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Title: Beautiful photos, slightly disappointing text
Review: Buy this for the stunning black and white photos generously presented throughout. Many are full-page sized and all are beautifully printed. The text, however, is somewhat disappointing, serving as a rather shallow survey of movies of the early 30's. Historical context is covered well but, for all the pre-code movies that are available on cable these days, this book discusses in depth only the most well known (such as King Kong, It Happened One Night, and Sign of the Cross). Reading this book got me interested in watching pre-code movies, but most of the more interesting films I've seen from that era (Wild Boys of the Road, Safe in Hell, Other Men's Women, Five Star Final) aren't covered here, despite their provocative themes. I'm finding more depth in Thomas Doherty's book Pre-Code Hollywood. But as a coffee-table book of early Hollywood, and perhaps as a mouth-watering introduction to this fascinating era of popular culture, this can't be beat.
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