Book Reviewed: Mass Appeal: The Formative Age of the Movies, Radio, and TV by Edward D. Berkowitz

Legends from Broadway and Hollywood Hollywood motion pictures transformed American society with its revolution in the entertainment world. This is the result of the work numerous studios, its executives, and performers from 1910s to 2020. But the book focuses on only a few actors like Charlie Chaplin, Eddie Cantor, Groucho Marx, Fred Astaire, Humphrey Bogart, Bob Hope, and Katharine Hepburn. This book ignores key players of the Golden age of Hollywood like Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Mae West, Jean Harlow, and Greta Garbo whose contributions led to the success of the movie industry transitioning silent movies to the talkies, despite the fact it suffered financially during the Great Depression. The author is a Professor of History at George Washington University and has researched the material for this review with authentic and reliable sources. He offers readers to discover movies of the 1930s, radio programs of 1940s, and television of the 1950s. The negative side of his narratives is that it does not go into any great lengths. It is also a little confounding that the cover page of the book has the photo of young Katharine Hepburn with the title ”Mass Appeal.” This title is little to do with the larger portion of the book.