Talking Pictures: With the People Who Made Them

Rating:
Summary: Behind the scenes at the studios
Review: This book will appeal to more dedicated movie fans, consisting as it does of 38 interviews with folks who are largely unknown outside the movie community. These include assistant directors, set designers and builders, publicity men, actors' agents, sound recordists, and extras. We get insight into the lives of artisans, most of whose names do not crop up in fan mags, gossip columns, or in Oscar balloting. But these people harbor a great affection for the movie business and their part in it. They express pride in their accomplishments, unsung though they may seem. Where outsiders may consider an Oscar the only valid reward available to members of the movie community, an assistant director, camera operator, or sound recordist can treasure a compliment from a film's director at the end of a hard day's shooting just as much as a more public award. The moral of this book is that the Hollywood life need not be lived in the public eye or on the grand scale to be satisfying. My main quibble with the book is that I would have liked the interviews to be longer and more numerous.