Hollywood Be Thy Name: The Warner Brothers Story.

HOLLYWOOD BE THY NAME - The Warner Brothers Story by Cass Warner Sperling and Cork Millner, with Jack Warner Jr. (Prima Publishing 365 p.) is 'must' reading for any cinema historian and a riveting tome to boot. You probably can't get much closer to the beginnings of the Warner Brothers Studio and the four Warner brothers - Harry, Sam, Albert and Jack - who were behind it all, first as a well and hard working family unit and later as a torn and contentious clan.

What comes out of it is the astonishing fact that the brothers were able to make it all work in the first place and that, despite their disparate characters, the studio grew and produced some of the greatest films ever made.

This, after all, was the studio that came up with The Jazz Singer which started sound in movies, and the great gangster cycle, and Casablanca and all the rest. Behind it were the brothers and, as the years passed and Sam and Albert died, more and more Harry and Jack, the battling siblings.

One of the best things about this book is its arrangement. The brothers are dealt with one by one, and the stories are either told historically or else related by relatives, like Jack Warner Jr., Jack's son, Barbara Warner, Ronald Reagan, producer Milton Sperling (Jack's son-in-law), Richard Gully and others. They all make revealing comments.

There are some great stories, like the time when Jack Warner turned down Clark Gable for a role in Little Caesar because the actor's ears were too big. "He'll never make it," Jack Warner is quoted as saying.

Oddly enough, it is this very episode which was told to this reviewer by Darryl F. Zanuck who, at that point was working for Warner Bros. and who, in a moment of candor admitted that he had made the "stupid mistake" of turning down Gable, who then became a big star at MGM. (Zanuck also refused a role to a beautiful youngster who happened to be his daughter's friend. Her name was Elizabeth Taylor and she became a star in National Velvet.)

The Warner brother who comes out the worst from this history is Jack, an often rude, crude, and utterly unpredictable man who was the prototypical Hollywood executive, power-mad, very rich, spoiled cruel, ill-mannered and opinionated, and given to making vulgar jokes in public.

There is that memorable incident when a furious Harry Warner chased Jack down the studio street with an iron bar, and eventually threw it at him. Harry felt Jack had betrayed him and the family (which indeed was what he had done, having convinced all the brothers to sell their shares and having made a behind-their-back arrangement to buy back his own stocks and to continue as studio head after they had bowed out). It was a Machiavellian move and the brothers - particularly Harry - never forgave him.