Allan Dwan and the Rise and Decline of the Hollywood Studios Paperback – March 15, 2013

Very fast shipping good book

The name Allan Dwan pops up in lots of movie memoirs and biographies, especially silent movie books and documentaries. I didn't know anything about Dwan and jumped on this book when I found it.Allan Dwan was prolific, hardworking and gifted. He made good movies, brought them in on budget and deadline. No prima donna. He had industry-wide respect. He was also a very likeable, friendly, caring man.I enjoyed the book. It is well researched, thorough and very readable. I highly recommend it to movie lovers, people interested in the silent era, and anyone who enjoys biographies of successful people, especially who did it nice.

This is an excellent book for both the serious student of film history and the more casual film history buff.The amount of research is phenomenal but the meticulous scholarship is presented in a style that is imminently readable and entertaining.Mr.Lombardi has done a marvelous job of examining the long career of a less well known movie pioneer and of proving his relevance to all of film history.If you are already familiar with Allan Dwan you will appreciate the manner in which his career is detailed and if you are not,you will come away with a new understanding and appreciation of the early days of movie making.

A well-done piece about an oft-overlooked Hollywood legend. My interest was his time as the starting QB at Notre Dame.

It just never took off for me. Rambling. I couldn't finish it, which is a drag, because I love film.

Allan Dwan is one of the sadly neglected film directors of early Hollywood. He worked from the earliest days of the industry (starting in 1911), through Hollywood's 1930s-40s heyday, into the early television era, all the way into the early 1960s. He worked with some of the biggest names in the industry, ranging from D.W. Griffith, Douglas Fairbanks, Cecil B. DeMille and Mary Pickford in the silent era, and into the sound era with Tyrone Power, Loretta Young, Shirley Temple, the Ritz Brothers, Randolph Scott, Lucille Ball, Jack Oakie, John Wayne, Jane Russell, Barbara Stanwyck, Virginia Mayo, Anthony Quinn, Ray Milland, and Dana Andrews, to name just a few.The book is a thorough (370 pages) document of Dwan's life and work. Mr. Lombardi has done a great job of bringing Dwan to life while covering all his films in great detail. I particularly like the fact that he gives equal attention to his silent and sound era work. Some authors would have spent 10 pages on the silent films and then hundreds on the Shirley Temple films. This book doesn't get to the sound era until we are 170 pages in! It has a complete filmography, a very good index and an extensive set of footnotes at the back.This is a must own for those interested in classic cinema. I just have one trivial complaint...it appears to only be available in softcover. I wish there was a hardcover addition available because my softbound copy is already showing signs of wear I've thumbed through it so many times.