Hollywood and Anti-Semitism: A Cultural History Up to World War II. (Book Reviews).(Book Review)

by Steven Carr, London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.342 pp., illus. Hardcover: $70 and Paperback: $24.95.

"What ground is there for thinking that the motion picture industry is in the despotic control of four or five Hebrews?" So asked William Sheafe Chase, a militant moral reformer in New York City in 1922. The question articulates, in the most explicit terms, a long-standing accusation that has had various incarnations since immigrants from Eastern Europe emerged as some of the most powerful figures in the motion-picture business. Indeed, the image o