Book Review: Jonas Mekas' "Movie Journal: The Rise of the New American Cinema, 1959-1971"

Among the literature written on the subject of film, there are a few works that I would consider absolutely "essential". Movie Journal: The Rise of the New American Cinema, 1959-1971, by Jonas Mekas, is certainly one of them. Representing nearly a third of the columns that Mekas wrote for the Village Voice over a period of about 15 years, it provides a vivid, first-hand account of the films and filmmakers of the New York avant garde cinema, written "as it happened" by the movement's most passionate champion.

It is really quite staggering to think about the scope of what Mekas' writings cover here -- really the entire rise and development of one the most creatively fertile movements in the history of cinema, offering impassioned defenses of some of its most notable participants including Stan Brakhage, Jack Smith, Ken Jacobs, Gregory Markopolous, Harry Smith, and Marie Menken. Mekas traces not only the films and the people who made them, but also how they were distributed, exhibited, and received. He provides a vibrant portrait of the New York underground art scene in which these films were shown, and the increasingly ambitious ways in which they were presented, such as interactive, live "happenings". His descriptions of the challenges in dealing with New York's film licensing and censorship laws of the time reminds us of how courageous these artists were in fighting for the right to make the films they wanted. Most significant in this respect is Mekas' account of his arrest over the showing of Jack Smith's highly controversial Flaming Creatures, which was released in 1963 and found to be obscene.

Then there are the accounts of the development of the Filmmakers' Co-op, which served as a distribution network for avant garde cinema, and the Anthology Film Archives, created as a place to preserve and screen the films for future generations. The stories behind these two landmark cultural institutions deserve volumes of their own; their inclusion here reminds us how prolific (and tireless) Mekas has been in his quest to champion alternative forms of cinema.

Mekas is also a prescient visionary, particularly when it comes to his ideas about making cinema available in the home (to be collected and consumed like books), and in his idea of using 8mm (home movie) cameras in the service of social justice. The advent of home video, and the prevalence of consumer camcorders (as well as online video on which to share the footage) have proven him right with time.

Mekas has said that everything he did, he did because there was a real necessity for it. That is what comes through most strongly in his writing. One gets the sense that this is not a man with any time for trivia; his vision was (and remains) astoundingly clear and focused on the task at hand. The post-war American avant garde cinema flourished thanks to the critical context provided by Mekas, along with the institutions for distribution and exhibition that he was instrumental in creating. Mekas is an inspiration to anyone who cares about the possibility of cinema as a tool for personal expression rather than as a commercial business. This collection of his writings is a testament to that. As a critic, he has that most important of gifts: the ability to inspire his readers to seek out for themselves the films about which he wrote.

Movie Journal was originally published in 1972, and has been long out of print until this 2016 reissue by Columbia University Press. The new edition contains a foreword by Peter Bogdanovich.

Book Review: "A Manhattan Odyssey" by Herman G. Weinberg

In researching the life and work of pioneering film exhibitor, subtitler, critic, and avant garde filmmaker Herman G. Weinberg, I came across a copy of his memoir, A Manhattan Odyssey, which was published in 1982. I hoped that it would contain information about his time in Baltimore, when he served as the manager of the Little Theatre, an early arthouse cinema that was the city's sole outlet for foreign and avant garde films at the time.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Weinberg devotes an entire chapter of his book to his time in Baltimore. He recounts being sent there by the operators of the 55th Street Playhouse, an art cinema in Manhattan, to oversee the opening of the Little Theatre. He ended up staying in the city for six years (from 1929 to 1936), living off of Mount Vernon Square and even meeting his first wife, Erna Bergman, who worked at the Little and was the star of his landmark experimental film Autumn Fire.

Beyond that, however, Weinberg's memoir is a fascinating evocation of a time and place that no longer exists. Most of the book focuses on his many years spent living in Manhattan, from his early childhood (a particularly tragic story involves the death of his young sister), to his years as a luminary of New York's arthouse film scene (during which time he authored a long-running column, "Coffee, Brandy, and Cigars", which ran at various times in publications such as Film Culture and Variety). Unlike our current age, in which every film enthusiast is expected to develop a specialized area of expertise in the most niche, unexplored aspect of the medium, Weinberg was a generalist, bringing his talents to bear in several different areas of the cinema.

