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Out With the Stars: Hollywood Nightlife in the Golden Era
Jim Heimann
Manufacturer: Abbeville Press
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Customer Reviews:
A Real Treasure!.......2004-06-27
This is one of those books I can't recommend highly enough if you love old Hollywood or the flamboyant architecture and graphic design of Hollywood in the 20's - 50's. I picked it up on a cut-out table in New York about 10 years ago and have come to appreciate it as one of the best books in my library - in fact it's one of those books that is always getting borrowed from friends who are graphic designers or work at ad agencies looking for inspiration.
Jim Heimann deserves much praise for assembling what is obviously a huge labor of love with lots of great photos and illustrations that you will never see anywhere else - everything from cocktail napkins and matchbooks to beautiful interior photography and paparazzi pics of the stars at play.
Also I'd like to disagree with the review - I actually found the writing in the book to be pretty engaging. It's fairly straightforward and to the point., luckily since there is a lot of history to cover.
Anyway it's an amazing book that I would highly recommend.
Book Description
" The Night Club Era should rate as a Broadway Koran. Other books on the subject are unnecessary if they agree with it, wrong if they differ from it, and in either case should be burned." -- Alva Johnston, from the Introduction
Written in the aftermath of Prohibition, Stanley Walker's The Night Club Era is a lively and idiosyncratic account of the people and places that defined New York's night life during the era of "the great American madness." Here we meet murderers and millionaires, gangsters, bartenders, celebrities of the stage, screen, and society, and a host of other colorful characters who populated the city's diverse night clubs, from El Fey to the Cotton Club. Walker relives the "night of incredulous sadness" on which the Volstead Act went into effect, visits a classic speakeasy, discussing the owner's delicate arrangements with policemen, prohibition agents, and bootleggers, and details the frequently brutal swindles practiced in the city's numerous clip joints and the tactics of the era's crime organizations, explaining precisely what happens when one is "taken for a ride." Among the larger-than-life night club habitués Walker sketches are Owney Madden, the elder statesman of the city's rackets; Walter Winchell, America's most influential columnist and the "brash historian of our life and times"; Mayor James J. Walker, who typified the gaudiness, smartness, and insouciance of the city he ran, yet was never too refined to shoot dice on hotel room floors; and Texas Guinan, the beloved entertainer, hostess, and entrepreneur who greeted customers with her trademark phrase "Hello, sucker!" Vividly told, The Night Club Era offers a singular, serious -- though never sober -- history of New York City during Prohibition.
Book Description
Murder Was Never So Much Fun!
When Disco Bloodbath was first published, it created a storm of controversy for its startlingly vivid, strikingly fresh, and outrageously funny depiction of the hedonistic world of the New York City club kids, for whom nothing was too outré -- including murder. Nominated for the Edgar Award for best true-crime book of the year, it also marked the debut of an audaciously talented writer, James St. James, who himself had been a club kid and close friend and confidant of Michael Alig, the young man convicted of killing the drug dealer known as Angel.
Now the book has been brought to the screen as Party Monster, with Macaulay Culkin playing killer Michael Alig and Seth Green as author/celebutante James St. James.
Customer Reviews:
Simply fabulous tale of true murder in clubland.......2007-08-05
James St. James was part of the fantastic and drug-ridden New York club scene in the 80's, even before the birth of the "Club Kids" phenomenon. Not just gays and drag queens, but truly remarkable parties with bizarre themes. It was a time when everyone knew everyone from the scene, and the drug dealers were known by all. One evening in 1996, riding a drug-induced fugue, James finds himself at Michael Alig's apartment. Over scones and heroin, Michael confesses to James that he's killed the drug dealer named Angel. This is where the story starts.
James then fills in the holes, the entire atmosphere of the clubs and the etiquette involved. A "who's who" and "what's what" leading up to the announcement of murder. His tale is told in fabulously over-the-top drama, complete with capitols for punctuation. It's amazing that any one of the "club kids" survived all the drugs, degradations, partying, and out-and-out revelry of their wild clubbing life.
