The Best Remaining Seats: The Golden Age of the Movie Palace (A Da Capo paperback) [Paperback]

Ben M. Hall (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 262 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Pr (June 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306803151
• ISBN-13: 978-0306803154
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #471,211 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Reprint of THE original PRIME work in the field., November 11, 1998

By 

James H. Rankin (Milwaukee, Wis. USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Best Remaining Seats: The Golden Age of the Movie Palace (A Da Capo paperback) (Paperback)

This printing of the classic BEST REMAINING SEATS: THE STORY OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE MOVIE PALACE (the review for which please see under that title) features updated captions for the b&w photos in this non-glossy paperback edition. Since some theatres have vanished since the first edition of 1961, the captions reflect the changes from that time through 1987 and better help the reader appreciate the rapidity of change. The new Preface for this reprint of the 1975 edition by the co-founder of the THEATRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA, B. Andrew Corsini Fowler, places the book in an appreciative context and highlights the fact that the book is more than "an appropriate epitaph" of the movie palace, as forseen by the 1st edition's Foreward writer, since it helped focus the nation's attention on its fast-vanishing movie palace heritage. While this edition does not contain the color plates of the original, it does make available the fabulous prose of a truly gifted writer whose contagious enthusiasm will warm you heart to him and his beloved theatres as well as the many wonderful, eccentric people who dance through its pages. If theatres (and Movie Palaces in particular) could talk, they would shout the praises of the late Ben M. Hall whose unique style helped bring our theatres back to us. If you've ever wondered about the origins and the faded glamour of an old theatre, this book belongs on your book shelf, for you will return to it again whenever you pine for a sweeter time in gilded halls filled with the sounds of the unique Theatre Pipe Organ.