Weinberg entered the film world through his musical training, after writing a trio of articles on silent film scoring that brought him to the attention of the burgeoning arthouse scene in Manhattan in the late 1920s. He developed the process of subtitling foreign films that has become the standard (superimposing the translated dialogue at the bottom of the screen), wrote pioneering studies of directors including Lubitsch and Sternberg, and in his later years, was a regular presence on the film festival circuit for many years, where he rubbed elbows with many Hollywood greats.

The chief delight in reading Weinberg's memoir, however, is his eloquent style, and wide-ranging references to literature, art and poetry. He re-produces a number of poems throughout the book (including one by his daughter Gretchen) that reflect a real appreciation for that art form. Like the best critics, Weinberg's enthusiasm for the subjects about which he writes is infectious.

Book Review: "English Hitchcock" by Charles Barr

With a few exceptions, the films made by Alfred Hitchcock during the early part of his career in England are too often relegated to a footnote in his filmography, or are even misunderstood by people coming to them expecting to see work more clearly recognizable as that of the same director who made films such as North by Northwest and Psycho.

In English Hitchcock (Cameron Books, 2000), film scholar Charles Barr offers the most comprehensive study of this period of Hitchcock's career, which is actually quite varied and interesting for those studying the evolution of the director's work. Barr covers every film, though he does so by grouping certain films together for the purposes of comparison, an approach that helps to clearly demonstrate the relationship between films that at first seem to bear little in common with each other. He pays special attention to Hitchcock's literary influences, as well as his screenwriting collaborators, Eliot Stannard and Charles Bennett.

Barr does an excellent job of tracing Hitchcock's journey in filmmaking from his time as an apprentice in the British film industry and formative directing work, to his professional struggles with studio-assigned projects during the early '30s, and his eventual success with suspense thrillers such as The Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps before accepting the call to come to Hollywood. Through his careful analysis, Barr also offers an appreciation of such lesser-known and less-examined titles as The Farmer's Wife and Number Seventeen, which are worth a second look.

English Hitchcock provides a much-needed critical context in which to view this important, if sometimes erratic and seemingly disparate, group of films that Hitchcock directed during his time in England.

Book Review: "Amateur Cinema: The Rise of North American Movie Making, 1923-1960" by Charles Tepperman

An excellent survey on the origins and developments of amateur filmmaking, from its rise following Eastman Kodak's introduction of the 16mm gauge in 1923, to its decline in the postwar period. Charles Tepperman frames the survey largely through the history of the Amateur Cinema League, an organization that offered amateur film enthusiasts the opportunity to connect and share their work, and did much to promote the art of home-made films.

Tepperman draws on articles from Movie Makers, the official publication of the Amateur Cinema League to present a vivid portrait of the movement, including common types of films, the demographics of home movie camera enthusiasts, and the relationship of amateur cinema to Hollywood. He also includes a solid overview of key filmmakers in the movement. Of particular interest is his chapter on Theodore Huff, a film historian who also worked in the documentary and avant-garde modes in addition to his contributions to amateur cinema.

Tepperman wisely avoids drawing too many comparisons to the present day situation with YouTube and online video, though he does address the way in which these new media are an outgrowth of the ideas of democratizing production and using the camera as a tool for personal expression, which originated with the founding principles of the Amateur Cinema League. Overall a fine study into a much-neglected area of film history that has much to offer for filmmakers and historians alike.

Book Review: "King of Comedy" by Mack Sennett

Mack Sennett's autobiography (as told to Cameron Shipp and originally published in 1954) is a highly entertaining read, capturing the spirit of its author and subject with humor, energy and vitality. However, its accuracy with regards to facts has to be taken with an extremely large grain of salt. Sennett peppers his life story with tall-tales and exaggerations, which are in keeping with the larger-than-life qualities of the personalities and experiences of the early days of the comedy picture business that he portrays so vividly.

