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Title: The Academy Awards: The Complete History of Oscar by Gail Kinn, Jim Piazza ISBN: 1-57912-240-X Publisher: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishing Inc Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.75 (28 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: A Frustratingly Poor Work
Comment: I had high hopes for this book as it is not officially sanctioned by the Academy and therefore free to tell more of the truth and politics behind what is really going on. It is no such thing. It is simply a poor man's version of Oscar's history that clearly did not receive the rights to quote directly from acceptance speeches and etc. Most of it's information seems to have come from second hand sources with winners giving only their reactions to what they had said or felt when they were lucky enough to be standing at the podium. Unfortunately, a misconceived attempt at something great.
Rating: 4
Summary: Good photos but...
Comment: I like the feel of the book, but I have to agree with the reviewer who said better research was needed. I have only started to read the first few chapters and those sidebars of trivia are full of mistakes. For example, it says that director Frank Lloyd was most famous as a physical comedian. Sorry, that was Harold Lloyd who was a comedy star. Another section mentions silent film stars who didn't make it into talkies, one of which was Gilbert Roland. Sigh, that should be John Gilbert. Gilbert Roland continued making movies his whole life. More than anything, the asides seem to be Hollywood rumors in many cases. In some ways, it feels like the publisher had two books in his hands, one that was the main part of this book, great pictures with historically correct facts, and the other was a scandalous gathering of hearsay. Unfortunately, they combined them into one volume. Still, I can recommend it for the main portions.
Rating: 3
Summary: Would Be Perfect if They Would Research More Accurately
Comment: Charlie Chaplin did not direct My Man Godfrey, Marie Dressler, not Mark Dressler, appeared in The Divine Lady, The Divine Lady was not a talking picture, only Wallace Beery's name is bolded on the 1931-32 actors section....
The list of errors goes on an on, and many of them only film buffs would realize. That means that many people could seem like fools after reading parts of this book: The good news is that most of the errors appear in photo captions and the little trivia lists on the sides of the pages. The actual prose for each chapter is for the most part not only accurate but also extremely witty and sharp. So are the titles, for example, Luise Rainer won her second Oscar in 1938, and that chapter is titled "Rainer Date" (I wonder if the others really knew her name is pronounced Rye-nur). When Norma Shearer won the award and her husband was a studio chief in 1930, the chapter was titled "The Shearer Coincidence." Wings won the first award, and that chapter is "Winging It," and when Mary Pickford won for her notoriously bad 1929 Coquette, many thought it was simply because she founded the Academy itself. A scandal errupted: "Mary Had a Little Scandal" is the title.
So, this book is definitely a worthwile buy. It has fantastic photos, fasciniating fashion recaps for each decade, and lists of the winner and ceremony dates/locations. The errors are quite unneccary, and without them the book would be perfect.
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Title: 75 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards (Seventy Years of the Oscar, 4th Ed) by Robert Osborne ISBN: 0789207877 Publisher: Abbeville Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $75.00 |
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Title: All About Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards by Emanuel Levy ISBN: 0826414524 Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Academy Award Winners' Movie Posters (The Illustrated History of Movies Through Posters Series; Vol. 3)) by Bruce Hershenson ISBN: 1887893008 Publisher: Bruce Hershenson Pub. Date: 01 August, 1995 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: The Complete Book of Oscar Fashion: Variety's 75 Years of Glamour on the Red Carpet by Reeve Chace ISBN: 1594290016 Publisher: Reed Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy ISBN: 0060569662 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 18 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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