Enjoyable cultural history that gives a compelling sense of how ’50s Hollywood reacted to change and how, in turn, it...
Anecdotal account of the world of 1950s cinema and the forces that helped destroy the studio system and reshape Hollywood.
Journalists Kashner and MacNair depict a Hollywood struggling against the audience-draining impact of TV while balancing the demand for wholesome films with the postwar drift toward realism and sexual candor. Thorough research and lighthearted analysis of numerous personalities and trends mix with discussions of landmark films that in retrospect appear to define the decade: Sweet Smell of Success, Rebel Without a Cause, Night of the Hunter, Peyton Place. The authors track the powerful influence on Hollywood of suburbanization, the Red Scare, juvenile delinquency, and societal concerns about the disintegration of the family—in addition to exploring Hollywood’s “religious period,” which resulted in The Robe, The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, and The Greatest Story Ever Told; the advent of the influential approach to acting known as “The Method”; and the impact of directors and actors who arrived as refugees from Hitler’s Europe (Douglas Sirk) or were political or artistic rebels (Clifford Odets, Man Ray). The description of Method acting and the careers of those devoted to the technique (James Dean, Shelly Winters, Montgomery Clift) is a reminder of an era when the determination to capture reality occasionally out-manuevered Tinseltown glitz. The authors are so successful at enumerating the rising tawdriness of celebrities during this period and journalists’ inclination toward the exposé that the reader is likely to gain new respect for those individuals who survived with their reputations intact. Pages are filled with breezy but artful profiles of those survivors, and others: Rock Hudson, Robert Mitchum, Gloria Swanson, Burt Lancaster, Oscar Levant, directors Alexander Mackendrick and Nicholas Ray, screenwriter Alvah Bessie, playwright William Inge, Peyton Place author Grace Metalious, and columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons.
Enjoyable cultural history that gives a compelling sense of how ’50s Hollywood reacted to change and how, in turn, it influenced a nation of moviegoers.Pub Date: May 28, 2002
ISBN: 0-393-04321-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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