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

~ (Author), Robert Sklar (Introduction) "There's a tendency to rhapsodize about the lost world of small-town and urban neighborhood moviegoing, the prime years of which ran from the mid-1920s until..." (more)
Key Phrases: Church of God

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The boarded-up movie theaters in Michael Putnam's Silent Screens wear their faded glamour like battered hats. Putnam's photographs, taken with an 8 by 10 view camera, are starkly formalistic: the boxy, Art Deco theaters are largely shot head-on and centrally placed in the frame, making the viewer conscious of minute variations in detail and texture. The stylized neon marquees that read 'Ritz,' 'Lux,' or 'Judy' contrast with the blank peeling facades, as if we can see the dream palace that once was and the shell it has become." -- Eric P. Nash, New York Times Book Review

"Several years after The Last Picture Show, Larry McMurtry hoped for 'some present-day Walker Evans' to document the abandoned theaters of his youth, and [Michael] Putnam has answered his wish." -- New Yorker

"Disused small-town and neighborhood movie theaters are to photographer Putnam what the decrepit churches and storefronts of the rural South were to Walker Evans: objects that, austerely photographed in their decline, can cause us to reflect... As you study Putnam's well-composed and well-lit photographs of abandoned theaters, a pang for the lost past inevitably afflicts you. Even more saddening is his record of conversions -- theaters turned into evangelical churches, bookshops, banks, restaurants, a swimming pool." -- Richard Schickel, Wilson Quarterly

"Haunting, edgy, black-and-white photos... accompanied by commentary on love, loss and change by Larry McMurty, Peter Bogdanovich, Andrew Sarris, Molly Haskell, Chester H. Liebs and John Hollander." -- Publishers Weekly

"A haunting portrait of the gradual decline of cinemas in small-town America. Putnam's book is a superb example of a documentary project's ability to arrest particular, concrete situations -- and their attending emotional counterparts -- and thereby illuminate the social and economic movements that engender them." -- DoubleTake

"Takes us back to the wonderful world of the small hometown theater -- not as they were but what they have become. A wonderful chronicle of a time when twenty-five cents was the price of an afternoon of entertainment and a soda." -- Route 66 Magazine

"Evocative enough to make a viewer nostalgic for places he has never been." -- Kevin Riordan, Cherry Hill Courier-Post

"These poignant and often distressing pictures of boarded-up neighborhood bijous speak volumes about main-street moviegoing in decades past, as opposed to the multiplex experience of today." -- Playboy

"Michael Putnam's strikingly beautiful photographs document American movie theaters and the passing of that era in American culture. They penetrate the barrier that traditionally separates significant aesthetic achievement and historical events. Such is the contribution, historically, of great documentary photography." -- James L. Enyeart, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"The remnants of a bygone era are documented in Michael Putnam's Silent Screens. These poignant and often distressing pictures of boarded-up neighborhood bijous speak volumes about main-street moviegoing in decades past, as opposed to the multiplex experience of today." -- Leonard Maltin

Book Description

Starkly beautiful photos of abandoned and converted movie theaters -- with new essays by Peter Bogdanovich, Molly Haskell, Andrew Sarris, and Chester H. Liebs

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (July 3, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801863295
• ISBN-13: 978-0801863295
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #399,623 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A PICTURE BOOK THAT COULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH MORE, October 17, 2000

By	James H. Rankin (Milwaukee, Wis. USA) - See all my reviews

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.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderfully nostalgic book, July 22, 2000

By A Customer

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful "Screens", April 9, 2001

By	Dale W. Boyer (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.