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Title: Hollywoodland by David Wallace ISBN: 0-312-29125-6 Publisher: L.A. Weekly Books Pub. Date: 25 October, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3 (9 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Great Title; Poor content
Comment: It's disappointing that not one, but two books by this author, filled with inaccuracies, could find their way to publication. A glance through the chapter about Blondes relates the tired Jean Harlow/Christian Science/Evil Mother Jean story that first appeared in Irving Shulman's 1964 best selling, but totally made-up HARLOW, AN INTIMATE BIOGRAPHY. Mr. Wallace apparently missed both the excellent David Stenn and Eve Golden bios of Jean Harlow that were written in the early 1990's, which refute that legend based on hospital records and other 'minor' facts, etc.
If you are in the mood for salacious gossip unrooted in reality, read Kenneth Anger's books; they are 'classics' of this genre that will leave you howling and hungry for more, unlike copycats like HOLLYWOODLAND, which reminds one of stale bread.
Rating: 3
Summary: Babylonland
Comment: As in his previous volume "Lost Hollywood," Wallace here does little more than recycle the gossip & rumors found in Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon." Much of it is fun reading - for example, it's always amusing to re-visit Mae West's witty one-liners - but the book is rife with factual inaccuracies and typos. Many of them - but certainly not all - have already been cited in other reviews. One correction I might add is that Herbert Stothart, not Max Steiner, was the film composer for "Wizard of Oz." After that sort of gaffe, it becomes difficult to trust Wallace's information (new to me) that "Oz" author L. Frank Baum designed the crown-like chandeliers that still hang in the dining room at the Hotel del Coronado. Wallace's assertion that "Citizen Kane" was "certainly the best" film music Bernard Herrmann ever composed would likely be disputed by most film music critics (the consensus would appear to favor "Vertigo"). The absence of even a single footnote and the lack of a bibliography are simply additional indications of a carelessly researched and poorly edited volume. Rather disappointing.
Rating: 2
Summary: Inaccuracyland
Comment: Despite Mr. Wallace's avowed claim to find the "truth behind the anecdotes," this book--just like his first on the subject (Lost Hollywood)--is nothing more than a series of mostly unsubtantiated Hollywood myths coupled with outright inaccuracies (e.g., Mr. Wallace indicates Jean Harlow as being the recipient of James Cagney's grapefruit-in-the-face in the famous "Public Enemy" scene--when, in fact, it was Mae Clarke), held together by numerous misspellings and typos. Only for the desperate! The dust jacket is nice, though.
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Title: Lost Hollywood by David Wallace ISBN: 0312261950 Publisher: L A Weekly Books Pub. Date: 01 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: California Babylon: A Guide to Sites of Scandal, Mayhem, and Celluloid in the Golden State by Kristan Lawson, Anneli Rufus, Anneli S. Rufus ISBN: 0312263856 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: October, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: L.A. Exposed : Strange Myths and Curious Legends in the City of Angels by Paul Young ISBN: 0312206461 Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin Pub. Date: 03 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Hollywood Remains to Be Seen: A Guide to the Movie Stars' Final Homes by Mark J. Masek ISBN: 1581822456 Publisher: Cumberland House Publishing Pub. Date: 05 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: The Hollywood Book of Death : The Bizarre, Often Sordid, Passings of More than 125 American Movie and TV Idols by James Robert Parish ISBN: 0809222272 Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books Pub. Date: 29 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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