This is an astonishingly comprehensive short guide to the fascinating world of film.
The film, or movie, industry has shaped our lives for over 100 years. This new art form sprang from the inventiveness and creativity of remarkable people, working on several continents and using a bewildering range of equipment and techniques. Few businesses can claim so many colourful characters: artistic, unscrupulous, businesslike, creative, brilliant or dependent on a lucky break- sometimes several of these at once.
This book takes us on a wonderful journey from the exotic, pioneering days, through to the emergence of the star system, the growth of the big studios, the coming of sound and the golden era of the great cinema palaces. Films continued to be produced through terrible world wars. The business has faced repeated challenges as times have changed. Fortunes have been made and lost.
The pace is brisk as we cover all of the main developments- the films, the stars, the directors and the business, through its many ups and downs. Movies come to terms with the television age, develop and experiment and constantly reinvent themselves. They seem sure to be entertaining us and firing our imagination well into the future.
