GEORGE F. CUSTEN is associate professor of communications in the department of performing and creative arts at the City University of New York, The College of Staten Island.
Enhanced by charts, appendixes, notes, and references to approximately 300 movies from 1927 to 1960 (with additional material on the biopics' absorption by contemporary television), this volume analyzes biographical film production, distribution, and exhibition under the constraints of censorship, libel law, producer proclivities, and casting. Custen (communications, CUNY) explains why biographies of entertainers proliferated after World War II, how studio moguls fostered biographical narratives similar to their own rags-to-riches stories, and to what extent research departments affected veracity. A good addition to a scant literature that includes Michael Pitts's Hollywood and American History (McFarland & Co., 1984) and George MacDonald Fraser's The Hollywood History of the World ( LJ 9/15/88). Essential for comprehensive film collections. Movie Entertainment Book Club selection.-- Kim Holston, American Inst. for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters, Malvern, Pa.
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