I've enjoyed this series up till now, but tonight's was a huge disappointment. I've found the 'Moguls' side of things really interesting, but the 'Movie Stars' side is really a disaster. It was as if they put together a Moguls documentary, and then threw in some Movie Stars tidbits as an afterthought to keep the audience's attention.
The exception appeared to be Warner Bros., where the story of the rise of stars like Bette Davis and James Cagney were worked into the narrative, but even then, it was pretty skimpy! The omission of Jean Arthur from the Columbia story, and Joan Crawford from the MGM story was a real shame. Tossing Clark Gable and Jean Harlow into the MGM portion didn't really help, it just made you wonder why others weren't included. Same with the directors. Why go into the story of Frank Capra without talking about others like John Ford or Howard Hawks?
I think the biggest problem with this segment of the series is that they've decided to concentrate on the more modern image of the 30s. We all know that there were huge stars then who are largely forgotten now, but they fact that they don't bother to educate about that is sad. Why else spotlight Clark Gable and leave out Spencer Tracy? Why trot out the same old stories of Bette Davis bucking the studio system, or Katharine Hepburn creating independent woman identity? This is old hat. Who is this series for anyway?
