Hollywood: The Movie Colony, the Movie Makers

New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. Very Good. (c.1941). First Edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [good sound copy, moderate age-toning to edges of text block, tiny tear in binding at upper front hinge, one-time owner's name faintly rubber-stamped on top of text block and on both pastedowns]. Based on "over three years of research, observation and work in Hollywood [by] the author and a staff of social scientists which included two sociologists, an economist, a personnel expert, a statistician, a translator, and others," this was the first serious attempt to conduct an examination of Hollywood as a social system rather than an industry. The first section (on "the Movie Colony") analyzes such topics as sex, politics, nightlife, and superstitions, which the "Movie Makers" section focuses on the subcultures of producers, directors, writers, and actors. There are numerous appendices on topics ranging from the statistically sober ("Annual Earnings, Weekly Salaries, and Spending Patterns") to the somewhat offbeat ("Dogs, Yachts, Resorts" and "Fan Mail"). The book is engagingly written by Rosten (this was his first book to appear under his own name, and he would go on to a successful career as a novelist, screenwriter and humorist), but its publishers unfortunately took the enterprise a little too seriously in one particular way, that being their inclusion of a subjects-only index -- so even though there's a wealth of anecdotal information about numerous Hollywood denizens contained in the book, without a name index there's no easy way of getting at the various tidbits about, say, Mr. and Mrs. Basil Rathbone's parties or Hugh Herbert's parlor trick involving inserting a half-dollar into a pop bottle. ****NOTE that additional postage charges will be assessed for international shipping of this moderately heavy book; if this concerns you, please contact us for a shipping quote before placing your order.**** . (Inventory #: 21925)