Movie Crazy: Fans, Stars, and the Cult of Celebrity [Hardcover]

Samantha Barbas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 17, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0312239629 | ISBN-13: 978-0312239626

Cecil B. DeMille, David Selznick, Louella Parsons, Joan Crawford--these legendary men and women built an empire called Hollywood. In Movie Crazy, meet another group of powerful players who shaped the film industry--the fans. MGM, for example, struggled to find a screen name for an actress named Lucille LeSeur. A fan--one of thousands who responded to a contest sponsored by the studio--called her Joan Crawford. Using fan club journals, fan letters, and studio production records, Samantha Barbas reveals how the passion, enthusiasm, and sometimes possessive advocacy of fans transformed early cinema, the modern mass media, and American popular culture. Barbas sheds new light on the development of the cult of celebrity in America, and demonstrates that while fans were avid consumers of the film industry, they did not mindlessly accept the images presented to them by the studios. Fans reacted to movies and stars with excitement, anger, confusion, joy, or boredom. Far from a united force, fans were often complex, and never predictable.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This neatly presented (though not very thorough) work explores how movie fans sought to understand, control and participate in U.S. films from 1900 to 1950. Barbas, a teacher at Arizona State's interdisciplinary studies program, uses distinctive examples and film fan archives to prove that "[t]he story of film fandom, in large part, is the story of the way that fans refused to accept mass culture passively and, instead, became actively involved in their entertainment." She cites some well-known themes, among them the lure of going to Hollywood to be an actress and the desire to know the person presented on-screen an emotion that evolved into star adulation. More interesting are the often unexamined intricacies of the movie fan world, such as the variations among budding movie fan magazines and movie fan club activities like boosting (doing everything one could to publicize a star). Also captivating are the familiar ideas rendered originally, such as the rise of film-related consumerism, which was the film industry's attempt to get "movie-struck girls" to transform their cinematic ambitions into vicarious participation in the Hollywood dream. Throughout, Barbas offers specific examples (on Gable, Crawford and others) and tidy presentations of facts and figures (on fan letters and movie attendance, particularly) in a modest prose style. Esspecially, for those unfamiliar with early film history, this is a useful survey of fandom.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Barbas (interdisciplinary studies, Arizona State Univ.) skillfully traces the development of both celebrity and fan in this thoroughly researched and well-written volume, which covers the years from 1900 to 1950. Fans first wrote letters, then formed structured fan clubs; they read a growing selection of movie periodicals and, ultimately, expressed their strong collective views. As movies became more integral to American life and Hollywood thrived, studios and stars became more conscious of the opinions of fans as active movie consumers. Just how this screen/audience relationship grew, with its complex mutual influence, is at the heart of this book. Stories about the individual fan followings of such stars as Florence Lawrence, Clark Gable, Mary Pickford, and Frank Sinatra with details about specific films, studio associations, and social trends constitute a unique film history with astute commentary and make for fascinating reading. Anyone who has ever admired a movie star, been enthralled by a particular film, or wanted to know more about the Hollywood phenomenon will find this book of interest, while film scholars and students of popular culture should consider it a necessity. Carol J. Binkowski, Bloomfield, NJ
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (November 17, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312239629
• ISBN-13: 978-0312239626
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,809,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting History, October 16, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Movie Crazy: Fans, Stars, and the Cult of Celebrity (Paperback)

I really liked this book. I expected it would take me a month to read, a little here and a little there, but I found it surprisingly exciting and finished it in just one week. I am not a film historian but I am a silent film buff and was especially impressed by the sections on Florence Lawrence, Rudolph Valentino, etc.

The overall thesis is quite persuasive - that it was movie fans, as much as studios, executives, etc. who really determined the quality and character of American movies, at least through the 1950s. Even when studios misled fans (as in their portraying Clark Gable as a rough-and-tough guy in real life), they were doing so because they had already determined what fans wanted in the first place. This book is very well written and free from the sort of annoying jargon that is only of interest to specialists. There is a LOT of information here and a useful index as well. Highly recommended.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good, May 2, 2002

By 

R. Kozlowski (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Movie Crazy: Fans, Stars, and the Cult of Celebrity (Hardcover)

As a primer on the cult of celebrity and the history of film fandom, this is a nice little book. For those who have read dozens of film books, there's not a lot new offered here but it's still a good read. Barbas does a very good job of analyzing the habits of fans and the studios' view of fans. I would have liked to see a further discussion of the fury of Internet-era fandom (Ain't It Cool, etc.) but that's perhaps for another book.