The Merchant Prince of Poverty Row: Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures

Review\n"The broadest and most insightful look at Cohn and Columbia we are likely to have for some time."―Film Quarterly\n"Ever since Cohn died in 1958, writers have been trying to sort out Cohn-the-myth and Cohn-the-man but no one has yet done it in more fascinating detail than Bernard Dick."―The Hollywood Reporter\n"Writers have been trying to sort out Cohn, the myth of Cohn, the man, but no one has yet done it in more fascinating detail than Bernard Dick."―Now Playing\n"The fast-paced volume is packed with the sort of critical analysis that film snobs will eat up along with plenty of hard facts and figures for for the dedicated film geek to crunch including budgets, star salaries, etc."―Hollywood North Magazine\nBen Hecht called him "White Fang," and director Charles Vidor took him to court for verbal abuse. The image of Harry Cohn as vulgarian is such a part of Hollywood lore that it is hard to believe there were other Harry Cohns: the only studio president who was also head of production; the ex-song plugger who scrutinized scripts and grilled writers at story conferences; a man who could see actresses as either "broads" or goddesses. Drawing on personal interviews as well as previously unstudied source material (conference notes, memos, and especially the teletypes between Harry and his brother, Jack), Bernard Dick offers a radically different portrait of the man who ran Columbia Pictures—and who "had to be boss"—from 1932 to 1958.