Ready When You Are, D. Z.

I just read Twentieth Century's Fox: Darryl F. Zanuck And The Culture Of Hollywood, by George F. Custen. It wasn't the greatest book, but it does give us a decent tour of Zanuck's professional life, as he goes from writer to producer to mogul.

Zanuck was one of the last of old-style studio chieftains--in other words, he lived long enough to see himself outdated. His name isn't quite as storied as Thalberg, Goldwyn or Selznick, but he was as responsible as anyone for shaping classic Hollywood. (He's also a rare gentile among the studio heads.)

What struck me most was how he changed with the times, and moved them along. During his five decades in the business, he went from gag man to Warner Brothers to programmers to Rin Tin Tin to introducing sound to gritty urban dramas to Twentieth-Century Fox to rural nostalgia to "quality" pictures to war documentaries to message pictures to extravaganzas to independence to return as savior of Hollywood to exile.

He had his greatest power and won his greatest renown during his first decade or so running Fox, but it's his early sound work with Warner's that I like best. A lot of "classy" Hollywood has fallen by the wayside, but the down and dirty stuff is still fun.