The Silver Screen Oasis

Is anyone still interested in pursuing this book club idea?

Sandy K

I'm still interested Sandy. Should we start proposing the first books to be considered? How many would you like to consider-3, 5 or ?

Here's a few that I'd enjoy reading again and discussing. I chose them because I thought they'd be highly readable and accessible to most of us. If you click on the book titles below it will link you to more detailed info about these books--most of which are are found in libraries and in used form via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other spots, too:

The Parade's Gone By by Kevin Brownlow

City of Nets: Hollywood in the 1940s by Otto Friedrich

Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir by Eddie Muller

An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood by Neal Gabler

Memo from Darryl F. Zanuck: The Golden Years at Twentieth Century Fox by Rudy Behlmer

I'd like to do this, too.

I meant to reply last week, but was way too busy, and lost track of it.

Julie

I'd love to participate, too. Especially if it's something I've already read, but I am also willing to add new ones. Right now, I'm taking graduate classes, so I have a great deal of assigned stuff, but I'll certainly need a break from that .

Wonderful idea.

Can I cast a vote for "City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940's?"

Julie

Sounds as though we still have some interest, Julie, Christy and Sandy. Maybe we could get other suggestions for books that someone might enjoy discussing?

I'm still interested as well. I will look for those books. I've read Dark City. Pick one of 'em and if I can't find it I'll probably find one of the others.

What is City of Nets about? (I think I'm interested already!)

Sue Sue Applegate wrote:What is City of Nets about? (I think I'm interested already!)

CITY OF NUTS must be about GW Bush supporter's ! OH ! CITY OF NETS - Never Mind.


Come to think of it you do need a net in order to catch " nuts " !

What is City of Nets about?

Otto Friedrich's highly readable prose captures a snapshot of the whole melange of Hollywood in the forties, at the height of its power as a glamour factory, wartime propaganda machine, and mythmaking muse. He also writes very well about the numerous emigres on the run from Nazism who landed in LA during this period. Their attempts, as well as those of the thousands of native born Americans to practice their arts and crafts while furiously chasing a buck and trying to work all the angles makes for lively, enlightening, funny and sometimes touching reading.

From the Library Journal:
"If you already know a lot about Rita Hayworth, you may not know a good deal about Arnold Schoenberg, or vice versa . . . you may not know a good deal about Bugsy Siegel, or the aircraft industry, or Herbert K. Sorrell.''

From Publishers Weekly:
"In 1939, when 50 million Americans went to the movies every week, Louis B. Mayer was the highest paid man in the country and Hollywood produced 530 feature films, among them Gone With the Wind, Ninotchka, Wuthering Heights and The Wizard of Oz. A decade and 5000 movies later, the studios were tottering, Ingrid Bergman and Charlie Chaplin were exiled, the Hollywood Ten went to prison and millions were watching Milton Berle at home. What happened in those 10 years is as rich and colorful a story as can be imagined and Friedrich has more than done it justicethis is his liveliest book since the popular Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920's, and certainly one of the best books ever written about Hollywood. Taking his title from Brecht's Mahagonny, that ``city of nets'' where everything is permitted, Friedrich tells the familiar story of Hollywood's heyday and decline as part of a sweeping social and cultural history that takes in everything from Rita Hayworth's electrolysis (to give her a higher hairline) to union corruption, the Zoot Suit riots, the gangster Bugsy Siegel inventing Las Vegas. He is particularly good on the European refugee community Mann, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Brecht, et al.who produced some of their most distinguished work while their neighbors turned out Betty Grable musicals, and whose encounters with the studio moguls are among the most richly comic moments in our cultural history (Schoenberg, asked to score a movie, told a startled producer he would have to control the dialogue as well, so the actors would ``speak in the same pitch and key as I compose it in''). The moguls themselves, semiliterate, comfortable with racketeers but lusting for respectability (and in no way the ``showmen'' legend has made them) could be Preston Sturges characters. Friedrich avoids the cliche Goldwynisms, but has unearthed a good Disneyism: when Walt saw what the Fantasia animators had done to the "Pastoral'' Symphony, he said, "Gee, this'll make Beethoven.'' Friedrich mixes all these elements (and more) in a narrative that is often funny and remarkably even-handed (e.g., his concise account of the HUAC hearings) a must for movie buffs and a rewarding read for everyone else."

Moira, I'd be happy to read any of the books that you suggested.

Sandy K

Gee, thanks Sandy & everyone else!

Hope that we can arrive at a book that stimulates conversation. To get us off the "I dunno, whata you wanna do, Marty?" phase of our discussion, I guess I'll ask if anyone interested in the books mentioned, might please respond to this post by next Sunday, May 13th. N.B. If you click on the titles below, you can see what other readers and reviewers have to say about them over on Amazon:

Books proposed for book club:
1.) Your Suggested Titles(s), Please?

2.) The Parade's Gone By by Kevin Brownlow

3.) City of Nets: Hollywood in the 1940s by Otto Friedrich

4.)Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir by Eddie Muller

5.)An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood by Neal Gabler

6.)Memo from Darryl F. Zanuck: The Golden Years at Twentieth Century Fox by Rudy Behlmer

I like all of the ideas that Sugarpuss just 'tossed out'. My problem is also the library thing. Not so much as availability, but getting there. Also, I have a problem that I learned about when I went to get a book somebody suggested I read a couple of months ago. My darling granddaughter used my card to get some books, and when she returned them, one was missing. Now I'm into the library for $29.95. ha-ha-ha. They had my old address on file which is why I never got a notice. And my granddaughter, since her brain thing has not worked in three months, so I'm stuck for the money! So, if a book is not a best seller, or in paperback, I would have trouble, unless I could find it at one of the second hand stores I frequent. Such is life! But, keep talking this up, maybe I'll find a $100 bill laying on the pavement somewhere!

Anne

I've had similar problems Anne. In 2 cases I returned items that someone lost or stole and they came after me for it. The first one I paid up on, but the second time around I told them they'd better shake down their employees when they leave because it's not me robbing them blind. Didn't have to pay that one.

If you deal with the libarary for any length of time this eventually crops up, but it's really worth it to have the resources at your disposal.

I'll vote for the City of Nets book. Sounds interesting!

I was just wondering if anyone else was still interested in giving this a try. If City of Nets is something that others want to read, I hope that you'll vote on it or suggest another book. I see that used copies are listed by Amazon, B & N, and Craig's List for under $4, if that's affordable for anyone.

I'm sorry to hear about the misadventures at your local libraries, guys. They know me so well at mine that when they see me coming in the door they automatically look on the "hold" shelf for my stuff before I ask. I guess I've been very lucky in my forty years of library use, not to have endured the problems you guys have had in the past.