LaSalle Reviews

It's a toss-up as to which of Mick LaSalle's great pre-Code books (his previous is COMPLICATED WOMEN) is superior. COMPLICATED WOMEN is a work of advocacy, in a sense -- he wants to rescue the women of pre-Code from obscurity and critical neglect, and he does so ably. This book is more cool-headed amd critical. It's also funnier. It feels more grounded in the real politics and culture of the early 1930s. The research goes deeper. The book is longer. I think they're both essential reading, demonstrating a passion for film and an understanding of history that's impressive, rare and indispensable.

The Golden Age of movies is sometimes taken as the glorious silent era. However, it can be argued that the films made right after the advent of sound provided more realism and more to think about than movies before or since. In a vital and entertaining study, _Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man_ (Thomas Dunne), Mick LaSalle lovingly analyzes the films and movie heroes from around 1929 until 1934 when censorship took over. Those interested in the history of film, and in learning more about giants like Cagney and Gable, as well as about important but forgotten former stars like Richard Barthelmess and Warren William, will find this book irresistible. After 1934, it was a long while before American films were made without a censor able to clip scenes, and LaSalle demonstrates that the pre-censorship (or "pre-Code") era was a time for realism as well as idealism in the movies.

LaSalle demonstrates that silent films were really productions of the Victorian era; men were expected to have sobriety and character. World War I, Prohibition, and the Great Depression changed all that. There was a deluge of pre-Code gangster movies, and every major actor played a gangster, even Spencer Tracy and Boris Karloff. The gangster movies, and the war movies, provided a new look at how a person might live in the world and live with himself; there was a good deal of introspection within the characters displayed on screen that would vanish when the Code came into force. Along with serious evaluation of such moral matters, pre-Code movies were full of pacifism. Repeatedly the young idealistic heroes go into battle only to be shocked at the destruction they themselves have wrought. These movies exalted individuality and distrust of governments that led citizens into pointless wars. Pre-Code films emphasized the heroism of getting wise and taking care of oneself, not the heroism of battles and bugles. There is a good brief history of Code censorship here, showing the role of the Catholic Legion of Decency and its regrettable effects. Not only did the Code enforcers impose wholesomeness on future movies, they insisted that when the pre-Code films were re-released they be re-cut into more acceptable form. Sadly, sometimes the censored version of a pre-Code film is all that remains. It was not until the ratings system came in 1968 that the Code was dismantled.

Partly LaSalle's book is a warning, and one especially pointed now that certain forces within the government find censorship in various forms appealing. LaSalle has enormous admiration for the films described here, but says, "Even vitality such as this can be squelched if a close-minded faction is obsessed, pernicious, and willing to organize." He has seen a lot more of these pre-Code pictures than his readers have, but anyone who enjoys the movies will be eager to take a look at these films after reading this book. Pre-Code films showed war brutality, governmental corruption, and harnessing courage to subvert the system. LaSalle writes, "These may be healthy things for individuals to know, but they aren't what governments like to see pumped into the public consciousness."

I guess it's too early to have a favorite book of the year, but I can say with certainty that, had I completed it in 2002, Dangerous Men would qualify as one of my top two or three -- and probably the best non-fiction book I've read: So smart, so authoritative and, as some other readers have pointed out, so funny -- funny, even as you're learning something fascinating on every page.
It is hardly the usual sort of film book. Rather it's a brilliant investigation into the nature of manhood in the twentieth century, using these films as markers along the way. At the same time, it is a movie book in the sense that you come away dying to see the movies. I'm going to be using the list that the book provides to help make my video choices in the coming months.
What a wonderful Christmas gift. I already ordered Complicated Women, because now I can't get enough of the subject. You'll probably feel the same way, too. By all means, this is a book to get.

