It's Only a Movie! Films and Critics in American Culture (review)

Book Reviews | Regular Feature Furthermore, the author's writing style is grammatically anarchistic, routinelyjumping back and forthfromtopic to topic within a single paragraph. For example, in the short introduction , on page four, if one did not know better, he or she might assume that Alfred Hitchcock left Britain to work in the United States soon after the conclusion ofWorld War I, instead ofmuch later in 1939 . And the last few paragraphs of the introduction are breathtaking in their obtuseness. What the reader actually encounters in Destination Hollywood is a country by country, filmmaking personality by filmmakingpersonality (presented alphabetically; dividedcategorically by directors, screenwriters, composers, etc.) listing, in which one is provided with briefbiographical data, and, occasionally, a limited amount of general stylistic comments. This is followed by a number of cryptic plot description entries on specific films that these European-born individuals were involved with while working in the USA. With only a handful ofexceptions, what is absolutely missing from these entries is any sort of analysis/discourse as to how the cinematic work of these individuals influenced the form, content or substance ofAmerican films. Basic factual errors are legion in Destination Hollywood. To give just a few examples: on page 48 it is stated that in The Amazing Mrs. Holliday (1943) Deanna Durbin's rescued war orphans are Chinese, when actually, with one exception, they are the children of Europeans who had worked in Asia; on page 244, Lewis Milestone's classic portrayal of a captured American bomber crew being tried for their lives by the Japanese, The Purple Heart (19AA), is decidedly not "atribute to the bravery of the young men and women in uniform during World War II;" on page 250, regarding a wartime resistance film potboiler entitled ParisAfterDark (1943), theFrench soldierplayed by Philip Dorn has returned from a POW camp, not a concentration camp. Langman also has an annoying penchant for employing redundant phrases when referring to particular films: on page 34 Emile Chautard's The Man Who Forgot (1917) is described as "a sententious work designed to promote Prohibition," while on page 38 the same film, now further noted as based upon a 1915 novel, is again described as "a sententious work designed to promote Prohibition. Lest We Forget (1918), also first commented upon on page 34, is referred to by the author on that page as "a large scale production....[that] cries out for revenge;" likewise, on page 46, ditto for the same film "... [that] cries out for revenge "—and so on and so on. The reviewerwouldrarely quibble over an index in a monograph , butDestinationHollywoodis supposedly areference work with analytical components. Yet, in the author's one-page Preface it is claimed that his index contains "all works commented upon." In actuality, the index contains none ofthe works cited in the text—only a listing of the first page on which the featured filmmakers appear. If the reader is searching for a single source that provides him or her with the names of most of those European filmmakers who crossed the "big pond" and contributed to the American film industry, I can recommend Destination Hollywood. However , if one is seeking to understand the influence of those individuals upon filmmmaking in the United States during the previous century, be prepared for extensive additional research. Michael S. Shull Towson University ShullMS@aol.com Raymond J. Haberski Jr. It's Only a Movie! Films and Critics in American Culture. The University Press of Kentucky, 2001. 249 pages; $27.50. Democracy's Own Child When the first motion pictures flickered in those makeshift viewing rooms, carnival tents, or outdoor pavilions back in the early 1900's, only one goal—remuneration—seemed important to the anxious entrepreneurs, those men working with cumbersome equipment to project a moving image on a crude screen, whitewashed wall, or in some cases, a wide sheet, individuals who knew instinctively that money could be made with this latest fad. Why wouldn't it? Almost overnight this clever idea had caught on and soon, millions ofAmericans were watching silent photodramas and, eventually, for better or worse, a mass culture emerged that was slowly changing (or refining) public taste. Audiences loved this innovative medium and now, for...