Customer Reviews

Cinema Year by Year 1894-2004

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The book is exactly what I need: informations, films chronology, the actors and actress, his history, the movie history, photos, posters. A most complete literature about cinema and all related with. Acurated with dates, it shows the important facts since 1894.

This volume starts at the very beginning, 1894, and progresses through to 2004. As the years go on and films become more advanced and common, we get more pages devoted to each year, with lots of great pictures and movie posters along the way. It's pointed out that the little articles on each film or subject aren't actual news clippings from back then, but they did try to write them as though they could have been. Naturally, even given the length of such a volume, there were some things that were left out, but there's also a lot more that isn't left out, and this is after all just meant to be a year-by-year review with little news clipping-like pieces to accompany the films and events of each year, not a hugely in-depth account of each and every single film and even of every single year in cinema history. The only slight problem I have with it is that there are some urban legends reported as fact, such as Walter Matthau's birth name having been Matuschanskyayasky, Buster Keaton getting his nickname from Harry Houdini (when is this urban legend going to die already!?), and a certain sordid bit of misinformation about the murder of Ramon Novarro, which was actually made up by Kenneth Anger in his notoriously false 'Hollywood Babylon.' A bit pricey, but worth every penny.