"M-G-M Hollywood's Greatest Backlot" by Steven Bingen, Stephen X. Sylvester and Michael Troyan, published in 2011 in the United States in hardback with dustjacket by Santa Monica Press, 310pp, ISBN 9781595800558
Condition Notes: Very good condition copy, well looked-after with very good dustjacket (not price-clipped). There is a very slight touch of creasing to the dustjacket edge in a couple of places, but nothing noticeable
About this book: It has been estimated that historically a fifth of all movies made in the United States were partially shot somewhere at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. Without belaboring the point, this means that if an individual has seen 25 movies in his life, then perhaps five of them would have been shot on these grounds. The math escalates and compounds as we add upward: A hundred films viewed means 20 shot here; a thousand films equals 200 locations shot here. Like a visit to any hometown from which we have been long absent, touring the world of MGM's vast backlots can be disarming and disorienting. The path is confusing and thorny. The size of the place and the number and variety of sets can be overwhelming. "Twilight Zone" writer George Clayton Johnson remembered being completely overwhelmed by the "sheer vastness of it all," and this impression is by no means unique. At MGM, perspective and memory can warp, and appearances can be deceiving. Spend some time here with us [at the studio] and it soon becomes infuriatingly tempting, near impossible in fact, not to look upon these familiar facades and tie them to movies and to memories that they were never meant to evoke. A courthouse set may look like a building from a thousand remembered movies, or like a thousand courthouses. Make no mistake, the set may well have those thousand or more actual credits on its resumé, but it's difficult not to try to tie the same building to even more titles and even more memories due to its overwhelming familiarity. The book contains a filmography, chronological and reasonably comprehensive; and the most complete and accurate map of each of the major MGM lots ever created. Each major set is assigned a number that corresponds with the same designation on the map. Photographs of the various sets, both as they would have looked during our visit and dressed for their various film appearances are also included.
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