MEMOIRS OF WILL H. HAYS

by ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 8, 1955

The Will Hays Story goes from Hoosier school days through legal practice, political mongering on every level of Republican leadership, Postmaster Generalship under Harding, and caps this triumphant rise with a quarter century of suzerainty in American filmdom. The narrative reflects an intense love of mechanical invention and capitalist enterprise; belief in religious values, political equality and the social order; and a temperament at once that of the moral firebrand, shrewd businessman, and unashamed sentimentalist. All the activity, from the pursuit of mail robbers to the birth of sound in movies, has a dry, tiresome quality until one begins to speculate on the impulses and capacities which made Will Hays so uniquely a phenomenon of American life. An historical value is also attached to Mr. Hays' inside word on the major forces and personalities which created the movie industry, on his accounts of labor-management problems, on the constant efforts to maintain the educational value of films, and the gradual establishment of the screen industry as an art medium and a pillar of American morality. Those who share Mr. Hays' feelings will welcome this swan song (swan opera would be more correct); those who don't will never get out of Indiana.

Pub Date: Sept. 8, 1955

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955

Categories: NONFICTION