The Warner brothers—Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack—arrived in America as unschooled Jewish immigrants, and founded a studio that became the smartest, toughest, and most radical in Hollywood. Film historian David Thomson gives us fascinating and original interpretations of Warner Bros. pictures, from their pioneering talkie The Jazz Singer through big budget musicals, gangster movies, and classics like Casablanca, East of Eden, and Bonnie and Clyde. Here too are the studio's stars—Al Jolson, James Cagney, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, Doris Day, even Bugs Bunny—and Thomson explores the profound cultural impact of Warner Bros. on Hollywood and America itself.

"Thomson's writing is a killer mix of elegance, erudition and punchiness, a violin case holding a machine gun."—Sunday Times (London)

"[The book] allows the reader to bask in the glory of the hard-nosed movie studio that, in the words of Andrew Sarris, 'walked mostly on the shady side of the street.' It aims to remind us what made Warners great—and, in its touching melancholia, why that greatness will never come back."—SFChronicle