Book Review: Hollywood: The Oral History by Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson

Hollywood: The Oral History

by Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson (791.43 Bas)

 

As the authors say, in their introduction, this book is compiled from interviews conducted by the American Film Institute, beginning in 1969, with individuals from across the spectrum of movie-making. Basinger and Wasson were given total and unprecedented access to all of the the AFI’s Harold Lloyd seminars, oral histories, and complete archives, featuring more than 3000 guest speakers and almost 10000 hours of conversation.

 

The authors then pulled quotes and organized them into thematic chapters: Beginnings, Comedy, Silent Directors, Silent Actors, Sound!, Studio Heads, Studio Style, The Studio Workforce (itself broken in ten sub-chapters), The Product, The End of the System, Identity Crisis, New Hollywood, The Creep Up, The Deal, Packaging, Everybody’s Business, and Monsters.

 

This book makes for absolutely fascinating reading but it is also a bit stop-and-go. Anyone who is interested in the history of movie-making here in the United States should find much of the content of this volume essential reading. However, at the same time, it doesn’t make for fast-flowing reading, as the voices jump back and forth between people you recognize and people from the industry that you may never have heard of.

 

I ended up loving Hollywood: The Oral History, while at the same time wishing that it was a video documentary, so I could have actually seen the individuals as they were being interviewed. None-the-less, a marvelous book on Hollywood and film-making history! Nearly every page has some nugget of information I never heard about before!

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try It Happened on Broadway: An Oral History of the Great White Way by Myrna Frommer, though it deals with stage productions rather than film.)

 

( publisher’s official Hollywood: The Oral History web site ) | ( Wikipedia page for Jeannine Basinger )

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

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Book Review: The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 by Garrett M. Graff

The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11

by Garrett M. Graff (973.931 Gra)

 

Pause to consider — It has been 20 years since the terrorist/jihad attacks of September 11, 2001 on the eastern United States. It was one of those moments where time froze as soon as you learned what was happening.

Four jumbo-jet passenger airplane flights were hijacked and then aimed at: the Two Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, which were ultimately completely destroyed; The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C., heavily damaged; a 4th unrealized target somewhere in that same area, thwarted by brave passengers at the cost of their lives. So many people lost, but tens of thousands of survivors, too.

 

This painstakingly assembled documentation is at once starkly cognizant of the senselessness of it all while also recognizing the courage, fortitude, and optimism that characterize this still-hard-to-comprehend catastrophe. Heartbreaking and yet hopeful, we journey back to the fateful event in the voices of those who lived through it and a number of those who died, as well as catch up with how some have dealt with it up to now (2019).

The title derives from the eventual fact that Air Force One, with then-President George W. Bush on board, was the only non-fighter airplane traveling in the sky that day after all other air traffic over the U.S. was grounded. Although there are a couple of chapters which focus on this, there is much more of the content that deals with the New York and Pentagon aspects. Nebraska will always be connected to this day as the place where the President came in to Offutt Air Force Base for a couple of hours and video-conferenced with government and military leaders who were hunkered down in the Nation’s Capitol before returning there himself once the threat appeared to be contained.

 

The book was made possible in large part by the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. Many of the survivor narratives can also be accessed in the newly-released 6-part documentary “9/11: One Day in America” on National Geographic television, which I found even more affecting due to also having the visual impact of the narrators’ emotions involved.

 

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero by Michael Hingson, or 102 Minutes: The Unforgettable Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn.]

 

( publisher’s official The Only Plane in the Sky web page ) | ( official Garrett Graff web site ) | ( ( National September 11 Memorial and Museum ) | ( 9/11: One Day in America — streaming On-Demand — requires a cable or streaming service, which you must log into )

 

Recommended by Becky W.C.
Walt Branch Library

 

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

It Happened on Broadway: An Oral History of the Great White Way by Myrna and Harvey Frommer

It Happened on Broadway: An Oral History of the Great White Way
by Myrna Katz Frommer and Harvey Frommer [Music 782.14 Fro] 

For anyone who is a fan of classic Broadway history, this is an essential read. In the grand historical tradition of previous “oral histories”, the Frommers gathered the remembrances of dozens of Broadway luminaries — both on stage, and behind the scenes — and in this volume they let those memories flow. Sometimes the effect can be of letting Carol Channing go on a stream-of-consciousness ramble, or Celeste Holm recollect how she got her role in the original cast of Oklahoma, sometimes it’s the children of famous Broadway composers and lyricists, remembering what their noteworthy parents’ creative processes were like — growing up hearing Dad tinkle out future Broadway hit songs on the piano in his home office.

There’s a strong feeling of sitting around a cozy living room, listening to Broadway legends tell their personal little stories in this volume. Originally published in 1998, and re-printed in 2004, It Happened on Broadway captures the history of Broadway from the earliest days of vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley, up through the mid-1980s. This volume is definitely oriented towards readers who have at least a passing knowledge of Broadway’s movers and shakers in the mid-20th century. Fortunately, it also includes a Who’s Who index at the front of the book, giving nutshell biographies of all the folks who are quoted throughout the book. The oral history recollections are then broken into thematic sections, including: “Broadway Calling” (break-in stories), “Look, Look, Look Who’s Dancin’ Now”, “The X Factor” (what makes certain performers unique), “That’s the Craft” (behind-the-scenes lore from the folks whose hard work allows the actors to shine), and so much more.

This is a marvelous historical volume. My only complaint is that it ends with the 1980s — Broadway, in many ways, has re-created itself in the past 3 decades, and it would have been nice, especially in the 2004 reprint edition that I read, to share more recent stories. Otherwise, this is marvelous fun and I highly recommend it. Rather than a dry and studious volume on theatrical trends, this is a collection of memories from the folks who actually put on the shows…and the love they have for the business of the theatre shines through!

[ official It Happened on Broadway web site ] | [ page dedicated to The Frommers at Dartmouth ]

 

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!