The Dream Merchants

By: Harold Robbins

Narrated by: Paul Costanzo

From the author of The New York Times number one best-seller The Carpetbaggers comes a novel of passion, intrigue, power, and money.

With 11 weeks on The New York Times best sellers list, The Dream Merchants provides a fascinating look at the early days of the world's most glamorous industry - Hollywood. It was the latest "gold rush" - when ambitious, if unscrupulous, men and women flooded California to turn cinematic dreams into reality, regardless of the moral cost. Johnny Edge, a former carnival barker, schemes and plots his way to the top while Peter Kessler turns his back on a staid life of small-town stability to stake his fortune on the movie business. Beautiful starlet Dulcie Warren is willing to use her sexuality and to play dirty to get to the top, if that's what it takes.

When the lives of these three ambitious, determined characters collide, they have the potential to build a dream - or shatter one.

©2014 RosettaBooks LLC (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Critic reviews

"He is still recognizable as the playboy-novelist who - spurning nice reviews and a different kind of reputation - happily wrote about money for money, and about sex for sex." ( The New Yorker)

Poorly written novel

Even though the theme was grand, and the author, Harold Robbins, had first hand experience of the early movie industry, the book The Dream Merchants, was poorly written compared to Harold Robbin’s later novels such as The Carpetbaggers and The Adventurers. Even though it was a bestseller in its day, it would be a gross exageration to class this book as being worthy of being placed in the ranks of the great blockbusters of popular fiction in the English language in the last 100 years.

A great good old fashioned blockbuster!

I really enjoyed this book by one of the most popular, most prolific, and most well loved authors of the 1960’s. A real good old fashioned blockbuster! A fictionalized account of the very early beginnings of the motion picture industry. They just don’t write ‘em like this anymore! The narrator was great(!). A perfect choice for this story.

The worst narrator

The book is OK, not as good as Robbin’s first book, but OK.
The narrator is reading the book as if reading a news cast or declaration of war to a foreign country

Fragmented

Narrator is great distinguishing characters. Disjointed narrative makes it a challenge to get events into chronological sequence.

old school

Would you try another book from Harold Robbins and/or Paul Costanzo?

yes

Would you recommend The Dream Merchants to your friends? Why or why not?

no, unless they want to read old fashioned valley of the dolls type book

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

nothing

Could you see The Dream Merchants being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

who knows

Any additional comments?

too long