The Low and High Art of MGM’s Two Chiefs, Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg

‘Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg: The Whole Equation’By Kenneth TuranYale University Press, 392 pagesAs Kenneth Turan’s subtitle suggests, Louis B. Mayer (1884-1957) and Irving Thalberg (1899-1936) were the entire equation when it came to turning motion pictures into profitable and prestigious entertainments aspiring to the status of art.Mayer worried about how Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer could make lots of money even in the Depression when other studios were going bust. A successful picture meant more of the same, like the Andy Hardy comedies that turned Mickey Rooney into a box office bonanza and the melodramas that lofted Lionel Barrymore and Lew Ayres into tremendous popularity as the crusty Dr. Gillespie and his youthful, earnest subordinate, Dr. Kildare.Mayer and Thalberg worked well together for more than a decade, even though Thalberg risked a lot of money perfecting MGM’s pictures because he had a canny sense of what audiences would enjoy. He pioneered film previews that allowed the studio to reshoot scenes that did not appeal to the public.If Thalberg knew how to put together the right directors, actors, and writers in a collective enterprise they all believed in, Mayer shrewdly handled the financial backers of New York City, who wanted lots of a salable product — and on time.Mayer and Thalberg had a fealty to MGM’s creation of movie stars. Mayer, for example, focused on Judy Garland, supervising every aspect of her look and voice, while Thalberg made sure the aloof Greta Garbo was cast in films that showed off her allure, though it had been Mayer who had enticed her to MGM. Mr. Turan doesn’t mention that when Joan Crawford needed a starring part, Thalberg insisted William Faulkner write her into the plot of the all-male “Today We Live.”Thalberg’s growing reputation as an institution in himself, irreplaceable, recalcitrant, and constantly demanding raises, irked Mayer, who disliked any Thalberg film that did not have a happy ending. Mayer worshiped his mother and family values, and never wanted to offend anyone with the kinds of gangster pictures Warner Brothers produced. For Thalberg, the style, not the subject matter of films, counted. Sophisticated and well read, Thalberg, bred in a middle class Jewish family, made quite a contrast with the crude Mayer, the son of a junk man.Complicating the Mayer-Thalberg collaboration was the younger man’s ill health. A bad heart and other ailments led a doctor to predict Thalberg would not live past the age of 30. He lived almost a decade longer, but throughout his MGM tenure his health remained precarious.When Thalberg had a major heart attack, Mayer shunted him aside in a complex and devious series of maneuvers that would probably have resulted in Thalberg’s leaving MGM if he had lived longer. After his death, MGM continued to flourish — and yet, as Mr. Turan shows, it gradually lost the luster that Thalberg had supplied. This dual biography is part of the Jewish Lives series, and it is this aspect of Mr. Turan’s work that is the least satisfying. He is a splendid critic and film historian but not that much of a biographer, relying mainly on several previous biographies for his information and insights into his subjects’ personalities.As to how Jewish these two movie moguls were, it is hard to say. Neither man was particularly observant of Jewish religious practices. They never let their identities as Jews get in the way of doing business, even with Nazis. Thalberg’s reaction to fascism is especially dismaying, though Mr. Turan is careful not to judge him. Thalberg saw the cruelty and brutality of the Nazis first hand during his spa stays in Germany, where he hoped to recover his health, even as MGM continued to circulate its movies there.What did Thalberg make of a crude antisemitic caricature of him in a Saturday Evening Post story? Mr. Turan states it “must have pained the polished Thalberg.” But it is not even clear that Thalberg read the story, or what his reaction might have been: Substitute for pained the adjectives angry, mortified — whatever you like — and it becomes plain that the biographical narrative breaks down and becomes factitious.As a study of two personalities, as an insightful history of Hollywood’s most successful studio, Mr. Turan’s book succeeds. As biography, it disappoints.Mr. Rollyson has written extensively about Hollywood in biographies of Marilyn Monroe, Lillian Hellman, Dana Andrews, Walter Brennan, William Faulkner, and Ronald Colman.

The Low and High Art of MGM’s Two Chiefs, Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg

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