'Party Monster' is a fast read: fun, funny, tragic, spinning out of control, filled with bizarre fashion tips ... an expose of an outrageous lifestyle. Never before has a tale of murder been told with such squealing, zealous, zany prose. James St. James brings the scene to life, introducing us to the Michael Alig he knew long before the bizarre murder of the unlikable drug dealer Angel. Get ready for a wild ride when you pick up this book. This is James St. James first novel, I plan on picking up more of his work. This book is definitely work a peek. I plan on renting the movie also. Enjoy!
Great Look into a Different World.......2007-07-10
I had no clue about the whole New York underground club scene. This book definitely brings that to life. Oddly, despite the fact that it is both a memoir and true crime book, you will find yourself laughing frequently. Rest assured that this is one of (if not the) only true crime books that you will read that will have you laughing, unfortunately, it was difficult to garner sympathy for the victim, or any of the other characters for that matter. But read this book it is great.
Aaahh..the good old days!.......2007-05-16
I really enjoyed reading this book. It made me want to know Michael and James. I wish James would write a follow up. I'd love to know what the surviving club kids are up to these days.
Angel's go to Heaven?.......2007-02-04
Okay, I had 3 finals in my college classes and piles of homework and I bought this book. Big mistake. I said I would read the first chapter then put it down. Six hours later I put it down. This book will hold you, grab you, and not let go. I don't agree with the principles of drugs and drag queens but they're people too and James St. James brings them to life on the page. I made C's on my finals. It was sooooo worth it.
Simply Fun.......2007-01-31
This book is written so well you will forget you are reading about murder. I highly recommend this book as a fun-to-read item while taking a plane flight.
Book Description
Liz Goldwyn's lifelong fascination with the inimitable glamour of classic burlesque inspired her to spend the past eight years corresponding with, visiting, interviewing, receiving striptease lessons from, and forming close relationships with the last generation of the great American burlesque queeens. Goldwyn invites us to step back into an era when the hourglass figure was in vogue and striptease was a true art form.
Meet Betty "Ball of Fire" Rowland, who was known for her flaming red hair and bump–and–grind routines. (It turns out she once sued the author's grandfather, Samuel Goldwyn Jr., for using her stage name and costume in his Hollywood picture, Ball of Fire.)
Meet Sherry Britton, who, with her long black hair and curvy, trim physique, was among the most stunning of the burlesque stars before Mayor LaGuardia outlawed burlesque in New York.
Meet Zorita, whose sexually explicit "Consummation of the Wedding of the Snake" dance (performed with a live snake) and other daring performances earned her legendary status.
Goldwyn draws back the curtain to reveal the personal journeys of yesteryear's icons of female sexuality and power, restoring their legacy to an age that has all but forgotten them–despite today's resurgence of burlesque.
Customer Reviews:
ture love.......2007-03-15
the book is very dazzling ,and it would be my ture love for the passed Age.
A Fine Tribute.......2007-02-28
An artistic design layout provides the reader with lots of photos and scrapbook pages of original costume sketches, fabric swatches, letters, postcards, and lots more. This visual collage is a wonderful piece of film toward understanding the life these women lived. Their attitude and sex appeal as we know it only disguised the reality of their life, tough working conditions and a career contingent of youth and beauty eventually leading these women to fall on hard times and in the end forgotten.
A 'must' for any holding strong in American arts history.......2007-02-03
If the book title sounds familiar, it's because Liz Goldwyn's HBO documentary of the same name aired in July 2005 to much acclaim, covering the history of American burlesque. If you think you've seen it all in the show, think again: the book holds much more! Here are personal stories, career overviews, and biographies of some of the most talented genre stars. Burlesque history comes alive here as in no other collection, making PRETTY THINGS a 'must' for any holding strong in American arts history, from general-interest to college-level libraries.
Highly recommended!.......2007-01-11
An enlightening look at a largely misunderstood/misinterpreted art form, this book combines rigorous scholarship, engaging narrative, rare photos, and well-executed design. Liz Goldwyn's love of the subject matter is clear and infectious. Highly recommended, as is the author's HBO special of the same name.
