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LOIS WEBER IN EARLY HOLLYWOOD Shelley Stamp. Berkeley: U of California P, 2015,374 pp.
When her box office smash Hypocrites was released in January 1915, Lois Weber was cited by several in the press as the most prominent director besides D. W. Griffith, and she would soon be considered one of the "three greatest minds" along with Griffith and Cecil B. De Mille. In later years she would be practically removed from film history, only to be recovered generations later. Shelley Stamp's Lois Weber in Early Hollywood is the most extensive treatment yet on this overlooked filmmaker. Those already familiar with Weber scholarship will immediately recognize Stamp's name because even before this book's publication, Stamp had already established herself as the most prolific Weber scholar, with numerous articles, book chapters, and DVD commentaries devoted to Weber and her films. But with the book-length format, Stamp is able to offer much more breadth and depth than these previous venues have afforded.
Weber's career corresponded with the rapid changes in early Hollywood, from her work with Edwin S. Porter at Rex on her first film, A Heroine of'76 (1911), to her only film in the sound era, the B movie White Heat in 1934. In between she worked for Bosworth and Universal, where she was the most respected director on the lot. She left Universal in 1917 to form her own studio, Lois Weber Productions, giving her an autonomy few filmmakers of the time had. By the early 1920s, women were beginning to be pushed out of the industry, and Weber settled for having her films distributed from the minor F. B. Warren Corporation, reflective of the few options available for independent and women filmmakers. It is this period after Weber's "decline" that historians have largely ignored, but Stamp comprehensively treats her last decade in film. Perhaps Stamp's most important contribution...