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More than any other studio, Warner Bros. used edgy, stylistic, and brutally honest films to construct a view of America that was different from the usual buoyant Hollywood fare. The studio took seriously Harry Warner's mandate that their films had a duty to educate and demonstrate key values of free speech, religious tolerance, and freedom of the press. This attitude was most aptly demonstrated in films produced by the studio between 1927 and 1941 - a period that saw not only the arrival of sound in film but also the Great Depression, the rise of crime, and increased concern about fascism in the lead-up to World War II.In From the Headlines to Hollywood: The Birth and Boom of Warner Bros., Chris Yogerst explores how "the only studio with any guts" established the groundwork and perfected formulas for social romance dramas, along with gangster, war, espionage, and adventure films.



About the Author

Chris Yogerst

Chris Yogerst, Ph.D., is assistant professor of communication for the University of Wisconsin Colleges where he teaches courses in film, communication, and popular culture. In addition, he teaches American film history for Concordia University Wisconsin.

Chris regularly presents at national conferences and is currently the "Hollywood Studio System" area chair for the Film & History national conference. His work can be found in The Journal of Religion & Film, Senses of Cinema, the Journal of Film and Video, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and The Atlantic Monthly.

Additional publications include a chapter titled "Rules of Surviving a horror/Comedy: Satiric Genre Transformation from Scream to Zombieland" in "The Laughing Dead: The Horror-Comedy from Bride of Frankenstein to Zombieland" (2016) as well as entries on Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Hollywood and World War II, the Hollywood Sign, and Warner Bros. in the upcoming "Hooray for Hollywood: a Cultural Encyclopedia of America's Dream Factory" (2016) .

Follow Chris on Twitter: @chrisyogerst



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