Proving there's no 'burly' in burlesque.......2007-01-10
"Pretty Things" will make any modernist long for this by-gone era of subtle seduction and skill. The text and incorporated research are as beguiling as the photographs and innovative mix of graphics. A piece to swoon over and share with all.
Book Description
For the first time, stunning images of the women of the burlesque stage are gathered together in one great volume. In period photographs the timeless beauty of those exotic women who titillated, teased, and sometimes tortured their audiences is captured and celebrated. These memorable images make it clear that, when it comes to a beautiful body and a gorgeous face, tastes change very little. And just as in the past, the imagination is encouraged to run wild and ponder what might have been. This is a book to relax with and enjoy over and over again. Its rich, nostalgic view of a bygone era in American entertainment will please everyone, men and women alike. A "revealing" piece of Americana!
Customer Reviews:
A Time-Capsule of Burlesque.......2004-10-11
Marvelous collection of vintage photos assembled into a lovely coffee-table book. It's difficult to remember that most of these photos were taken a half century ago because the quality is so spectacular.
Suggested companion reading:
"The Bare Truth" - Len Rothe
"Gypsy" - Gypsy Rose Lee
"Minsky's Burlesque" - Morton Minsky
"My G-String Mother" - Erik Lee Preminger
"This Was Burlesque" - Ann Corio
June Cleaver they ain't.......2001-03-05
Mr.Rothe has lovingly put together the photographs of burlesque stars and forgotten performers that would have appeared in publicity packages, coming attractions posters,lobby cards, and advertisments fifty years ago. Not all of the women are conventionally beautiful, and their costumes would be considered less than risque by current standards. These are women that time and mainstream history have ignored.The exsistence of their images is important: for feminists, for people interested in the history of costume, for modern consumers of sex work, for those that think of Doris Day as being the penultimate 1950's woman. Enjoy this piece of work and contemplate where these lovely ladies are now...
Amazon.com
To Marx Brothers fans who have yet to read this book: Put it off as long as you can, because once you are finished, you will wish you could read it again for the first time. Harpo's life was interesting in itself, but it also frequently intersected with the lives of other fascinating people, most notably his own brothers and drama critic Alexander Woolcott. Marx also was part of the legendary Algonquin Round Table; he's got plenty to say about that. Wait'll you hear about what it means to "throw a Gookie." You'll never be able to watch a Marx Brothers movie again without looking for the Gookie!
Book Description
"This is a riotous story which is reasonably mad and as accurate as a Marx brother can make it. Despite only a year and a half of schooling, Harpo, or perhaps his collaborator, is the best writer of the Marx Brother. Highly recommended." -Library Journal "A funny, affectionate and unpretentious autobiography done with a sharply professional assist from Rowland Barber." -New York Times Book Review
Customer Reviews:
Interesting and captivating.......2007-05-24
What a great look into an interesting life of the silent one. I read it twice!!
..... And one duck egg!.......2007-05-16
This book should be standard issue to every human being who wants to know what a well-lived life consists of! What an extraordinary person graces us with the story of his life and a look at the lives of his famous family members! Told with such engaging warmth, Harpo's story continually challanges us to wake up and realize that, like the author, it isn't so much whether you're sleeping in a palace or a harp case...eating caviar or turnip soup...that determines what your life is worth and how fulfilled you are. Nearly indescribable in its charm, this is a books to be read again and again.
Reader Speaks on "Harpo Speaks" Autobiography.......2007-03-31
This gem of a book spotlights the childhood years and adult life of legendary harpist and comedian, Harpo Marx. Having read many of Groucho's books, which are often "tongue in cheek," I find it refreshing to read a sincere, thoughtful account by and about Harpo. A sweeter man, totally in love with life, you will not find in any book. The narrative is engaging and offers a glimpse not only of the great vaudeville comedian turned film entertainer, but also of the history of vaudeville, New York City in the late 1800s/early 1900s, the New York intellectual/art scene, and more. Read the book, and then pop into the DVD player a Marx Brothers movie to view a Harpo performance on harp. Harpo is unforgettable.
