{"product_id":"the-abcs-of-classic-hollywood-9780195322910","title":"The ABCs of Classic Hollywood","description":"\u003cp\u003eSpeaking about the kind of filmmaking now known as Classic Hollywood, the most popular and influential cinema ever invented, Vincente Minnelli once gave away its secret: \"I feel that a picture that stays with you is made up of a hundred or more hidden things. They're things that the audience is not conscious of, but that accumulate.\" What are those hidden things? Can we invent a method that will enable us to discover them? Robert Ray attempts to answer those questions by looking closely at four movies from the 1930-1945 period when the American studio system reached the peak of its economic and cultural power: Grand Hotel, The Philadelphia Story, The Maltese Falcon, and Meet Me in St. Louis. To avoid the predictable generalizations that have plagued film studies, Ray works with the movies' details-Grand Hotel's room assignments or Meet Me in St. Louis's ketchup-which are treated as mysterious but promising clues. By producing at least one entry for every letter of the alphabet, Ray demonstrates that a movie's details have much to tell us. The ABCs of Classic Hollywood is a movie primer, a deceptively simple book that spells out a fascinating account of the most powerful storytelling system ever designed.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Robert B. Ray","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43575296131133,"sku":"9780195322910","price":413.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/7689\/2989\/files\/9780195322910.jpg?v=1788562990","url":"https:\/\/www.palmleaf.com.au\/products\/the-abcs-of-classic-hollywood-9780195322910","provider":"Palmleaf","version":"1.0","type":"link"}