Editors: Barbara Hall & Rocky Lang
Genre: Non-Fiction
About the book...
A collection of letters, notes, and telegrams ranging from the 1920s to the 1970s written by and to legends of classic Hollywood.
What I think...
I loved this book! While it's always fun to read old Hollywood correspondence, this book goes a step further and has included images of the actual items rather than just transcribing them, so you can see the actual document. Part of the fun of this was getting to see who had the messiest writing, preferred typing, and what type of stationary was used, so I was delighted they went this route.
Each item is accompanied by a short write up providing background context pertaining to the writers, recipients, and subject matter, which I appreciated for films and stars I was less familiar with and in some cases built up a greater understanding of a few of the topics being addressed.
In terms of presentation, the layouts were great and they did a nice job including photos that corresponded with the writers of the letters or the subject matters. For a coffee table sized book with glossy pages, I also thought it was really nicely bound.
I also really enjoyed getting to read some of the "behind the scene" process that occurred during the making of some of the golden era movies and just . My favorites included a very sweet 1957 letter from Ingrid Bergman to Cary Grant thanking him for accepting her Oscar for her and a letter about how problematic adapting Double Indemnity was in terms of the Hays Code.
To sum it all up...
A treasure trove of correspondence that will delight any classic film fan! ♥
What a magnificent book. This vintage Hollywood correspondence filled tome is going straight on my reading wishlist. Thank you very much for the introduction and wonderful review, dear Inky.
ReplyDeleteAutumn Zenith 🎃 Witchcrafted Life
There are only so many people I can enthusiastically share it with in person, so very happy to have brought it to your attention!
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