Choice Review
Freelance archaeologist and prolific writer Bahn provides a misleading title that indulges his personal fascination with Hollywood history. Less a popular work of archaeology than a tour book, the work explores the physical spaces of the famous town as related to the film industry. After an introduction and examination of the actual site of the filming of DeMille's 1923 film The Ten Commandments, Bahn organizes his commentary by discussing the industrial core, entertainment areas, residential sections, pilgrimage sites, and cemeteries. The organization is good, but the execution is largely superficial, with each of dozens of sites given a paragraph or less, a few facts about its physical location, architectural style, and associated film stars and events, and often ending with a punch line about the site becoming a parking lot. Examples include the original Fox Studios, the Brown Derby restaurant, and Rudolph Valentino's home. While he mentions some of their functions (some photographs are included), Bahn provides little analysis of the dynamics associated with the evolution of the town from an archaeological perspective. Frequent comments about what future archaeologists might make of the place are distracting. A large section and an appendix are devoted to burial places of the stars. --Jeffery C. Wanser, Hiram College
Library Journal Review
Cinema has been powerfully shaped by Hollywood, yet few Americans realize how much of its physical history in Tinseltown has been lost. It's not just the loss of the early films themselves-only ten to 20 percent have survived-but also that studios, film sets, celebrity homes, movie palaces, costumes, props, equipment, hotels, and restaurants have all but disappeared. Bahn's (Disgraceful Archaeology; Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice) latest is aptly subtitled, because, as he reveals, traces are all that are left of early Hollywood. The author examines those remnants through a pop culture lens, moving from industrialized areas to the final resting places of the early industry giants and several areas in between. It is evident that Bahn enjoyed writing this book, both when rooting through the vestiges of an almost vanished era as well as disproving the myth that archaeologists only investigate the long-distant past. VERDICT This title will circulate well in public libraries and will be of interest to those fascinated by the iconography of Hollywood, early film history, and digging through the past.-Teri Shiel, Univ. of -Connecticut Health Ctr. Lib., Farmington (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
