Gerald Mast was a fine writer about movies ("Howard Hawks Storyteller" is another gem and "The Comic Mind" is very good too). Here he writes not only about movie musicals but Broadway musicals. He maintains a high level of quality on both fronts.

Given the two large subjects he has to cover, Mast wisely focuses on the key figures instead of trying to exhaustively cover everything. (I think he gives about 5 pages to early movie musicals, something that Barrios' "A Song in the Dark" devotes its entire length to.) However, this approach pays off tremendously thanks to Mast's wise insights. He shows how the movie musical in its heyday (42nd St. to Gigi)differed from the Broadway musical. (He is very interesting on why Rogers and Hammerstein musical films don't work, except for Sound of Music.)

Also good is that Mast explores the movie musical beyond Gigi. His discussion of "Pennies from Heaven" and "Victor/Victoria" are very perceptive.

With musicals supposedly "coming back," this would be a good book to make one acquainted with their historical tradition.

This is THE book to own about the art of American popular song, delivering even more than the title promises--complete descriptions and evaluations of the shows and films, scintillating analyses of the lyrics and musical details of individual songs, intimate biographical information about Kern, Berlin, Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Hammerstein and Sondheim. Incredibly, it's frequently out of print. Buy it anyway, whatever the price. (No, I'm not selling my copy.)

To start off, i happen to be OBSSESSED with Bringing Up Baby. I have the movie at least one hundred times, and can quote the entire script. So, you can imagine how thrilled i was, while browsing the cinema section in my local bookstore, to find an entire book devoted to my favorite movie of time. I immediately devoured it. The book contains the script (which is useful if you miss some of the rapid-fire dialogue in the film), as well as essays and the story the film is based on. i LOVED it. it gave me new incite to the quintessential screwball comedy. i highly recommend it to anyone who loves Bringing up Baby.

This book should only be read by master level film students highly interested in every single director, film and plot summary of every movie ever made. There are no summaries of the main points and this book should NEVER be used as a college core classroom book. I have never been so bored and overwhelmed by such trivial and useless information in my life!

My accidental encounter with an earlier edition of this book was the catalyst for my taking up film studies. The book is a clear, well written and systematically organized history of movies. It has a comprehensive and up to date bibliography and filmography. Chapters are chronological in sequence, but are organized around a particular theme. The authors introduce major influences in the cinema (whether directors, 'schools', actors or events), identify principal directors and films, and analyse major issues and advances. It is an excellent introduction to the history of movies and great jumping off point for further, more specialised study. It is refreshingly free from post-modernist jargon and abstractions. If you want a comprehensive introduction which is also a good read, I recommend this book most highly.

As a writer, Mast is without equal as a teacher, historian, and critic. The most readable, valuable film history text, in my opinion. Thank goodness it's still in print.

This is a very difficult text to get through. Although it brings up a lot of interesting theorems, the language used makes this inaccessible to most readers.

This is a must-have reader for film studies. Most of the TAs and professors at my school dip into this reader to create their classpacks and exam reading lists. The reader, a selection of key essays or excerpts, will introduce you to the language of film studies -- the major theorists from Bazin, Eisenstein, Burch, to Mulvey, Gunning and Dyer etc.; the differing methods of film studies from genre, psychoanalytic, reception, and Frankfurt studies. These are some of the key essays that have shaped film studies criticism over the last century. The book is pricey but well worth it, especially if you don't have the dough to stock up on the original texts. Some of the readings are difficult precisely because they are theory and meant for an academic or professional audience. Take your time, reread selections and savor some of the ideas that still shape how we see and make movies today.