MANAGING CANCER addresses the particular needs of African Americans and helps them to achieve earlier diagnosis and thus better cures. There is much that can be done to prevent cancer before it begins and this book fully covers over twenty types of cancers in language every reader can understand. MANAGING CANCER is well-written, thoroughly researched and accessible and speaks to readers through personal stories involving patients, the senior author himself, and his family. Many of these stories are poignant, revealing examples of how the human spirit can endure and even triumph when faced with crises. This is a book that will educate, inspire, and improve the life of African Americans from all walks of life.

The Authority In Leadership is not about taking control. This book is about being the type of person who wins the favor of influence because of the way you live your life. The pages of this book will guide you toward your purpose. After you finish this very short paperback, you will be able to sit back and relax in the comfort of knowing that your blessings are coming soon.

Anyone interested in Network+ Certification needs this book. This books explains TCP/IP in great detail. Read this book first, then Michael Meyers Network+ All in One Exam Guide, then the Network+ Exam should be quite easy.

Are you a man who tries to crack the Woman case? If so, this is the book for you. There are hundreds of nuggest of truth in this book that will help any man understand how women tick. For some men, this may not be important, but for those who know that it is always best to have a helpmate, the pages within this winner will get you closer to that awesome relationship described in the stories about creation. THIS IS A MUST HAVE PUBLICATION to read and store on your bookshelf for your children.

I cried three times while reading this wonderful story of the great pre-Code women -- and laughed out loud a few times, too. This was my first pre-Code book. A friend of mine, who knew I liked old movies, gave it to me in January, and I thought, OK, well, maybe . . . and then I started reading it -- and fell in love. The women: Hopkins! Shearer! Dietrich! Harding! Francis! Do you know those names? Get the book. Do you not know the names? Then you really need this book. It's like never hearing of Mozart. Or the Beatles. Or ice cream. These are some of the great women of the twentieth century: Loretta Young! Stanwyck! Blondell! Colbert! You need to know them, because, in a way, they invented us. And don't think they had an easy time of it, either.

LaSalle documents it all. The personalities, the struggles -- and the villains, who did everything they could to prevent the modern woman from being born -- but she got born -- and then did everything they could to suppress her. Before they succeeded, these women created a golden age of film that people are just discovering now -- but that women and men 100 years from now will still be talking about. My friend said to me, "Cameron, you NEED to read this book," and I thought, OK, well, maybe -- but it turned out she was right. In that spirit, of friendship, I say the same to you.

As a lover of movie books about the classic era, I instantly fell in love with Mick LaSalle's book about the screen goddesses of the pre-code era. All of my favorite stars came jumping out at me from the printed page in all their beauty and glamour and reminded me that the era of filmmaking talked about was one of great change, changes that pretty accurately reflected real life, as women especially were evolving from the repression of many centuries. Mick LaSalle writes a very entertaining as well as a very informative story about those marvelous ladies and their films, and it's obvious that he likes and appreciates his subjects. Let's have more film books like this one. Could not put it down!

COMPLICATED WOMEN is a brilliant work, and far from "left-wing propaganda," as the previous reviewer suggests. Interestingly, in that previous reviewer's criticism, he (or she) uses quotations -- but they're not at all quotations from the book. They're paraphrased quotations from the TCM documentary that was made from the book. This suggests that the person didn't even read the book but only saw the TV show, which would, alas, be typical.
One of the great virtues of the book is that it has the courage to nail absolutely and forever Joseph Breen -- the man who administered and forced the code on the public -- as a foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Semite, and for this one doesn't have to trust Mick LaSalle. The evidence comes from Breen himself, in his voluminous correspondence, which is full of anti-Jewish invective. Indeed, LaSalle may go too easy on him. Evidence of Breen's anti-Semitism is even more damning in Geoffrey Black's book, Hollywood Censored.
But then, this is hardly a book about politics. It's a wonderful meld of history, film criticism and culture -- as strong as LaSalle's other brilliant book, DANGEROUS MEN -- and it's true glory is in the way it celebrates and rediscovers some of the most influential, interesting and lovable women of the previous century. It is essential reading.

