The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years

by David Shipman

The first thing to note, when reading this book, is that it was published in 1970, and the edition that I read, was revised in 1979. That means that this book is not comprehensive, for the last part of the 20th century (it doesn't note or take into account, the re-making of Hollywood movies and their production system of the 1970s that brought American movies back into high repute and opinion).

But Mr. Shipman has either seen every movie before 1970, or he writes as though he has, and as though he knows what he is talking about.

This is a good book to browse or even to read straight through. It gives the reader some ideas of movies and DVDs that she might want to see. I have got to see Limelight, if just for Buster Keaton.

However, every few pages a sentence much like the following will show up:

• "Their personal lives had many similarities, including early deaths, but why should the genuinely attractive Monroe have been constantly compared with Harlow, platinum blonde, cross-legged in her hideous shapeless body-revealing sateen dresses, her smile the genuine tooth past advert?"

Huh? Miss Monroe was naturally pretty and Miss Harlow was manufactured sort of attractive? Is that what I am supposed to infer from this sentence? Don't nobody tell Mr. Shipman that Miss Monroe had a nose job and that a seamstress had to sew her into her body-revealing dresses. And how can a dress be both "body-revealing" and yet "shapeless"? It's called a "bias cut", by the way, and I could make a pun about bias, but never mind.

The book gives a good overview, but Mr. Shipman is no fan of film noir, so note that as you read or skim the book.