Sennett takes a predictably skeptical view of the perceptive critics who saw his frantic comedies as a new art form and offered analyses of his filmic style, though Sennett is sure to acknowledge that his freewheeling and zany pictures were the result of much hard work and planning, and that comedy was a very serious business indeed to the men and women involved in their creation.

Perhaps the most interesting parts of the book are the early chapters dealing with Sennett's entry into show business, through a letter of introduction from Calvin Coolidge, of all people, to stage star Marie Dressler, who in turn recommended Sennett to producer David Belasco in New York. Sennett's account of the New York show business world at the turn of the century is vivid and colorful, especially in discussing the many personalities who were just beginning to flourish at that time. The account of his arrival at Biograph and subsequent tutelage under D.W. Griffith is particularly interesting in describing the relatively casual and carefree way in which these films were made, and the sense of discovery and potential that they saw in the medium. Of all the future collaborators Sennett met in his days at Biograph's studio on east 14th Street, perhaps the most significant for him, both personally and professionally, was Mabel Normand.

He devotes a great deal of the book to Normand, whom he clearly had a great deal of affection and fondness for years after her passing, and even given the tensions that arose between them following their broken engagement in 1915 (though Sennett is rather coy and inconsistent about the details in his account here). What is clear is that he thought the world of Normand and, as he states at the end of the book, one of his goals in writing it was for readers to be able to get to know her. Sennett has kind words, too, about other fellow clowns and collaborators, especially Ben Turpin, Harry Langdon, and Hank Mann, delights in telling how he discovered Charlie Chaplin, and laments having lost Harold Lloyd before realizing his full potential.

The chapters on the William Desmond Taylor murder are interesting for Sennett's perspective on Normand's involvement in the case, though they perhaps attempt to move through the details in too small an amount of space, leaving the reader wanting more information about the mysterious scandal that rocked the Hollywood film industry. After brief discussions of his discovery of both Bing Crosby and W.C. Fields for the movies, Sennett tells of the terrible loss of his personal fortune in 1935 following the financial collapse of Paramount (through whom he was distributing his films at that point), but concludes the book on a happy note, mentioning the honorary Oscar he was presented with by his old gagman Frank Capra, and his surprise appearance on Ralph Edwards' "This is Your Life", where he was reunited with a number of familiar faces from his past.

Like many show business autobiographies, "King of Comedy" is more successful at evoking a time and place than it is with a meticulous record of the facts. Taken in that way, the book is an enjoyable personal account of Sennett's life in pictures that captures the spirit of the man and his own legend, and provides a window into the creation of an exciting art form.

Book Review: "The Films of D.W. Griffith" by Scott Simmon

A superb survey of the types of films Griffith was making during his creatively fertile tenure at Biograph, Scott Simmon's "The Films of D.W. Griffith" (Cambridge University Press, 1993) is rich in analysis and scope. After a chapter situating Griffith within both American culture and film history, Simmon devotes four chapters to specific themes within Griffith's work: the urban spaces of his city dramas, the role of female characters in the "woman's pictures", family honor in The Birth of a Nation and other Civil War pictures, and, finally, the role of film as a tool of reform, in relation to Intolerance.

In dealing with Griffith's overwhelming 450-plus film output, Simmon takes a wise approach in discussing one representative film per each year of his Biograph period (1908-1913). This allows for a thoughtful examination, not only in terms of the themes Simmon discusses, but how Griffith's approach to those themes changed or remained consistent over the first five years of his directorial career. Included is a convenient listing of all the titles Simmon discusses in the book, which provides a good starting point for readers to study this vast period of Griffith's career in greater detail. Thankfully, Griffith is unique among early filmmakers in that nearly all of his output (with the exception of maybe ten or so films) survives, making it easier to have something closer to a comprehensive survey of his work than is possible for other filmmakers of the era.

