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Documentary
Inspiration, power, greed, scandal – a story that was made for the movies. The gripping drama of how Hollywood was built.
At the dawn of the 20th Century, immigrant entrepreneur Carl Laemmle looks to cash in on America's growing fascination with moving pictures; but as he starts to build an industry, he comes up against a powerful cartel headed by Thomas Edison.
Edison's stranglehold on the moving picture industry forces Laemmle and his band of renegade filmmakers to flee to Cuba, but not before he signs a promising young actress named Mary Pickford.
To outdo his rivals, Laemmle builds a massive film factory in Hollywood called Universal City.
As Hollywood goes from a dusty farm town to a bustling metropolis, the balance of power has shifted in favor of the stars. Now titans like Paramount’s Zukor are forced to pay huge contracts to top actors to keep them happy.
By 1925, Zukor’s Paramount Pictures, Laemmle’s Universal Pictures, and Mayer’s MGM are some of the most profitable businesses in the country. But the luckless Warner Brothers have stumbled upon a breakthrough technology that could shift the balance of power once again - sound.
The Warners' film 'The Jazz Singer' proves to the world that 'talkies' are here to stay. And every other titan has to spend millions to convert their studios over to sound.
Adolph Zukor
Mary Pickford
Carl Laemmle
Narrator Adolph Zukor
William Fox
Eve Leo Fox
Jeremiah Kennedy
Imagining Indians is a 1992 documentary film produced and directed by Native American filmmaker, Victor Masayesva, Jr.. The documentary attempts to reveal the misrepresentation of Indigenous Native American culture and tradition in Classical Hollywood films by interviews with different Indigenous Native American actors and extras from various tribes throughout the United States. With an all-Indian crew, Victor Masayesva visited tribal communities in Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, South Dakota, Washington and the Amazon to produce this film. Masayesva says, "Coming from a village which became embroiled in the filming of Darkwind, a Hollywood production on the Hopi Reservation, I felt a keen responsibility as a community member, not an individual, to address these impositions on our tribal lives. Even as our communities say no, outsiders are responding to this as a challenge instead of respecting our feelings... I have come to believe that the sacred aspects of our existence which encourages the continuity and vitality of Native peoples are being manipulated by an aesthetic in which money is the most important qualification. This contradicts the values intrinsic to what's sacred and may destroy our substance. I am concerned about a tribal and community future which is reflected in my film and I hope this challenges the viewer to overcome glamorized Hollywood views of the Native American, which obscures the difficult demands of walking the spiritual road of our ancestors."
The epic story of the actors, writers, directors, and producers who fought for their place on the page, behind the camera and on the screen. From blackface to Black Panther, this series is a definitive chronicle of more than a century of the black experience in Hollywood and a powerful reexamination of a quintessentially American story – in brilliant color.
Some of the most thrilling weapons action sequences from movies and TV are put to the test. Join U.S. Special Forces veteran Terry Schappert and weapons master Larry Zanoff as they utilize the expertise of Hollywood's premier prop house and weapons builder — and break down some of the most explosive action in Hollywood history.