Harpo Speaks! And speaks, he does!.......2007-02-07
One of the best books I've ever read, and that is saying something because I have never read a nonfiction book cover to cover in my life, and I laughed my way through this one easily enough. Not only is it entertaining and funny to boot, but it tells the evolution of the trade mark costume of Harpo, sheds light on the real Marx brothers, tells the story of his harp fasination, and reveals the story of the funny face he makes when he puffs out his cheeks, crosses his eyes, and sticks out his tongue a little (it's called a "Gookies"). Harpo wrote one heck of a book when he wrote this, and it reads quickly, at least, it did for me.
If you have any interest in the Marx Brothers at all, this is the book for you!
A sweet spirit speaks.......2007-01-13
I'm not sure what the ingredients are to this man's alchemy--parts humility, gentleness, astute observation unclogged with snooty education, and complete anarchy, the kind that brings down goverments--but I've never had such an intense, wistful desire to have known somebody in my life. This book gets less than five stars merely because the style of "little Arthur Marx's" collaborator (I'm assuming) can get so old-tyme movie magazine/Hedda Hopper/name-dropper that it's painful.
But, barring the ocassional style snaffu, Harpo's sweet nature comes out almost at every turn. And thrillingly, every name he drops is huge. Kaufmann, Parker, Ruth Gordon, Rachmanninoff, Rimsky-Korsikov, Hearst et Davies, the bizarre and brilliant Oscar Levant...on and on and on. The section on Levant alone would have made a delicious book.
"I got the impression when I was little", writes his son, Bill, "That vaudeville was this marvelous, mythical kingdom where fathers and uncles came from". Harpo and his brothers grew up poor, hungry and Jewish in fin de siècle New York's upper East Side. He writes of his mother's dream for her five boys--the stage, a ticket out of the slums and poverty--and what happened when they finally hit it big after years of dives and buggy flophouse beds. Vaudeville itself is one the main characters of the book.
As is the giant personality of Alexander Woollcott, his closest and oldest friend. If I understand this correctly, Woollcott and Marx and the rest of the Algonquins pranked each other for almost twenty years.
Their gags crossed continents and oceans. Their summer together on the Riviera is one of the most loony periods of his life--flashing George Bernard Shaw, crashing millionairess' cotillions, being seduced by stars into...reading them comics. I swear this is much funnier than I'm telling it, and more impressive. France would never be the same.
Neither, oddly, would Russia, which he visited in the early thirties, just when the starvation, murder and purges were gearing up full blast. In his capacity as "professional listener" (and watcher)--and as a guy that never seems to think much of himself--Harpo talks to and quotes everyone: Jewish stagehands ("At least here there are no pogroms") , theatre promoters, Soviet party big-wigs, spies ("Da. I understand. Is joke...") .
After all the lunacy, his settled married life seems to have been very satisfying. He certainly seems to have been the ideal father to his wife Susan's sensible Mom. Okay, who am I trying to kid? He sounds like the PERFECT father, a goofy Atticus Finch, if you will. No wonder Susan, his wife, tracked him down and finagled an invite to the Goldwyn's to meet him, and hung around for months while he waffled. It's so romantic it will make your toes curl with pleasure.
As Arthur Marx ages, this book becomes increasingly poignant. Where does all that youthful silliness and energy go, as one slows down? If the last few pages, set in a Vegas casino with an old friend, don't make you weep with the recognition of the place in our lives where we accept our limits--then you have a heart of stone. Beautiful.
A simply heartrending Afterword by Harpo's son Bill completes the book. "I miss him," he writes. "Harpo I can see on the late show, along with my crazy uncles. It's Dad that I miss." We do too, Bill.
