City of Nets (86 Edition)

Heroes, Villains, and Overlooked Writers

Otto Friedrich's City of Nets is littered with bodies: somebodies, nobodies, congressional bodies, bodies of work, and even corpses. Hollywood from 1939 to 1950 -- the period covered in this 20-year-old book -- had scandals that make US Weekly and Star seem school-marmish by comparison. A few examples: Errol Flynn Flings with Fifteen-Year-Old Aboard Yacht, Calls Boss Jack Warner 'Jew Bastard'; Great Dictator Charlie Chaplin Held at Gun-Point by Stalker Starlet, Sued for Paternity; Wm. Faulkner and MGM Exec Found Drunk in Okie Camp after Ten-Day Whisky Binge.

If all this sounds Brechtian in its lurid hedonism, that’s because it is. Friedrich drew the inspiration for his account from Brecht's description of Mahagonny -- his fictional, California Sodom -- as a "city of nets." With a moral and physical landscape that caters to the whims of moguls and starlets, Hollywood ensnares all those who enter. But ominous overtones aside, Friedrich, an old newspaper man, gives a lively anecdotal tour through the trials -- both literal and figurative -- and triumphs -- commercial and personal -- of Hollywood's golden era players. The book is a pasticcio of personal accounts, diaries, and news clippings. Friedrich's genius lies not in revelation but in organization, as he creates a taxonomy of the twelve years and their many narratives. Nineteen thirty-nine is entitled "Welcome," while 1940 is "Ingatherings;" but the third chapter (1941) is "Treachery" and the next nine years get only darker, culminating in "Prejudice," "Expulsions," and "Farewells."

It's no wonder that Thomas Mann wrote Dr. Faustus while living in LA, or Brecht, Galileo. Hollywood pits souls against money. The lure of the silver screen in this gilded age enticed many a brilliant mind, and the resulting frisson was breathless and grand. Where else but in Hollywood could one find such surrealist scenes as William Faulkner, Howard Hawks, and Clark Gable on a hunting trip; Mickey Mouse canoodling with Leopold Stokowksi; or Ayn Rand chatting with Cecil B. DeMille in a parking lot? Sadly, other Hollywood stories -- the 1943 violence against Mexicans, the HUAC pogroms, and the raging anti-semitism -- extend beyond the city, reaching deep down into the larger story of America.

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