(SOUNDBITE OF MGM LION ROAR) SIMON: ...The great Hollywood film factory... KENNETH TURAN: (Laughter). SIMON: ...Of the 1920s through the '30s, churning out musicals that lifted the Depression and ...

At the peak of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the Golden Age of Hollywood, audiences knew the name of the studio on the silver screen signaled something wonderful was about to begin. “If they would go to a ...

Kenneth Turan’s splendid book about Hollywood titans Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg is the first in 50 years to tell their story in a single volume. Part of Yale University Press ...

Academy Awards, the film won five Oscars, including best picture. Then came 9/11, a tanking economy and Kevin Spacey.

“If they would go to a sneak preview, and the film would would start and it would have the MGM logo, people would applaud,” says Kenneth Turan, the longtime film critic for National Public ...