Histories of Hollywood?

[Dunnyman]

While there has been numerous biopics of early Hollywood figures, and some rather dry retrospectives, they tend to over-emphasize the glitz, and leave out the meat and potatoes of Hollywood. I just finished enjoying a rare treat of an extremely entertaining look at the early days courtesy of Paul Merton's Birth Of Hollywood. He looks at the early days with a keen wit, and a sharp eye for pointing out the details we might have missed, like the realization that half of DW Griffith's "drama" was simply the music chosen, and he illustrates it by putting the Ride Of the Valkyrie to a Mack Sennet comedy and as he says "Presto, all the drama of Griffith, with none of the racism!" In an hour, I learned more about Hollywood's early days than I have in 15 years of being a film buff...and I thought Merton was just a funny guy with a gift for improv...