LaSalle and Britton have put together some useful ideas for marketers and customer service specialists on how to turn something relatively ordinary, such as a stuffed animal or a hotel stay, into something ultra-special and memorable that buyers will want to repeat and recommend to others. What got in the way of an otherwise fine book for me is that in quite a number of places, they rave about companies as only public relations or sales people normally do - telling you only one side of the story. For example, on pages 31-33 they say that people who shop at this very online bookstore feel that their voice is heard, because of the computer programming that delivers a "customized" experience. What they are overlooking is that if you truly have an individual problem, it's extremely difficult to get it taken care of here. There are many other examples that have the idealized tone of PR rather than real-world observation. If this doesn't bother you, you'll have a more positive reading experience than I did.

... In this book, the authors start with simple and straightforward examples of such instances and come up with a framework for converting seemingly ordinary products into extraordinary experiences. They explain a value model that one needs to understand to transform a commodity into a valuable offering and to convert a feature or functionality into a priceless experience. The concept of the Experience Engagement Process- Discover, Evaluate, Acquire, Integrate and Extend- covers the full spectrum of customers' journey in search of value and provides opportunities for designing and delivering the exact mix to maximize customer delight. The Experience Event Matrix is explained very well with an example of a visit to a salon for a haircut.

This book looks at enhancing value of the products and services that we offer. Bottom line gains are substantial compared to the incremental costs that are often associated in such valuable offerings. ...

MasterCard commercials effectively dramatize a distinction between the cost and the value of human experience. In essence, this is what LaSalle and Britton have in mind when explaining in their brilliant book how to turn "ordinary products into extraordinary experiences" for consumers. They organize their material within two separate but related sections: in the first, they examine the interaction of customers, value, and experience; in the second, they explain how almost any company can prosper in what James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II characterize as "the experience economy," in their book so entitled. But HOW? By offering a product or service which, according to LaSalle and Britton, fills a consumer's need for freedom, adventure, and a sense of well-being. My own rather extensive background includes market research on what consumers value most. Those surveyed ranked "feeling appreciated," ETDBW (i.e. easy to do business with), and enjoying the experience were ranked highest. Those responses are consistent with what LaSalle and Britton have learned. What astonishes me (and perhaps them as well) is that only recently has the importance of sensory experience been recognized, relative to purchase decisions and to consumer perceptions of those from whom their purchases are made.

Bernd Schmitt and Alex Simonson's Experiential Marketing: How to Get Customers to Sense, Feel,, Think, Act, and Relate to Your Company and Brands was first published in 1999. In it, they examine a number of different companies (e.g. Nokia, Procter & Gamble, Apple Computer, Volkswagen, Siemens, Martha Stewart Living, and SONY) which demonstrate the fundamental principles of what they call "experiential marketing." They were praised as pioneer thinkers (which I certainly do not dispute) when, in Part Two of their book, they focus on what they call Strategic Experiential Modules (SEMs), each of which has its own distinct structures and principles which must be understood by each manager. SEMs include sensory experiences (SENSE), affective experiences (FEEL), creative cognitive experiences (THINK), physical experiences and entire lifestyles (ACT), and social-identity experiences (RELATE). Schmitt and examine each, explaining how to achieve the effective integration of all four.

LaSalle and Britton share my high regard for Gilmore and Pine as well as for Schmitt and Simonson (among others) but break critically important new ground in Priceless by providing a cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective system by which almost any company can increase and enhance the appeal of almost any product or service. More specifically, LaSalle and Britton identify and then explain a series of interdependent components throughout Chapters 1-6 which comprise what they call the "Priceless Roadmap." By the end of their book, they have enabled their reader to understand the relationship between value and experience (including emotional as well as sensory experience) by showing the link between them and customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and (most preferable of all) customer evangelism. They trace the series of events which a customer experiences during the consumption process. Most important of all, with precision and clarity, they demonstrate how a company can deliver value through experience by focusing on three key attributes: product, service, and environment.

