Customer Reviews

"You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet": The American Talking Film History and Memory 1927-1949

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sarris, a writer for the Village Voice among other publications, brings wisdom, wit, and love for the medium to this highly entertaining history of "talkies" from their inception to the decline of the studio system.
After a brief survey of the major studios and an enlightening discussion of genres, the author focuses on the work of the great directors, and, of course, the stars; evaluated affectionately but not uncritically. His appreciation of Garbo alone is worth the price of admission. He concludes with a chapter on "Guilty Pleasures" in which he admits to his weakness for "culturally defenseless" pictures and figures. Sarris' writing, sparkling with original insights on every page, is warm and affectionate and wonderfully free of the academic jargoneering which disfigures so much film criticism. Highly recommended for the serious film buff, and the casual browser alike.

(The "score" rating is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)

This book is a delight for anyone who loves the films of Hollywood's studio-driven "golden age" of the 1930s and 40s. Reading Sarris's (mostly) short essays is like being walked through a film storage vault by a knowledgeable, opinionated old tour guide who's seen every picture and seemingly met everyone who helped to make them. You may not always agree with his take on the pictures you know well, but he's always worth listening to. And you finish the tour ready to spend the next several weekends watching all the great movies that he's pointed out to you.

Sarris's treatments of individual directors are, by a long shot, the best part of the book. His essays on actors, mostly shorter and less comprehensive, are also well worth the reading. The observations on genres and studios seem sketchy by comparison, especially by comparison with books like Ethan Mordden's _Hollywood Studios_. The essays stand well on their own, which makes the book ideal for reading in essay-at-a-time chunks, but keeps it from being a comprehensive introduction to the period.

If you want to read one and only one book on classic Hollywood movies, this isn't it. If you want to read, several, this should certainly be one of them.

This is a magnificent book - Sarris' love for movies and his beautiful writing make reading it a joy. It is selective and very personal, and is filled with the authors reflections based on years of watching and rewatching old Hollywood movies.

The book should not be regarded as a complete survey of the talking film from 1927 to 1949. The early part of the book seems to have been pulled together from various other pieces Sarris has written, as there is repetition of information and key phrases. Some of the pieces seem sketchy or unresolved - for example, his piece on Vivien Leigh seems to be a juxtaposition of a brief glowing tribute and a review of Gone With the Wind - with little reference to her other movies. Sometimes his languange is a little opaque, or his interpretations occasionally seem tenuous. But despite these flaws, I give the book 5 stars for the richness of it's beautiful language and the wealth of fascinating information. This is a book to ignite a passion for old movies.

I only wish Sarris hadn't limited himself to the 1927-1949 period - in the section on the pantheon directors, I often wanted him to continue his survey into the 50s and beyond.

This guy is a treasure, and any of his books, including out of print ones, should be eagerly consumed by film buffs.

I'll never quite understand why Sarris is held in such regard as a critic. I know he "introduced" auteur theory to the states and he certainly seems intelligent enough. His writing, though, is frequently almost incomprehensible. I don't mind a meandering style, but these essays seem barely planned. The utterly pointless academespeak (Buster Keaton saving his father in "Steamboat Bill Jr." is termed "reverse Oedipal" for no clear reason) would lead one to expect a little more structure. I'm still giving this 3 stars though, because there do appear to be some interesting ideas here; they're just hopelessly buried. Case in point is his article about Harold Lloyd. I do understand BASICALLY what Sarris is trying to get at, but it could have been said in a paragraph or so. Towards the beginning of that essay, the reader runs across this unadorned doozy of a line - "It is hard to believe but Getting the Girl [his caps] was once interpreted as a convention that implied acceptance of the capitalist system". Oh really? And we're trying to CONTRAST Lloyd with Keaton and Chaplin? Sarris does manage to make the point that Lloyd was a more conventional figure than the other great silent comedians throughout the essay, but only just barely and only if you keep a close eye on exactly how many times he contradicts himself. I much prefer his "The American Cinema, Directors and Directions 1929-1968". The much shorter essays in that previous book are models of clarity in comparison.

This is a book for film buffs. It is chock full of opinions, many of which you may disagree with. So what? Sarris examines a wide range of subjects (covering the 1927-1949 timeframe) which are organized within five chapters:

The Hollywood Studios ["The Golden Age" at MGM, Paramount, Warner Brothers, 20th-Century-Fox, RKO, Universal, and Columbia]

Genres [eg the musical, gangster film, the horror film, the screwball comedy, the western, the film noir, the war film]

Directors [eg Chaplin, Ford, Hitchcock, Hawks, Welles, Sturges, Wilder, Capra, and Stevens]

Actors and Actresses [eg Garbo, Cagney, Bogart, Davis, Grant, Bergman, Harlow, Fields, the Marx Brothers, Tracy and Hepburn, and Gable and Lombard]

Guilty Pleasures [eg the "B" picture]

Sarris then provides four appendices: Academy Award nominations and winners (1927-1949), New York Critics Circle Awards (1935-1949), Best Directors (1927-1949), and Best Performances (1929-1949). The various lists are interesting but the book's greatest appeal derives from the comprehensive coverage of 22 years of the American talking film's history in combination with Sarris' own opinions about most of those who created that history.

