Customer Reviews

Silent Screens: The Decline and Transformation of the American Movie Theater (Creating the North American Landscape)

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This is not the first picture book of lost American movie houses, and I hope it will not be the last, but while the photo quality is excellent, the text and background leave much to be desired. It does indeed create a nostalgic empathy for its subject, those smaller structures made so famous by that memorable movie of 1971: "The Last Picture Show", and just as it featured a show house in a small Texas town, so this book favors black and white shots ("plates") of picture shows that stand as shadows of what they once were. No attempt is made to delve into the early life or the circumstances of the demise of these venues, so the photos leave the reader with much the vacant, lost, tumbling-tumble-weeds-driven-on-the-wind feeling of the movie.

To its credit, the book does contain two 'necrologies' of sorts: the first is a four-page chapter called "Demolitions Noted" where several hundred movie houses around the nation are listed as gone, featuring, for example, an eight-page spread of the Pekin Th. of Pekin, Illinois being demolished, yet nothing is shown of it in its prime so that the reader could really appreciate that this was a unique Chinese-styled small movie palace of the 'atmospheric' (stars and clouds) type worthy of preservation. Had the author taken the trouble to locate a copy of one of the foremost books on the American movie theatre: AMERICAN MOVIE PALACES by David Naylor, he would have seen on its page 82 a photo of the Pekin Theatre in its pre-demolition prime, and then his photos of it in demolition would have had more context and impact had he sought to include this photo with his. Any research on his part would have disclosed that the photo was owned by one of the founders of the Theatre Historical Society of America which publishes a magazine of such theatre history: "Marquee", and no doubt that photo and many others could have been obtained, but neither the Society nor its magazine are mentioned in the book. Such research is what sets a quality book apart from others of lesser stature, picture book or not.

The second 'necrology' is the chapter entitled: "Conversions Noted" which is perhaps the least depressing in the book since it shows, within its seven pages of listings, that theatres large or small can have other useful lives. An overlooked conversion was the unusual one which occurred in Milwaukee when the 1920 Riviera Th. was converted to a bicycle emporium cum velodrome with a planned bike racing track to be constructed atop the balcony and around the walls under the old chandelier positions with inverted bicycle frames supporting high intensity up-lights as the new 'chandeliers'!

The comentaries by several notables do little to advance scholarship, something one would have expected from a book published by a university press. When the author/photographer explains in the "Conclusion" that he knew nothing of the documented locations of movie houses (few of these here could really qualify to use the term 'theatre') until someone introduced him to the standard of such guides: "The Film Daily Yearbook", it is obvious that scholarship or any real contribution to the body of knowledge was not the genesis of this work. Even one afternoon in any real library would have introduced him to the many volumes on the subject as well as magazines, and had such limited research been done, no doubt the author would have been able to do more than stumble about the towns of America hoping to find a dead show house; he could have given us some background to the origins of this genre and thus put meat on the bones of the photos, good ones though they are.

The book's 100 some pages in the long format are nicely produced, and they may create a longing for more information so absent from this opus, in which case one is well advised to consult the landmark book which its Forward writer described as the "appropriate epitaph" of the movie house: "THE BEST REMAINING SEATS: The Golden Age of the Movie Palace" by the late Ben M. Hall (several editions available here at Amazon). "SILENT SCREENS" is a clever title, and in some depressing way it is more of an epitaph than the former title, yet it is unfulfilling, unless one is satisfied with a vagabond's jaunt with a camera down so many main streets.

A couple of months ago I decided to take photos of all the old and forgotten movie theaters in San Juan (the Cinerama, the Riviera, the Radio City,the Paramount, the Rex).All these places were such a part of my youth that I wanted to capture them before they were torn down. So it was wonderful to see a book of photographs taken by a person with a similar frame of mind. You will love the pictures of neighborhood theaters in Texas, New York. It will make you long for the days of single screen theaters and will bring back some amazing memories. The text written by various movie critics is excellent. I really recommend this book.

This is a wonderful, haunting book, which I think at least one of the previous reviewers here has missed the point of. The point is not to show these theaters in their prime, but rather, in pictures of their present state of decay, to hint at the glories that were. If you're looking for a picture book of grand movie palaces, this isn't it. But if you're looking for something that operates on a different plane, the romance of decay, and the melancholy of a world lost, this is definitely it. For all those who want to let their imaginations loose upon the ruins, this book should provide a field day.

As a projectionist, I felt it my duty to research my trade in as many ways as possible, and one way was to learn about the movie palaces and hometown theatres that made my job exist.
I actually cried as I read this book. The photos made me wish I had been around to experience these theatres in their prime.
This book helped me to understand and respect the movie industry's history, and the history of the American hometown, far better than any factual history book ever has.
This book also inspired me to support my local historical theatres and those around the nation. Mr. Putnam did a wonderful job on this book. The photographs are all of superb quality, and the Demolitions and Conversions Noted sections are extremely interesting. While the photos of the decaying cinemas are depressing, they also inspire one to save the historic theatres that we have left and to learn about their history.

I rarely buy a book immediately after I've read a borrowed copy, but I had to make an exception here. This beautiful and poetic collection of photographs and short essays moves like a dream, though it's a sad dream about a bygone way of life that may have been too good to be true. The book opens with Robert Sklar's essay, which importantly recognizes the fight that trade associations of independent theatre operators put up in order to try to retain local control over cultural cinema offerings; even into the late 30s, most theatres were in small towns and offered a much broader range of movies than we might see today. Unfortunately, major companies, motivated by the lower maintenance and greater revenue from the bigger theatres, eventually dominated cinema and (along with the advent of television) drove most of these screens to near extinction. Molly Haskell's poem, A Wake, mourns a greater loss than this, suggesting that the closing of screens "signaled the passing of a way of being together... families no longer gathered for the big meal in the middle of the day.

The photographs are wide-ranging and honest, capturing the small movie houses in various states of abandonment, disrepair, adaptive re-use (particularly as churches), and even demolition.

This book has a lot of great pictures and does a good job of providing some history on theatres that were once important parts of the landscape and are now mostly forgotten. If you are looking for a history of the large movie palaces, there are many other books you should look at, but if you want to see a history of small town theatres with some great artwork, this is a book you need.

I saw this exibit at the Smithsonian and loved it.

This is a wonderful book. The thick, glossy paper really sets off the photographs-there is real beauty and passion here.