Book Review: "The Comic Mind" by Gerald Mast

An excellent survey of screen comedy, from the earliest turn-of-the-century filmed comedy sketches through the films of the 1960s. Mast is less interested in a purely historical survey of names, facts and dates, instead undertaking a thorough and insightful critical analysis of key comedy performers, filmmakers and styles. The emphasis here is on comic film artists who did used the medium in unique ways or exerted some level of creative influence and control over their films. Thus there are no chapters on performers like Abbott and Costello, Bob Hope or Wheeler and Woolsey, for example.

The geniuses of silent comedy are well-covered here, with individual chapters on the great clown-filmmakers Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd and Langdon. While some silent comedy aficionados might see the emphasis on these four giants as limiting and redundant, Mast provides deep insight into their work, and is primarily interested discussing these comic artists in terms of their distinctive cinematic styles. Mast does look briefly at other distinctive film clowns like Douglas Fairbanks, Charley Chase and Larry Semon who made their mark on the medium. There are also discussions of the "fun factories" of such comedy producers and visionaries as Mack Sennett, Hal Roach and Al Christie.

The chapters on silent comedy rank alongside Walter Kerr's "The Silent Clowns" and James Agee's essay "Comedy's Greatest Era" as one of the finest critical surveys of that period. Mast is perhaps less eloquent than either Kerr and Agee in his descriptions of the clowns and their personalities, but he is highly perceptive in describing what makes the films of Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd and Langdon both incredibly funny and deeply profound.

Moving on to the sound era, Mast provides a thoughtful analysis of the principles of sound comedy before moving on to such masters of the form as Ernst Lubitsch, Rene Clair and Jean Renoir. He presents an interesting contrast in how Lubitsch and Clair use sound and image together in different but equally effective ways, and provides some much-welcome insight into Renoir's often-overlooked gifts for comedy. Mast then discusses three main modes of screen comedy in the sound era. First is the Dialogue tradition, represented by the great writer-directors like Leo McCarey, Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder. Mast also examines how directors such as Capra and Hawks imposed their distinctive directorial styles on writer- and script-dominated comedies.

Next is the Clown tradition, which examines how the distinctive personalities of performers such as W.C. Fields and the Marx Bros. shaped their films. Mast's observations on the Marx Bros. are particularly astute, differentiating between the invisible, intentionally artless filmic style they achieved under skillful craftsmen like Norman McLeod and Leo McCarey in their final three Paramount films, and the uninspired and clunky theatrical approach of their first two films for the studio. It's easy to mistake the plain and unassuming style of films like MONKEY BUSINESS, HORSE FEATHERS and DUCK SOUP for a lack of cinematic imagination, but it is in fact perfectly suited to what the Marx Bros. and their directors worked so hard to achieve. For example, a deliberately elegant style would be at odds with the roughness and anarchy of the humor of these films. Similarly, he argues that the more showy style of their first two MGM films essentially works against their comedy.

It is worth noting here that unlike the silent comedians discussed earlier, who were often heavily involved in the direction, writing and producing of their own pictures, these sound comedians rarely had such clear, direct creative control over their films due to hierarchical differences under the studio system. Thus, the films of clowns like W.C. Fields and the Marx Bros. have posed a special problem for critics (especially those trained in the auteurist approach) in determining the ways in which the performer could exert their personality on the film style even when they were not credited with the script or direction (although Fields wrote the stories for a number of his films under his variety of comic pseudonyms, and Mast takes the unique stance that Fields' films for Universal -- rather than Paramount -- represent his greatest and freest work since he was given greater independence in writing the screenplays). Mast does an admirable job of dealing with these films in terms of how the comedians were able to exercise varying degrees of creative control, both through their choice in collaborators and through shaping the cinematic style to suit their comic persona.

Finally, in the Ironic tradition, Mast discusses a select sampling of comedies -- including Max Ophuls' LA RONDE, Ingmar Bergman's SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT, and Stanley Kubrick's DOCTOR STRANGELOVE -- and how they work to subvert expectations and provide humor through their ironic comment on human behavior. Mast concludes the book with a thoughtful consideration of comedy's importance within the arts.

"The Comic Mind" is a thorough and perceptive survey of film comedy, and is certainly essential reading for anyone with an interest in the subject.

