http://www.boldtype.com/issues/feb2006/index.html#friedrich
City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s
by Otto Friedrich
from review:
It’s no wonder that Thomas Mann wrote Dr. Faustus while living in LA, or Brecht, Galileo. Hollywood pits souls against money. The lure of the silver screen in this gilded age enticed many a brilliant mind, and the resulting frisson was breathless and grand. Where else but in Hollywood could one find such surrealist scenes as William Faulkner, Howard Hawks, and Clark Gable on a hunting trip; Mickey Mouse canoodling with Leopold Stokowksi; or Ayn Rand chatting with Cecil B. DeMille in a parking lot? Sadly, other Hollywood stories — the 1943 violence against Mexicans, the HUAC pogroms, and the raging anti-semitism — extend beyond the city, reaching deep down into the larger story of America.
– Joshua David Stein