Customer Reviews

Movie Crazy: Fans, Stars, and the Cult of Celebrity

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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.

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.