Average customer rating:
- A Lifetime of Research on Vaudeville -
- A Trans-Atlantic view
- Outstanding vaudeville history
- The Best Vaudeville Book Ever
- Vaudeville - Brought Back to Life
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Vaudeville, Old and New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America, 2 volumes
Frank Cullen ,
Florence Hackman , and
Donald McNeilly
Manufacturer: Routledge
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ASIN: 0415938538 |
Book Description
This is a one-of-a-kind reference work to the history of vaudeville, performance art, burlesque, revue, and comic opera. Author Frank Cullen has done deep research, including archival work and personal interviews, to uncover the rich history of this American art form. Most of the artists profiled here are not examined in other reference books. This will be a must-have for students of theater history and performance art, and also for anyone interested in the cultural history of America.
Customer Reviews:
A Lifetime of Research on Vaudeville -.......2007-04-05
This is from my review published in "In The Groove" Magazine - April 2007
Frank Cullen LOVES Vaudeville in all it's forms, whether it's the baggy pants comics of burlesque, the "specialty acts" like strongman or eccentric dancers who graced the stages of New York and around the circuits in the 1920s, or the singers who went on to make some of the most popular records of their day. This passion is obvious in the recent publication of the huge two-volume 1300-page compilation Vaudeville Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America (Routledge). Now in his 70s, Cullen saw his first Laurel & Hardy film at the age of nine and was hooked. (Yes, Laurel and Hardy both appeared on the vaudeville stage early in their careers and Cullen devotes six pages to them.). He started reading and watching and listening in his high school years and had a brief acting career as well. In the mid-1980s he formed the American Vaudeville Museum in CT and began publishing the quarterly Vaudeville Times (which I mentioned here last year). Now relocated to New Mexico, Cullen has put his energies into this fascinating book. The peak years for "Vaudeville" were 1905-1925, with over 2,000 theaters around the US. As many as 50,000 performers were in the business during that period. Obviously, not all are in the book but a good mix of the known and the "lesser known" are here. Record collectors will recognize many of them. There are the recording Bakers (Belle, Josephine and Phil) as well as the Smiths (Mamie, Bessie and Kate). Other recording artists covered in much detail include, Eddie Cantor, Sissle & Blake and Moran & Mack. The performers are listed alphabetical from A (Abbott a& Costello) to Z (Zetts Weekly, a rival to Variety, published in 1921). There are sections devoted to each of the "circuits" and the impresarios as well. Photos of the performers and sheet music covers are on many pages. In fact, you'll find a lot of performers who you've only known from sheet music covers. The very handy Bibliography and a 30-page Index, make the book even more useful. Whether you start from the beginning and read it straight through, or use to look up an artist you found on a recording, you'll find this book a great resource. It's a tribute to the hard work and passion of the author. Highly recommended!
Steve Ramm "Anything Phonographic"
A Trans-Atlantic view.......2006-12-01
All that you could ever want to know about vaudeville is contained in a monumental two-volume work, Vaudeville Old and New: an Encyclopedia of Variety Performers. It surpasses anything previously written about the American equivalent of British music hall and will stand as the major reference work on the subject for many years to come.
Given its scope, there are entries about entertainers whose names will mean nothing to the average British reader. But that is more than offset by the comprehensiveness the authors bring to all they touch. It is fascinating, for instance, to get an American take on British artistes who became big stars in the U.S., the likes of Vesta Victoria and Alice Lloyd. We learn more about such top-liners as Al Jolson and Danny Kaye and find the answers to all manner of questions. What was so special about Fanny Brice? What brought Sid Caesar's career to a halt? And who knew that the distinguished commentator, Walter Winchell, started out in vaudeville?
The books' essays about burlesque and music hall are as good as you'll likely to get and the fine writing evinces some deft and delicate touches: a description of Beatrice Lillie, for instance, is as "a treasured English tea-rose with thorns" is spot on. The "new" in the title is no false promise. The encyclopedia is bang up-to-date with entries on Britain's Chris Simmons, for example.
The extensive knowledge and deep love of vaudeville by the author, Frank Cullen [working with Florence Hackman and Donald McNeilly], shine through in each of these tomes' 1,300 magnificent pages.
Richard Anthony Baker
Outstanding vaudeville history.......2006-11-19
A monumental and definitive encyclopadia by an outstanding theater historian. This tome is everything you wanted to know about vaudeville and its performers. It is destined to become the bible for historians and researchers of early American popular theater.
