DVD Review: You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story (Amazon.com Exclusive): Richard Schickel: Movies & TV

Aug04

DVD Review: You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story (Amazon.com Exclusive): Richard Schickel: Movies & TV

Posted by admin | on 4 August, 05:45 AM

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Stills from You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story (click for larger image)

DVD Review: You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story (Amazon.com Exclusive): Richard Schickel: Movies & TV 20098417134245377801

DVD Review: You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story (Amazon.com Exclusive): Richard Schickel: Movies & TV 20098417134250077802

DVD Review: You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story (Amazon.com Exclusive): Richard Schickel: Movies & TV 20098417134254677803

DVD Review: You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story (Amazon.com Exclusive): Richard Schickel: Movies & TV 20098417134259377804

DVD Review: You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story (Amazon.com Exclusive): Richard Schickel: Movies & TV 20098417134262577805

DVD Review: You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story (Amazon.com Exclusive): Richard Schickel: Movies & TV 20098417134267177806

DVD Review: You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story (Amazon.com Exclusive): Richard Schickel: Movies & TV 20098417134271877807

DVD Review: You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story (Amazon.com Exclusive): Richard Schickel: Movies & TV 20098417134276577808

DVD Review: You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story (Amazon.com Exclusive): Richard Schickel: Movies & TV 20098417134281277809

Product Description
The power and the stories. The trends and trendsetters. The mirror that reflects our life and times. It’s Rick sticking his neck out for nobody. Superman rescuing Lois Lane. Bette Davis pumping lead into the man she loves. George Clooney masterminding a Vegas heist. Harry Potter wielding his powers. You must remember these…. Clint Eastwood narrates Richard Schickel’s perceptive 5-episode, 85th-anniversary salute to the studio that gained a four-footed hold with an unlikely star (Rin Tin Tin), championed tough guys and dames who gave the Depression and the Nazis the raspberry, countered the box-office onslaught of TV and emerged as a 21st-century giant. Art, business, stars, moneymen, America – it’s an enthralling tale. And it’s all here.

A fascinating and comprehensive documentary,

By calvinnme “Texan refugee” (Fredericksburg, Va) -
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)

I saw this documentary on PBS last year, and it is highly recommended for anyone who is interested in film history and the history of the most successful entertainment empire today - Warner Brothers. It’s much better than “Here’s Looking At You”, the documentary made in the 90’s on the studio. For one, there is one consistent narrator - Clint Eastwood, rather than a series of personalities as there was in “Here’s Looking at You”. In “Here’s Looking at You” it seems like these series of narrators are there to show themselves off rather than talk about studio history. Eastwood keeps the focus on the studio, its product, and its strategy.

Of course, as the studio moves into the era of special effects the documentary can’t help but show off a little bit with some of their superhero and fantasy films, but I’ll grant them that. Because so many of the directors that were around when Warners transformed from an upstart playing with sound to a major studio have passed on, they have interviews from the 60’s and 70’s with directors such as Mervin Le Roy talking about what it was like in the early days. Of course, there is a big focus on Jack Warner who turned out to be much a much shrewder studio head than his nemesis Louis B. Mayer over at MGM. It shows how Warner made the decisions that got the studio through the depression, the war, and the competition of television.

I might have missed it, but I don’t think the documentary talked too much about a very bad move that Jack Warner made that only the good fortune of the future managed to rectify. At one point Jack Warner sold the pre-1949 Warner film library to raise capital. Warner Bros. would today remain a studio with the finest part of its legacy no longer under its control had it not been for Ted Turner purchasing the RKO/pre-1949 WB/pre-1986 MGM film library in the 80’s and then reuniting it under Warner Bros. control at the turn of the century when Ted Turner sold his interests in his cable network and film library back to Time-Warner. This is mentioned in “When the Lion Roared”, the sister documentary on MGM.

In conclusion, this is a very good documentary on the history of Warner Bros. and its lasting film legacy. Highly recommended.
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