Author: Leonard Maltin
Genre: Non-Fiction/Film
Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9780998376394
400 Pages
GoodKnight Books
[Various Prices]; $7.99 Amazon
July 2, 2018
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Leonard Maltin is America's best-known film historian, film reviewer, and author of books that have sold more than 7 million copies. He remains a thought leader on past and present Hollywood through his website www.leonardmaltin.com, and a social media presence that includes an active Facebook page and a twitter feed with more than 66,000 followers. In Hooked on Hollywood, Maltin opens up his personal archive to take readers on a fascinating journey through film history.
He first interviewed greats of a Hollywood as a precocious teenager in 1960s New York City. He used what he learned from these luminaries to embark on a 50-year (and counting) career that has included New York Times bestselling books, 30 years of regular appearances coast-to-coat on Entertainment Tonight, introductions on Turner Classic Movies, and countless other television and radio performances. Early Maltin interviews had literally been stored in his garage for more than 40 years until GoodKnight Books brought them to light for the first time in this volume to entertain readers and inform future film scholars. Teenaged Leonard Maltin landed one-on-ones with Warner Bros. sexy pre-code siren Joan Blondell, Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated actor Burgess Meredith, Cecil B. DeMille's right-hand-man Henry Wilcoxon; Oscar-winning actor Ralph Bellamy, playwright, novelist, and MGM screenwriter Anita Loos; early screen heartthrob George O'Brien, classic Paramount Director Mitchell Leisen; and others.
Later in his career, Maltin sat down with men and women who worked inside the top studios during the heyday of movies and early television. This second set of in-depth interviews reveals what life was life under Louis B. Mayer, Jack Warner, Harry Cohn, and the other titans of Hollywood. What emerges is a fascinating and at time uproarious homage to Golden Era Hollywood. In addition, key feature articles from Maltin's newsletter Movie Crazy are published here for the first time, providing new perspectives on the Warner Bros. classics Casablanca and Gold Diggers of 1933 as well as many other masterpieces -- and bombs -- from Hollywood history.
Finally, Maltin looks back at what he considers Hollywood's "overlooked" studio, RKO Radio Pictures, which gave us such classics as King Kong and the man dance musicals of Astaire and Rogers. In Leonard's unique and witty style, he looks at dozens of obscure RKO features from the 1930s. including saucy pre-Codes, musicals, comedies, and mysteries. Leonard Maltin's love of movies and vast knowledge about their history shines through from the first page to the last in this unique volume, which includes 150 rare photos and a comprehensive index.
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After reading this long (at 400 pages) book by Mr. Maltin, the one word I would use for it is comprehensive. Mr. Maltin does nothing halfway, and this book is proof of that. He begins by giving interesting information regarding the songs in several films -- Casablanca and Blues in the Night are two of them; and he does so nicely, with knowledge about them we might never have known otherwise.
As a huge classic film lover, I have seen all of the films (except for the 'lost' ones naturally), so I am quite aware of the plots, but for those who have not, he also details these (without giving away endings, so never fear) in order that others might wish to see and enjoy them. While I will admit there are stinkers among them (as Mr. Maltin himself professes), some of these are worth viewing for the actors alone. I will say, though, that even with my love of musicals, there are those that I will never view again, and therefore don't really care about their history.
Then we get to the meat of the matter -- the interviews. While many of them are droll, there are just as many where the participants' responses just didn't matter to me; they seemed dry. However, I will say that I absolutely loved Ralph Bellamy's interview. He had a good memory for his films, and if anyone has ever seen any of them -- or if not, I will say to do so, especially his earlier ones -- Mr. Bellamy acted with his eyes. Regardless of whatever line he was speaking at the time, his eyes showed the emotion a true actor should. I have noticed this in all of his films.
What is amazing, really, is the fact that the teenaged Leonard Maltin could actually speak to these people and get them to open up so candidly to him. Each interview is no different than any from a seasoned critic, and it led him to a prolific career in television and radio. The book is also filled with over a hundred photographs from his personal collection, and some of them are quite marvelous to see. This is a book that should be in the library of classic film scholars, and quite worth the read.
More on Leonard Maltin's Books: https://www.amazon.com/Leonard-Maltin/e/B000APIP2A/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_1
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