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Title: Pre-Code Hollywood by Thomas Doherty ISBN: 0-231-11095-2 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 August, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.71 (7 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: OK, but there's better out there
Comment: I love this era, and I love reading about this era, but even so, I gave up reading this book about halfway through. There are better books about pre-Code, at least two or three. Geoffrey Blake has a great book about how the Code came to be, and Mick LaSalle and Mark Vierra also have excellent books about the artistry and the gossip and the history. This one is OK, but I'd recommend it only to people like me who just can't get enough. And even then, I found out, I can.
Rating: 3
Summary: Better Ones Out There
Comment: This is a very respectable but uninspired treatment of the pre-Code era. Its virtues come mainly in the beginning, with an interesting introduction. Its weakness stems from the fact that the author seems more fascinated by the politics of the era than with the movies -- and that he fails to connect the politics with the movies in a way that ultimately illuminates THE FILMS, on an artistic level. I don't think he has a feel for the ART of the era at all, and as a result the best chapters are about Franklin Roosevelt and the newsreels of the day. A decent treatment, but better books are out there.
Rating: 3
Summary: Exciting subject matter, dull reading
Comment: This is a good book, but it doesn't capture the excitement of its subject matter. All kinds of wild & crazy things were happening in pre-code (1930-1934) Hollywood movies (extramarital affairs, prostitution, robbery, violence, etc.), & they happened for the most part without moral judgment on the parts of the movie makers. But this book presents this exciting period in a rather dry, humorless way. It contains lots of useful information about the era & its surrounding politics, but also leaves out a lot of things that should be mentioned. On the plus side, it contains a complete version of the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (which is referred to in so many books, but hard to find a copy of). The photos are great, but small in size & printed on the same porous paper used for the text (which results in less sharpness than if printed on glossy paper). The biggest negative, in my opinion, is that a number of important pre-code movies are not even mentioned in this book (for example, Norma Shearer's "The Divorcee"). And why the author spends 4+ pages analyzing "Congorilla" (a 1932 African documentary that was made during the pre-code era but has little to do with Production Code censorship) is beyond me; it's a good analysis but perhaps belongs in a different book!
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Title: Complicated Women : Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood by Mick LaSalle ISBN: 0312284314 Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin Pub. Date: 19 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood by Mark A. Vieira ISBN: 0810944758 Publisher: Harry N. Abrams Pub. Date: 01 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man by Mick Lasalle ISBN: 0312283113 Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Hollywood Censored : Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies by Gregory D. Black ISBN: 0521565928 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 26 January, 1996 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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Title: American Silent Film by William K. Everson ISBN: 0306808765 Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: September, 1998 List Price(USD): $18.50 |
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