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The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907 Musser, Charles. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990. ISBN: 0-684-18413-3. Price: 60 US$
The Transformation of Cinema: 1907-1915 Bowser, Eileen. New York: Charles Schribner's Sons, 1990. ISBN: 0-684-18414-1. Price: 60 US$
An Evening's Entertainment: The Age of theSilent Feature Picture, 1915-1928 Koszarski, Richard. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990. ISBN: 0-68418415-x. Price: 60 US$
With these three volumes, Schribners/Macmillan inaugurates its ten volume "History of the American Cinema" series, under the general editorship of Charles Harpole. In his "General Preface" to the series, the editor describes it as "a narrative, analytic, chronological treatment of our (i.e. U.S.) film heritage... intended for a wide readership, including students, scholars, archivists, and professionals, as well as the interested general public".
The initial volumes more than fulfill this mission and give one hope that, once completed, the entire set will stand as the grand overview of American film history we have needed for so very long.
The substantial scholarly and archival accomplishments of Musser, Bowser and Koszarski need no recounting here; they are clearly the writers best-suited for works of such comprehensive, yet detailed sythesis. All three draw heavily and wisely from the primary printed documents of early American cinema (trade press, company records, court transcripts, etc), as well as from the films themselves; also, more recent,...