I highly recommend this book to film buffs, not as a definitive history of the period (there is none) nor as the single best source of film criticism (there is none); rather, as a collection of thoughtful, generally well-written essays which inform as well as entertain.

If you are a film buff and if, after reading this book you are motivated to see films you have not as yet seen or to see once again films you last saw years ago, Sarris will have achieved what seems to be his primary objective.

This is a comprehensive survey of the early years of the American sound film. You may not always agree with the author (I don't always) but he is always worth reading and is never dull. Sarris is excellent on all manner of film genres, stars, directors, etc. He is a key writer on John Ford and on Alfred Hitchcock, for example. You cannot often predict which way he will go and he does seem to have slightly modified his previous auteur (director is the author of the film) theories, derived from French critics- he acknowledges the influence of actors in some instances more than before. I love this book!

Sarris has the reputation of promoting the Auteur theory in American during a time when the French of Cahiers were promoting it in Europe. This book written in the 1990s is a reflection and re-evaluation of the period. Sarris credits directors, but also sites many of the important actors in film history that overshadow the style of direction. The approach helps to create a balance of thought rather than the dogmatic approach many film theorists have pushed for decades.

I think Sarris's greatest accomplishment in the book is his separation of the directors given too much credit for their pretentious material versus the talented directors given too little credit for their genre films. It helps that I too like Howard Hawks westerns better than John Ford westerns, a good example of how Sarris approaches the material.

The older Sarris also make amends for earlier comments he feels were unfortunate. He thinks that he was too hard on Billy Wilder in his 1960s classic, The American Cinema: Directors And Directions 1929-1968. Having read both I tend to think he ignored Billy Wilder the auteur writer and focused on his directing efforts in the earlier book. Wilder proved to be a good director of actors, but it's usually his witty writing you remember when you see a film, not what the camera was doing.

Reading the book I wish more modern film critics would look at the current era of film making in the way that Sarris looks at the masters.

This is indeed a book for film buffs. It is chock full of opinions, many of which you may disagree with. So what? Sarris examines a wide range of subjects (covering the 1927-1949 timeframe) which are organized within five chapters:

The Hollywood Studios ["The Golden Age" at MGM, Paramount, Warner Brothers, 20th-Century-Fox, RKO, Universal, and Columbia]

Genres [e.g. the musical, gangster film, the horror film, the screwball comedy, the western, the film noir, the war film]

Directors [e.g. Chaplin, Ford, Hitchcock, Hawks, Welles, Sturges, Wilder, Capra, and Stevens]

Actors and Actresses [e.g. Garbo, Cagney, Bogart, Davis, Grant, Bergman, Harlow, Fields, the Marx Brothers, Tracy and Hepburn, and Gable and Lombard]

Guilty Pleasures [e.g. the "B" picture]

Sarris then provides four appendices: Academy Award nominations and winners (1927-1949), New York Critics Circle Awards (1935-1949), Best Directors (1927-1949), and Best Performances (1929-1949). The various lists are interesting but the book's greatest appeal derives from the comprehensive coverage of 22 years of the American talking film's history in combination with Sarris' own opinions about most of those who created that history.

I highly recommend this book to film buffs, not as a definitive history of the period (there is none) nor as the single best source of film criticism (there is none); rather, as a collection of thoughtful, generally well-written essays which inform as well as entertain.

If you are a film buff and if, after reading this book you are motivated to see films you have not as yet seen or to see once again films you last saw years ago, Sarris will have achieved what seems to be his primary objective.

This is a comprehensive survey of the early years of the American sound film. You may not always agree with the author (I don't always) but he is always worth reading and is never dull. Sarris is excellent on all manner of film genres, stars, directors, etc. He is a key writer on John Ford and on Alfred Hitchcock, for example. You cannot often predict which way he will go and he does seem to have slightly modified his previous auteur (director is the author of the film) theories, derived from French critics- he acknowledges the influence of actors in some instances more than before. I love this book!

Whether or not you place much stock in the auteur theory popularized Stateside by Sarris and others a generation ago, he's clearly an important film critic well-versed in 30s cinema; thus I greatly looked forward to devouring this unsatisfying book. Maybe he spent TOO much time composing these essays. The tone veers from windy, knitted-brow over-intellectualizing to the gushiest fan-magazine sucrose this side of PHOTOPLAY magazine. Much of it is reasonably readable, and here and there Sarris offers little gems of observation and insight, but for the most part YOU AIN'T HEARD NOTHIN' YET! tries to steer a course between creamy nostalgia and hard-headed analysis, foundering often. Still worthwhile reading for younger cineastes just discovering the films of the 1930s, our richest-ever decade of great filmmaking.