Reference:
Mast, Gerald. The Comic Mind: Comedy and the Movies. Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company Inc., 1974.

The Great Films: Fifty Golden Years of Motion Pictures by Bosley Crowther

I was talking with a friend recently about film books that had been instrumental in our early interest in the subject. One that we both brought up was Bosley Crowther's "The Great Films: Fifty Golden Years of Motion Pictures". Especially pre-Internet, but even still today, books like this were a great guide to important films for a budding movie buff to check out, illustrated with a generous selection of tantalizing stills from the films that were being described. I must have borrowed this one from the public library dozens of times.

This particular book is interesting for the 50 films that Crowther singles out as the greatest. My friend and I both agreed that, while there would probably be some changes to the list if it were written today, overall these selections still hold up well. It's also an interesting reflection of some films and filmmakers were highly regarded at the time but have since largely vanished from the critical consciousness (such as Flaherty). With all the debate over a "canon" in film studies, Crowther's book is still a good starting point for novice film buffs to begin exploring further on their own.

Incidentally, I did make it a point to see all 50 films in the book -- some of which I only caught up with in the past few years, such as Clement's FORBIDDEN GAMES.

Book Review: Fritz Lang - The Nature of the Beast

Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast
by Patrick McGilligan
University of Minnesota Press


Fritz Lang produced one of the most-studied and celebrated bodies of work of any filmmaker, and yet he remains a largely enigmatic figure. After a highly successful career as one of the leading directors in Germany during the silent era, Lang eventually emigrated to the United States, where he directed numerous films in Hollywood and became one of the most internationally-recognized filmmakers in the business. Yet his personal life has remained largely shrouded in the mythology, often spread by Lang himself, that built up over his long career.

Patrick McGilligan’s Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast (originally published by St. Martin's Griffin Press in 1997, and now available from the University of Minnesota Press) undertakes documenting Fritz Lang's life and work beyond the publicity and personal mythology. It is an exhaustively-researched, meticulously-detailed work. McGilligan gives us a comprehensive biography, covering each period of Lang’s life and work in extensive detail, and masterfully interweaving his research with quotes from those who knew and worked with Lang, to give us a stronger sense of how the filmmaker's life shaped his work.

Beginning with the director's early years in Vienna and Paris, McGilligan does an excellent job in shedding light on Lang’s formative experiences, including accounts of his military career as well as his training in the arts. Lang’s entry into motion pictures in Berlin, initially as a scenarist before turning to directing, is well-covered, with welcome descriptions of his earliest works that are now lost, and details about the two producers who did more than anyone else to facilitate Lang’s early film career – Erich Pommer and Joe May.

McGilligan spends a good deal of time in The Nature of the Beast exploring the mythology surrounding the director, particularly in two key incidents that have remained clouded by conflicting accounts of the events. The first involves the death of Lang's first wife Lisa Rosenthal, the cause of which was never fully determined. While it was ruled a suicide, following her discovery of Lang’s affair with screenwriter Thea von Harbou (whom Lang later married), there persisted suggestions that Lang had played a role in her death. Interrogated by the police on the night of Rosenthal's death, Lang and von Harbou insisted it had been a suicide. It is here that McGilligan makes some of his more controversial connections of this incident with Lang's filmography, citing the recurring suicides and slayings in the films - from Brunhild's suicide in Die Nibelungen all the way through the burlesque dancer's murder in his final American film, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt - to suggest that, even though these kinds of plot devices had been present in Lang's work almost since the beginning, they took on a much greater deal of significance after the death of Lisa Rosenthal.

The second incident occurs in 1933. Lang claimed that he had been summoned by Joseph Goebbels for a meeting, in which Goebbels offered him a position as head of the German film industry. According to Lang's account, he quickly fled the country, although there are conflicting accounts of the story and doubts expressed over certain details by numerous sources. What is certain is that during this time his marriage to Thea von Harbou dissolved. With her allegiance to the Nazis, and Lang's own Jewish ancestry, the marriage came to an end in 1933 as Lang prepared to leave Germany.