Frank Cullen's knowledge and articulation of the facts of vaudeville, old and new, is a welcome and needed addition to a genre sadly overlooked by the public. Vaudeville was America's first national pasttime and laid the foundation for the world of entertainment in our contenporary culture.
Nicely laid out, easy to read, ample photographs and humor make the two-volume set a must for libraries, archives and theater buffs, or anyone who has an interest in American social history.
The Best Vaudeville Book Ever.......2006-11-10
Frank Cullen, longtime publisher and head writer of the Vaudeville Times magazine, has finally published his 2 volume biographical encyclopedia of vaudeville. For those who don't know, vaudeville was the main form of live entertainment in America from 1880 to 1930 and it continued even as late at the 1960s. This book carefully catalogues who was who in vaudeville, tells the major reason they became famous or were important, and offers biographies and descriptions of everything connected with the subject.
Along with the work of Professor Anthony Slide, these tomes by Frank Cullen constitute the most important documentation of this major form of American popular culture. Vaudeville is rapidly being forgotten today as its participants die off and younger audiences cannot even recognize the term. Cullen's work honors the performers and offers invaluable insights into what the experience was like.
The book is well written and, like vaudeville itself, immensely entertaining, whether you are reading about familiar stars such as Al Jolson or the completely forgotten ones such as the great Eddie Leonard. There is nothing to complain about in this effort-- if you want to know all about vaudeville, this is the magnum opus. It is lavishly illustrated and has about it that aura of love and care that comes when a writer is totally engrossed in his subject matter and approaches it with honesty, integrity and admiration.
Of course I have to tell you that I am biased because I'm in the book. I once was in "the show business" in vaudeville and there are only a few of us still alive who made it into the Cullen opus. But those of us who are left can assure you, dear reader, that all those vaudevillians who are encapsulated within would be proud of this book. It costs a good bit but it's got everything you need to know about a subject that once was close to the hearts of so many Americans. What's really fun is watching old movies on Turner, admiring the work of stars such as Eddie Cantor, Ruth Etting, or Trixie Friganza, and then keeping these volumes by your bed to look up the bios! Of course at my age that passes for high adventure! So, thanks, Frank, and good night Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are. If you know the meaning of that last phrase you'll love this book. If you don't you should read it anyway.
Vaudeville - Brought Back to Life.......2006-10-25
This massive two volume work is without a doubt the greatest tribute to vaudeville and its performers ever written. It brings back to life an important aspect of show business that has almost been forgotten.
In this book you relive the lives and stories of a group of hard working entertainers, many of whom went on to give birth to the motion pictures, radio, and television industries. Most of the stars of the years between 1925 and 1960 got their start in vaudeville.
You won't read this book in one night, but it could provide a thousand nights of some of the greatest entertainment you've ever experienced.
If you love show business and all of it's aspects, then you will absolutely love this masterful work. It may just be what is needed to help resurrect the spirit of a long deceased tradition.
Book Description
Following the tremendous success of his first book on the subject, The Queens of Burlesque, Len Rothe has again pulled from his collection of original photographs of entertainers this delightful selection of over 100 images of Burlesque stars. Together with a revealing text that introduces burlesque to today's new audience, these photographs retain the surprise and teasing elements that endeared the dancers on stage in the heydays of burlesque shows, before television. In theaters throughout America, striptease dancers entertained grateful audiences. Here are Tempest Storm, Scarlett O'Hara, Lili St. Cyr, Georgia Sothern, and Zorita and her doves. With this book, they look out again with timeless beauty and show you the Bare Truth.
Customer Reviews:
Beautiful Women from a bygone era.......2003-07-23
Rothe presents a wonderful photographic collection of some of the great stars of burlesque's golden era. Most of the photos appear to have been promotional photos for display on marquees or in hallways of burlesque houses. All of the women are beautiful and must have been fabulous to see in performance. Rothe worked in the entertainment industry and it would be interesting for him to record his memories of these women. But until then, these photos will serve as reminders of a generation of beautiful performers.
