Hollywood in the 1920s sparkled with talent, confidence, and opportunity. Enter Irving Thalberg of Brooklyn, who survived childhood illness to run Universal Pictures at twenty; co-found Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at twenty-four; and, make stars of Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clar[...]

Colossal. Stupendous. Epic. These adjectives, used by movie companies to hawk their wares, became cliches long ago. When used to describe the films of one director, they are accurate. More than any filmmaker in the history of the medium, Cecil B. DeMille mastered the art of the spectacle. In the pro[...]