Hollywood Then and Now (Then & Now)

The film industry came to Hollywood in the early 1900s and Hollywood became a glamour factory, a city of fantasy. It was the home of the stars and the famous Hollywood sign beckoned through the smog, drawing in hopeful wannabes. Hollywood Then and Now teams photos from this Golden Age of Hollywood with modern day images of the area including shots of the Hollywood sign, the Hollywood Studios, and the fantastic film theaters.

Customer Reviews:

Extremely Disappointed

By A Customer - June 19, 2004

I was given this book by a friend because he knows I was raised in Hollywood and love the history of the area. The archival photographs are quite nicely reproduced, however, the current photographs are very poor. I enjoy digital photography and was in Hollywood a few weeks ago and visited the same historic scenes from this book. I quite easily found the angle of the original shots found in this book.. why this book showed those same shots but taken from different angles than the original photos is beyond me. The modern photos in this book are also very unflattering, out of focus and even amateur in appearance... not much more than snapshots.The worst thing about this book are the many obvious mistakes in locations and historic details. What a shame.

Check your facts Rosemary

By lynxwiler "lynxwiler" - March 14, 2004

Another piece of drivel from the typewriter of Rosemary Lord. Don't let the lovely cover fool you, the interior contains nothing of value. Lord's photos are incredibly poor and badly shot. Of course there's also the unappetizing prerequisite of factual errors which are far too common throughout Lord's work. The provenance of the El Capitan Theater seems to have confused her as has the difference between Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax. This book was made for gullible tourists. If Amazon would allow to me to leave "0" stars for this book, it would still deserve a negative.

Cool Book!

By TexaCali "DesertChic" - July 3, 2009

This is a good book. Lots of good pics from back in the day. I'm a Hollywood reminiscer and I like to "go back in time" to see how things were compared to now. Frankly, I'd rather have been around then...... 30s, 40s. Times were simple, more innocent, not so much crazy new technology. Sometimes all the new tech can be overwhelming. Yea, I love lots of it, like computers and my gosh where would I be without the internet? Lost! But you can't miss what you never had, right? And I liked the other things of simplicity, like price of gas, rent, food, laws were even simpler then, your word and a handshake were all you needed for most transactions, you could run a tab at the corner store and pay it every payday. things are sooooo different now!!!

I enjoyed this book and you will too, if your a Hollywood buff, or even California buff! It shows the different geology of Places from long ago and now. This book is a collector's item and I will keep it forever. The pics are... read more