These events lead in to Lang's departure from Germany, to his brief stay in Paris, and to his eventual arrival in Hollywood. McGilligan gives us a revealing portrait of Lang's struggle to fit in with the structured and producer-centered model of the Hollywood studio system. He developed several ideas for projects before directing his first American film, Fury, for MGM in 1936, and quickly ran in to opposition for some of his more controversial ideas for the script. Lang also struggled to fit in with the colony of other Jewish actors and artists who had fled Germany following the rise of Nazism. Lang's relative comfort stemming from his prestigious reputation in the German cinema, as well as rumors about the death of his first wife and conflicting stories of his meeting with Goebbels, did nothing to endear him to his fellow expatriates.

McGilligan covers Lang's years in Hollywood through accounts of his professional struggles within the studio hierarchy, and providing solid accounts of the often complex production histories of Lang's films from this period. He paints a portrait of a singular artist who never quite adapted to the studio system, as evidenced by the recollections of Lang's collaborators during this time. One of the critical moments in Lang's later career came during the height of the Blacklist in the early 1950s, when he was forced to distance himself from his left-leaning political positions in a similar way that he'd had to distance himself from his associations with Nazism after leaving Germany, another struggle against changing political tides.

Such incidents are consistent with McGilligan's portrait of Lang as an outsider, someone eternally in the process of adapting to his environment and re-writing his own personal history in order to do so. McGilligan's accounts of pivotal moments in Lang's life reflect the approach he has taken with his book, exploring the facts beyond the personal and professional stories that have built up over the years (and have taken on seemingly mythic proportions) to get at a better understanding of the man behind the mythology. Whether or not the reader agrees with the conclusions that McGilligan draws, the book is a meticulous work of research that does an admirable job in presenting the biography of its highly complex and often contradictory subject.

The Immortal Count: The Life and Films of Bela Lugosi

I recently had a chance to pick up a copy of “The Immortal Count: The Life and Films of Bela Lugosi” (University Press of Kentucky, 2003), by Arthur Lennig. One of the preeminent film biographers, Lennig (whose other works include the insightful and revealing “Stroheim”) manages to give readers a good sense of Bela Lugosi the person, and how this Hungarian actor came to be so powerfully associated with a single role. For an actor whose career spanned nearly half a century, I have always felt that film writers are too quick to discuss Lugosi’s work only in terms of his most famous roles. This attitude, while understandable, overlooks the breadth of his acting roles over the years, including memorable turns in such films as the manic comedy, International House, and Ernst Lubitsch’s Ninotchka.

Lennig draws on extensive research and interviews with those who knew and worked with Lugosi over the years to draw a complete picture of the actor. A particular revelation of the section dealing with Lugosi’s work in the theater is just what a diverse series of roles he played early in his career. Apart from his becoming so strongly associated with the role of Dracula, Lennig conveys the frustration Lugosi felt as a foreign actor in Hollywood, typecast in heavy roles.

Particular attention too is given to the relationship between Lugosi and Boris Karloff. Universal, seeing Karloff as the “next Chaney” (who had been such a moneymaker for the studio in the 1920s), treated Karloff as the crown jewel of the studio, while Lugosi was rather unceremoniously cast aside following Dracula. There was apparently a bit of bitterness between the two, though neither expressed this publicly (the two would work together, memorably, in The Black Cat, made for Universal by Edgar G. Ulmer in 1934).

In addition to the light shed on Lugosi’s early career, his later years are given similarly in-depth treatment. Lennig covers Lugosi’s battle with and eventual recovery from drug addiction, as well as his infamous work with Edward D. Wood Jr. (a series of films which, thankfully, Lennig does not belabor). Such films as Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla are also discussed. This period probably represents the nadir of Lugosi's career.

It is rather poignant how deeply Lugosi cared about his most famous role. While he would describe it as both a blessing and a curse, the role of Dracula certainly made Lugosi into an icon. If he had played no other role, it is probably safe to say that Lugosi's name would still be remembered by film fans just as strongly today. In addition to the meticulous preparation he went through in getting into character for the part, it is also interesting how he handled the issue of self-parody in films like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, in which he plays the Count straight as the two comedians pull their comic business. Lennig reports that Lugosi was put-off by the lackadaisical attitude that Abbott and Costello took to their work (and attitude shared, incidentally, by others who worked with them, including Buster Keaton). Whatever else can be said about Lugosi's appearance in the film, it certainly reinforced his iconic status.

