Moviola

This book laid on the shelves in my Mother's house for years. It sometimes lived in the bathroom, sometimes her bedroom, but most often in the hallway bookshelf. It looked well loved and one day before a trip I picked it up on a whim. I thought the cover looked iinteresting.It was quite an epic tale that chronicles the history of motion pictures in America and of one man's survival in the business.I recall reading another book by Garson Canin that talked about working with Samuel Goldwyn and the stories that Goldwyn would tell Canin turn up in this book so it came across as a loosely biographical/fictional account of his life beginning with the Nickelodeons, Immigrants in New York and the common theme of the American Dream.It is a vast tale that is told from a number of different perspectives which can be a little distracting at times, and you see how a person is knocked down, keeps going, and is all too human. Plus it has every person in Hollywood who ever existed. It is like a Mike Todd all-star cast in book form. Anything that could happen does and one is left exhausted after the tale.I suggest this to those who love anything old Hollywood, the behind the scenes, and multi-generational stories.