City Boys: Cagney, Bogart, Garfield - Softcover

"Robert Sklar's portrait of these three Warner actors cum stars is more than just simple biography. It is a well-considered vehicle for looking at the studio system from its zenith in the '20s, '30s, and '40s to its nadir during the HUAC hearings of the late '40s and '50s."--Toni L. Kamins, Variety

"Sklar weaves a wondrous fabric through the lives and art of Cagney, Bogart and Garfield that energizes their performances, their failures and successes, and the failures and successes of Warner Brothers itself."--Jerome Charyn, The New York Times Book Review

Often presented as a gangster, newspaper reporter, or private eye, the "city boy" seemed the quintessential product of urban America, although he was more a model for his audience than a mirror of social actuality. While blending the stories of the professional and political lives of Cagney, Bogart, and Garfield into one fascinating narrative, Robert Sklar probes the cultural forces that produced this vivid cultural icon and examines its power over masculine self-definition.