book often to emphasize their failings. Only a few people, choreographer Michael Kidd among them, come out unscathed.

I loved the Doctor Dolittle books when I was a child, but I had no desire to see the Hollywood musical based on it when it came out in 1967. Although I'd loved movie musicals like Annie Get Your Gun and Singin' in the Rain even before I'd started reading Doctor Dolittle, books, I knew any I saw in 1967 would be, somehow, lifeless.Why did the Hollywood musical more or less die out as an art form after 1960? That question is one of the things The Studio touches on, although it doesn't focus on it. It's more about the business end of Hollywood, and its concentration on the Doctor Dolittle musical seems fortuitous-- it's just what happened to be on the table when Dunne got the ok to write the book. But I wish it could have been more about the artistic reasons for the Doctor Dolittle musical's failure, because that's more important than its business failure.It would be an oversimplified cliche to say that the Hollywood musical failed as art because it became more of a business, but there may be some truth in it. Dunne's book certainly doesn't unearth much artistic motivation, although he doesn't seem to be looking for it. It's a good, deadpan satire of Hollywood businessmen, but it could have been more. Not that the businessmen were all that bad. Dunne seems to have rather liked most of them, and, compared to today's industry, there was a kind of innocent generosity in their willingness to spend 18 million dollars on a movie about a man who loved animals so much he learned to talk with them. When an animal appears in a movie today, chances are that the plot calls for people to kill it in some nasty way, or vice versa.

One of the best ever depictions of a movie studio in action. The author was given full access to what went on at Twentieth Century Fox, and uses his literary skills to fine advantage to give a full view of the successes and (especially) the failures of those in charge. Written with great insight and humor.

If you like dry humor. Black comedy. If you know a little bit about the inter workings of Hollywood, this book is so damn funny. I have been letting all my friends borrow it.

I doubt the marketing and production of studio pictures has changed much since this book was first released in 1969. But the volume of studio pictures has dropped off substantially, in favor of independent films, privately financed. This is a good read, objective and fact-based, but a bit disappointing in the end when it just stops abruptly.

One of those books I didn't want to end, so engaging is the writing. I recommend it highly for anyone who loves Hollywood logistics and great, acerbic commentary.

Unlike the other reviewers here, I thought the book (considering when it was written) is a bit of tame, high-level overview of the studio workings. I didn't find it boring, nor did I find it to be a great page-turner. I would have preferred a more in-depth review of the studio workings. However, it was interesting to read the names from the past and the TV shows that were described...Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea...and the movies...Dr. Doolittle, Planet of the Apes...and more. I did find the parts on how Richard Zanuck decided which movies would get made and which ones didn't to be interesting - pretty much a gut feeling and a whim. I think this book is only for diehard studio fans and not the casual reader of Hollywood history.

For those who tend to think of Hollywood in terms of glitz and glamour, this revealing book tells a different story. It shows the day-by-day struggles of Executive Producer Richard Zanuck to steer his studio, 20th Century Fox through the difficult era of the 1960's when public tastes were changing and studio were doing their best to cater to the new attitudes of society. In brief, we follow the production and promotion of "Dr. Doolittle", one of the last of the big Hollywood musicals in an era when musicals were on their way out. We get to see the large number of scripts which are presented to Zanuck, which ones are rejected and which ones later became movies. For those who are interested in the inner working of the old studio system, this book is a worthwhile read.