Hollywood; Legend and Reality

Hollywood Book Review
I read Hollywood, Legend and Reality. It was a really good overview of how the town of Hollywood started and grew. This book had well rounded information on Hollywood. It was interesting to see it all through pictures and with people and stories attached. I loved the photos of the old movie posters or magazines that promoted movies. I also loved the aerial photos of a MGM Studio in 1932 and the sets that could be seen. It talked about the production, and screenwriting details of the town and how the first films came to be. This book also talked a lot about directing and had a whole chapter dedicated to the early beginnings. That chapter also went into detail about the roles that support the director. The chapters in production design and costume design had really good examples of old movies and how much it cost and the amount of effort that was put into creating them to be the works of art that they are. The pictures in these two chapters were unique and stunning. This book talked about the unions and how war affected Hollywood. It told of the violence and had pictures associated with picketing at the Warner Bros studio in a prolonged labor dispute of 1945. The last four chapters; cinematography, editing, scoring and special effects were also really good. Giving examples of how the big moviemakers did it in the beginning and toward the late 70’s. It showed pictures from films like Frankenstein and King Kong.
To me this book was really information about the business of movie making but except for the first chapter it was not so much about the town of Hollywood but the movie making business. I did think it did a really good job on touching and informing of all the areas including in film making and using great images that are not often seen. I would recommend this book if you didn’t know very much about the business as a whole or wanted a lot of history or even just to look at the unique pictures. I give it a 5

Nicole Sterley