Book Description
Step into Ernst Wolzogen's Motley Theater, Max Reinhardt's Sound and Smoke, Rudolf Nelson's Chat noir, and Friedrich Hollaender's Tingel-Tangel. Enjoy Claire Waldoff's rendering of a lower-class Berliner, Kurt Tucholsky's satirical songs, and Walter Mehring's Dadaist experiments, as Peter Jelavich spotlights Berlin's cabarets from the day the curtain first went up, in 1901, until the Nazi regime brought it down.
Fads and fashions, sexual mores and political ideologies--all were subject to satire and parody on the cabaret stage. This book follows the changing treatment of these themes, and the fate of cabaret itself, through the most turbulent decades of modern German history: the prosperous and optimistic Imperial age, the unstable yet culturally inventive Weimar era, and the repressive years of National Socialism. By situating cabaret within Berlin's rich landscape of popular culture and distinguishing it from vaudeville and variety theaters, spectacular revues, prurient "nude dancing," and Communist agitprop, Jelavich revises the prevailing image of this form of entertainment.
Neither highly politicized, like postwar German Kabarett, nor sleazy in the way that some American and European films suggest, Berlin cabaret occupied a middle ground that let it cast an ironic eye on the goings-on of Berliners and other Germans. However, it was just this satirical attitude toward serious themes, such as politics and racism, that blinded cabaret to the strength of the radical right-wing forces that ultimately destroyed it. Jelavich concludes with the Berlin cabaret artists' final performances--as prisoners in the concentration camps at Westerbork and Theresienstadt.
This book gives us a sense of what the world looked like within the cabarets of Berlin and at the same time lets us see, from a historical distance, these lost performers enacting the political, sexual, and artistic issues that made their city one of the most dynamic in Europe.
Customer Reviews:
Thoroughly excellent.......2007-02-22
One caveat: this is an academic study, and you won't find the quantity or quality of photographs published in more coffee-table oriented books on the subject. That said, it is thoroughly excellent, and what you won't find in the coffee-table books is a discussion that is anywhere near as complete or insightful.
Berlin Cabaret.......2007-01-10
I bought this book because I needed research for a film script of that period. Without a doubt, for me, it contained more hard to find facts than I had ever uncovered before.
That special period of time when Adolf Hitler was about to take over Germany and The Cabarets were as avant garde as they could be, is well documented here. So are The Cabarets that opposed The Third Reich.
I'd reccomend this book to anyone who has an interest in that period.
Outstanding chronicle of a very unique period.......2001-06-30
Sadly there are few books that give one a real sense of the Weimar years in Germany when the economy collapsed, near-anarchy reigned & bourgeois morality was evaporating along with the value of the mark. Berlin was the quintessential moderne city. Literature, painting & architecture all seemed to explode into new worlds in a kind of Big Bang. This book does a masterful job of documenting the evolution of cabaret theater from the innocent reviews of the early 1920s to the biting political commentary of the late 1920s & early 1930s when the last performances succumbed to the growing influence of the national socialists (nazis). Along the way you get the syncopated nude musical reviews & stage tableaux. There's a lot of careful considered analysis, but also a great feel for the time & place. Very well written & with many fascinating illustrations.
Jelavich, mixing culture and politics.......2000-04-15
Jelavich's goal in this historical book is to relate the culture of the berlin cabaret at the turn of the century with a political context. Each chapter focuses on a different cabaret, such as Sound and Smoke, and its satires on Berlin life. The book was extremely informative following a tradition that Carl Schorske started with his book "Fin de Siecle Vienna". Though mainly easy to read, I found their was too much information at times, and it became difficult to follow the different characters that Jelavich illuminated.
Book Description
Decreed by David Letterman (tongue in cheek) on CBS TV's The Late Show to be the pick of “Dave's Book Club 2006,” Candy Girl is the story of a young writer who dared to bare it all as a stripper. At the age of twenty-four, Diablo Cody decided there had to be more to life than typing copy at an ad agency. She soon managed to find inspiration from a most unlikely source— amateur night at the seedy Skyway Lounge. While she doesn't take home the prize that night, Diablo discovers to her surprise the act of stripping is an absolute thrill.
