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Great Movie Shorts, The

Those Wonderful One-and-Two-Reelers of the Thirties and Forties

Author: Leonard Maltin
Hardback: 236 pages
Publisher: Bonanza Books (1972)
Avg. Rating: [10.00/10]
In Print? No

The Three Stooges and their Columbia Pictures shorts are prominently featured, with a full chapter, in this necessary reference tool for any serious film historian and fan.

From the book jacket...

" "Time was," says Pete Smith in his foreword to this book, "when an exhibitor would no more think of omitting one or more shorts and a newsreel from his program than he would have kept his theatre closed on New Years Eve." Well, times have changed, and the day when going to the movies meant seeing a cartoon, a comedy or a musical, and a newsreel is gone forever. But this book brings that exciting era alive again in an informative and nostalgic look at the great short subjects of the 1930s and 1940s [and 1950s] --- the wonderful "Our Gang" comedies, Robert Benchley's tongue-in-cheek lectures, the bedroom farces of Leon Errol, the fascinating exposes of "Crime Does Not Pay" and many, many more. The biggest names in show business were part of this wonderful world --- Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Laurel & Hardy, W. C. Fields, Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon, Ruth Etting. And the field created its own stars as well: Edgar Kennedy, Andy Clyde, Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly, John Nesbitt, Pete Smith and Charley Chase.

They're all here, in pictures and words, as Leonard Maltin tells the story of these dedicated people who did more with ten or twenty minutes on the screen than many people could do with ninety.

The Great Movies Shorts is an invaluable reference work with complete data (cast, director, release date, studio, synopsis) of over 1,000 short subjects --- in large part, material that has never appeared in print. With the proliferation of talent in front of and behind the camera, these filmographies will be of great use to film scholars, students and buffs. From slapstick to newsreels, from musicals to travelogues, The Great Movie Shorts tells the whole story of a bygone era of moviemaking that grows more fascinating with every passing year."


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