"The Immortal Count" stands as one of the most solid, well-researched and enlightening film biographies I have read in some time. Arthur Lennig manages the impressive task of revealing the actor behind one of the most iconic roles in all of cinema. The reader comes away with a revealing account of Bela Lugosi, the man and the actor.

Love in the Film

William K. Everson's greatest gift as a writer was his ability to convey his love of whatever films or filmmakers he happened to be writing about. I had the honor of working as an archivist for his papers during my time at New York University, and it was always inspiring to read his thoughts on the films he showed over the years at both the Theodore Huff Memorial Film Society and the New School series.

His 1979 book, Love in the Film, is an interesting look back at the great romantic films covering the entire history of the medium up to the time it was written. Although all the standards are there (Seventh Heaven, A Farewell to Arms, Brief Encounter), what makes the book most interesting are the obscure and offbeat films that Everson goes into detail about, including works from the 20s such as Clarence Brown's Smouldering Fires and William DeMille's Conrad in Quest for His Youth, plus lesser-known films such as James Whale's excellent but often overlooked 1931 version of Waterloo Bridge, Lewis Milestone's Hallelujah I'm a Bum (certainly an offbeat choice!), and Zoo in Budapest.

Everson organizes the book by decade. There is a strong emphasis on the 1920s through the 1940s, with the period from the 1950s onward represented by only four films (and only one film - Annie Hall - from the 1970s). For each decade, Everson provides an overview of prevailing trends, attitudes and values reflected in the films that he goes into more detail about in their individual entries. His approach, as with other of his books, involves a largely interpretive form of criticism, providing a context in which to appreciate how these films deal with the theme of love. Everson's always-insightful reviews provide a way of digesting the films and understanding the relationship between such a diverse list of titles spanning so many decades.

Like his later Hollywood Bedlam, a look at screwball comedy, Love in the Film is organized in a "filmography" format that makes it easy to consider each film individually and on its own terms. Everson avoids the trap of having to connect similar threads and themes from film to film into a thesis, instead examining each film separately.

For collectors of film books like myself, Love in the Film is a welcome addition - not only for Everson's always-worthwhile insights - but also as a guide for obscure and overlooked films to seek out. Everson's descriptions certainly convey his enthusiasm for each title, and make readers want to go see each of these films for him or herself.

"Thirty Years of the Rockford Files" by Ed Robertson

My review of Ed Robertson's excellent new book, "Thirty Years of the Rockford Files", has been a long time coming, mainly because of my schedule over the last month and the sheer volume of information he includes in this wonderful look into one of the best TV shows of the 1970s.

Anyone familiar with "The Rockford Files" will remember the spirit of fun that James Garner brought to the series, and Robertson's book captures that perfectly. In addition to serving as a history of the TV show, the book also serves as a tribute to its charming, personable star. Garner brought a kind of self-deprecating humor to his performance which is undoubtedly what helped make it so popular.

Robertson takes an episode-by-episode approach to the show's history. His writing style captures the feel of the show as he offers plot synopses and "behind-the-scenes" history of each episode. It's interesting to realize the significant place that "The Rockford Files" holds in TV history. In many ways, it was a one-of-a-kind show. The early 70s in particular brought series like "MacMillan and Wife", "Columbo", and "McCloud", staples of NBC's "Million Dollar Mystery" program. "The Rockford Files" continued somewhat in this vein but added the incomparable Garner into the mix, playing a different kind of role that ushered in a new style of leading man.

Robertson also looks at the surprisingly large number of guest stars who made appearances on the show during its run. The trivia and behind-the-scenes facts are thoroughly researched and make this book a treasure trove for any "Rockford" fan.

This book comes with my highest recommendation, as well as the recommendations of several other long-time "Rockford" fans with whom I shared it.