We always enjoyed hearing from our friends at Larry Edmunds Bookshop.The Lare is hosting a fun b
ook talk next Saturday by two co-authors, friend of arts·meme Marc Wanamaker and historian E.J. Stephens. The duo’s new paperback tome, “Early Poverty Row Studios” is the latest Arcadia Publishing Images of America volume.Writes “Larry Edmunds:”The history of Hollywood is often seen only through the lens of the major studios, forgetting that many of Tinseltown’s early creations came from micro-studios stretched along Sunset Boulevard in an area disparagingly known as Poverty Row.
Here, the first wave of West Coast movie makers migrated to the tiny village of Hollywood, where alcohol was illegal, actors unwelcome, and cattle herded down unpaved streets.Most Poverty Row producers survived from film to film, their fortunes tied to the previous week’s take from hundreds of nickelodeon tills. They would routinely script movies around an event or disaster, often creating scenarios using sets from more established productions, when the bosses weren’t looking, of course. Poverty Row quickly became a generic term for other fly-by-night studios throughout the Los Angeles area. Their struggles to hang on in Hollywood were often more intriguing than the serialized cliffhangers they produced.
Fascinating stuff, and the talk is sure to include fun illustrations and images.
“Early Poverty Row” book talk | Larry Edmunds Bookshop, Hollywood Boulevard | Sat Jan 17, 4 pm