Horror Film Stars
by Michael R. Pitts
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Book Summary Information
Author: Michael R. PittsEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-01-09
ISBN: 0786410523
Number of pages: 576
Publisher: Mcfarland & Co Inc Pub
Book Reviews of Horror Film Stars
Book Review: Would be fundamental if not so flawed
Summary: 2 Stars
A great concept - a who's who of cinema's creepy neighbor kid, the horror film - is on the surface quite good. If one just has a general interest in the field, the book is incredible just in its scope. Actors and actresses from the classic masters (Chaney - both ones, Karloff, Lugosi) to ones such as Jamie Lee Curtis are covered, with Evelyn Ankers, Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloan, Lionel Atwill, Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Claude Rains, and even Fay Wray thrown in for good measure.
However, it does have some issues. Firstly, since the title is "Horror Film Stars" it would help to have some of the behind the scenes sort of stars included - folks like Jack Pierce, James Whale, Murnau, whether they be directors or other artists one cannot ignore their contributions. Sceondly, the book has a wierd habit of including pages on some person that I'd wager most people never heard of that did only a handful of films and neglecting several others. Book is fairly comprehensive, but there are still quite a few performers missing, the biggest modern exclusion I can think of being Robert Englund - Freddy, and several supporting heavies like Ralph Bellamy and Patric Knowles. (Valerie Hobson but no Mae Clarke?)The third problem is the vastness of typos. I'll allow, I know most about the Universal Monsters heavies with a bit of Price for good measure, so I can't speak about all, but in many entries I caught errors ranging from simple typo to those along the "what???" avenue. Differences in costume and makeup components, differing names for spouses and children, incorrect dates / personal history, etc. may be small but they add up and at the end of the book I found myself wondering how many omissions there were overall in the bios of the actors I didn't know about.
In total, an OK book for reading but I would advise taking things light.
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