The Dream Factory

Hollywood in the 30s manufactured dreams on a conveyor belt, each studio turning out up to 50 films a year to a Depression-torn America. They manufactured the stars too: MGM could boast 'more stars than there are in heaven'. But the stars, all-powerful on screen, were in reality in thrall to the studios and the studio bosses: not for nothing was Beverly Hills known as 'the most beautiful slave quarters in the world....' Olivia de Havilland, Joan Fontaine, John Huston, Don Ameche, Virginia Mayo, Sylvia Sydney, Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Garson Kanin are among those who discuss the 'golden age' of Hollywood that culminated in Gone with the Wind (1939).