This is Diablo's captivating fish-out-of-water story of her yearlong walk on the wild side, from quiet gentlemen's clubs to multilevel sex palaces and glassed-in peep shows. In witty prose she gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at this industry through a writer's keen eye, chronicling her descent into the skin trade and the effect it had on her self-image and her relationship with her now husband.
Customer Reviews:
,.......2007-09-16
this woman uses the worst metaphors i've ever read. she manages to insult absolutely everyone and everything she describes - and the reader at the same time
Couldn't put it down!.......2007-09-14
Wow! Candid telling of a world most of us don't know about. I got to experience this other part of society without having to step foot in any "adult establishment".
Diablo has guts! Fascinating read. I've loaned it to my boyfriend and a female co-worker and both loved it.
If you want to be a stripper, have ever fantasized about being a stripper, dated a stripper, wonder what types of people are strippers, want to know the behind-the-scenes of a strip joint, or just want to know what a stripper's life is like, this is the book for you.
Superficial entertainment.......2007-09-10
I discoved this book in my local library. It is listed as a biography. I believe it should have been assigned instead to the Fiction section. It's simply unbelieveable as a true life story.
Everything in the book is superficial. The work experiences as told by Mrs. Cody are generic. Where are the life experiences that only a woman truly working in the sex industry would have? You know, the true behind-the-scenes stuff that blows you off your feet when you read it? There is nothing like that here. I think Mrs. Cody was looking for an interesting story idea and settled on the mysterious world of stripping as her subject matter. She probably visited a few different strip clubs for research and interviewed a number of strippers for their experiences. Those experiences are reflected in the book. That's about as far as she got to the actual stripping experience. It shows in her writing.
In addition, I find it hard to believe that Mrs. Cody went from stripping topless to performing sex acts. All within one year! The two field are quite a bit different and constitute quite a jump. I can believe that she was curious to try stripping, but to engage in prostitution too? That's quite a leap-of-faith to ask of the reader. It's very difficult to believe that anyone could have done so much in just one year's time. A life time of experiences in one year. It's wholely unbelieveable.
In fairness, the book is a light and easy read. I read it in just two days. In fact, I had a hard time putting it down. The book was very entertaining. Even if the book is fiction (in my opinion), it is fun and interesting. Reading about the sex industry from a female prespective is just plain irresistable. Read it for its entertainment value, not as an autobiography, and you'll have a good read.
Poorly Written.......2007-09-09
Narcissistic and myopic, this book is overwritten and almost devoid of insight. The author of this book tries to make every sentence memorable and a zinger. The effect of this style of writing is like turning up a thrash metal song album to high volume. There are no levels, no quiet spaces, just one long smart-alecky shout. The book is also lacking in insight, either into the author's motives, the dynamics of the strip club, or the girls or patrons involved in it. The one good thing about it is that she does not shy away from describing the fundamental depravity she participated in and yet simultaneously acknowledges that there is some strange degree of glamour in the business. Nonetheless, you are left with the impression that the author started stripping knowing nothing and left stripping knowing less.
Diablo Cody is just plain awesome.......2007-08-20
Diablo Cody's memoir about her time as a stripper is a fun read and a great tutorial on stripper economics, sex workers, patrons of strip clubs and related subjects. Her occasional aside about her personal life fills out the book with some of it's most entertaining moments; you have to admire her perseverance in the face of hostile ex-wives, cocaine-addled strip club managers, competitive dancers and assorted horndog patrons.
The writing is quick and witty, with frequent references to pop culture and the tribulations of living in Minneapolis. I generally hate biographies, especially autobiographies, and I've read it twice. She's not pushing any obvious agenda here, not trying to make herself look good or come down on anyone else; she just lightheartedly reports on how things went during a year of dancing in clubs. If you can imagine a sociologist with a great sense of humor doing a field experiment in strip clubs, this would be it.
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