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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Just About Every Actress Who Ever Screamed in Movies!!!,
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This review is from: Scream Queens: Heroines of the Horrors (Paperback)
I just loved this book. "Scream Queens" features chapters on just about
every actress who ever screamed in the movies. Beck has written very informative mini-biographies on some really wonderful actresses. From old favourites like Brigitte Helm, Mary Philbin, Fay Wray, Joan Crawford, Mae Clarke (there is a huge chapter on Barbara Steele) to rather interesting ones ie Diana Dors, Patty McCormack, Hazel Court, Acquanetta and Vampira - there is an excellent overall view of their careers with special emphasis on their horror roles. The book is dedicated to Barry Brown, an up and coming actor and enthusiastic film historian, who, unfortunately, took his own life before the book was published. He did an excellent chapter on Katharine Victor. I didn't know who she was before but after, I felt I did. Two complaints I have - 1. There was some extensive interview quotations in the Mary Philbin and Brigitte Helm chapters. In the Helm chapter there is a 6 column interview from 1932 where the reporter compares Helm to Eleanora Duse and dismisses Louise Brooks as a flash in the pan. In the Philbin chapter there is a 2 column review from 1923 on "Temple of Venus" which I thought wasn't very relevant to her career. 2. I know it is nitpicking but there were a few omissions - Zita Johann was a terrific "scream queen" in "The Mummy", I thought, likewise Helen Chandler in "Dracula". Gloria Stuart, to me was a major omission whose roles in "The Old Dark House", "The Invisible Man" and "The Secret of the Blue Room" should have given her a chapter at the expense of people like Hope Summers whose main film role was as a supporting player in "Rosemary's Baby" and Helena Carter with a main role in "Invaders From Mars" but with little else on her acting resume. Those complaints aside, it is an excellent book and the thing I like about books written in those older times is the fact that the stars, their friends and family were usually still alive to tell what it was really like to live in those glorious days of the silver screen.
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