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Recently we reviewed Leonard Maltin's massive annual Movie Guide. While that doorstep of a book contains over 18,000 entries, every year over 300 new films come along that have to be included. Inevitably, approximately 300 listings disappeared. In an attempt to re-capture this information, film buffs would keep several previous editions, thus taking up valuable bookshelf space that could be used to store the latest biography of Alan Mowbray or Walter Catlett. Mr Maltin's latest creation, CLASSIC MOVIE GUIDE, goes a long way to seeing that his earlier volumes will find their way to a book-friendly thrift shop. This volume, with 9000 plus entries, recaptures just about all of the titles pushed out the back door of the Movie Guide by the latest new films to go into post-theatrical release. Usually a book's introduction is fairly dull going, but leave it to Mr Maltin to make it an interesting read. He explains the genesis of the CMG and then goes on to elaborate that not only does this volume contain the material missing from the regular series, but that over 1000 new entries were also added -- films thought too obscure for the mainstream guide, including B Westerns, silent films and foreign movies. There follows some fascinating information on checking the accuracy of these new entries and while the importance of getting the release date of a film exactly right might seem a bit recherche, not to mention recondite, in these days when PhD theses are being written on The Semiotics Of The Cinema Of Pauly Shore, such minutiae takes on a new importance. A quick way of capturing the spirit and tone of the book would be to describe it as a guide to the type of films shown on Turner Classic Movies, that paragon of cable TV channels that has seemingly unlimited respect for the integrity of vintage films. This can be confirmed by dipping into the book at any point and coming up with such gems as Hi, Nellie!, a 1934 newspaper yarn starring Paul Muni and Glenda Farrell, directed by Mervyn Leroy. Where else would one find the fascinating fact that the film was remade three times under the titles Love Is In The Air, You Can't Escape Forever and The House Across The Street. And should I start to worry that I am perhaps one of 12 people in the world who find that information at all interesting. As with the senior volume, the back pages are devoted to a cross-reference to the films listed searchable by actor or director. These are also fascinating to browse. Almost an entire column of small type is given to listing the films directed by Michael Curtiz, who Peter Ustinov once related had a major communication problem since he had forgotten all his Hungarian and never bothered to learn English (which is a tribute to the cast and crew of Casablanca's ability to understand meaningful gestures.).
Reviewed by Rudy Franchi, October 2005
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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