It would be a mistake to assume that this book was written primarily (if not exclusively) for marketing executives. Every value, principle, strategy, and tactic which LaSalle and Britton examine is directly relevant, for example, to increasing and enhancing the appeal of any workplace and to strengthening relationships between and among those within it. I also think this book will be of substantial value to senior-level executives as they embark on mid-range and long-term planning (i.e. up to 36 months at the most) because organizations as well as consumer products and services, and indeed individuals, can achieve greatness only if guided and informed by a "Priceless Roadmap" in one form or another.

It was nearly impossible for me to put the book down. Reading Barbara LaSalle's story opened up a can of buried emotions. I related so much to Barbara and Ben's journey, all the pain, the tears and yes, the happiness too.

The courage they both had to be so candid and honest really reached me and has helped me to better understand myself and my 15 year-old son who also suffers from AS. I've read many "textbooks" about AS, but "Finding Ben" validated my feelings concerning it.

I would recommend this book to anyone who can handle the honest and sometimes cruel reality of living with someone who has a neurological disorder.

I find precious little reading time, yet I got this book Friday night and finished it Sunday morning. The brutal honesty sucks you in from the start. I don't know who I like more--Barbara or Ben. The writing is incredible, and the story is heart-breaking, but one that needs to be told. I've been planning to write a book about our own journey through autism, and after reading this one, I'm ready. I didn't realize the depth I needed to reach to tell our story, and now I do. Thanks to Barbara and Ben. I thought I'd sweep around all those dark little corners in our story, and everyone would be happy. Now I realize that exposing those dark little corners, no matter how painful, is what matters most.

Ben, I want to protect you from everything you've already gone through, and Barbara, I can SO relate to you, it's scary. Your book is simply amazing, and I'm struggling to put it into words. Anyone who even remotely knows someone on the autistic spectrum needs to hear this story. In the past few days, I've hugged my autistic son with an intensity that surpasses what I felt when he was a baby and I still thought he was "normal."

This book is simply life changing.

This is wonderfully written account of one family's struggle with Asperger's Syndrome. The story is told in a series of vingettes. The mother (Barbara) and son (Ben) share with us both perspectives. Their story is sweet, sad, funny, tragic and ultimately, hopeful. It is a story every parent , teacher and mental health professional should read.

Ice hockey, perhaps the greatest and most demanding of sports (do you sense a bias?), rarely has been the subject of fiction. For this reason, if no other, Peter LaSalle's collection of stories, "Hockey Sur Glace", is remarkable in itself. But the seeming anomaly of the book's mere existence only draws the light more brightly on these deeply affectionate, elegantly written, warm and human stories about the way hockey indelibly marks the lives of those who play it, those who watch it, those who live their lives at the rink or on the icy ponds of long northern winters. "Hockey Sur Glace" is, to be sure, an uneven collection of stories (with a few short poems interspersed). The best of the lot are the first two, "Hockey Angels" and "Le Rocket Negre". But while the other stories are somewhat less than remarkable, all of them bear the mark of strong feeling for a sport which, perhaps more than any other, suffuses the lives of those who play it. If you play hockey, or have children who play hockey, or if you just like the sport, reading this slim collection of stories will be time well spent.

A book by and for north people, who grew up in cold winters, whose toes froze on the walk back from pond to home, and who built the small fires of kindling and scrap wood to stay warm as afternoon faded and the hockey game went on. I hadn't thought for years about the way we carried skates, even those of us who didn't play much, by their laces slung over the blade of the hockey stick, but Peter LaSalle gets that detail and so much else about the game and the era, late fifties to early seventies mostly, exactly right. The problem is the stories themselves are lightweight and entirely too similar in tone and substance. The first two -- Hockey Angels and Le Rocket Negre -- are the best of the book, closely followed by three poems, particularly A Pond-Hockey Pledge. So, overall, a slight read, but still, for those of us who come from this place and this era, there's a sweet feel of things gone by here, and it's nice to see hockey written about, and this book can be good consolation in late spring when your team has been unceremoniously booted from the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The intertwining of hockey and life is well done in this book. Great for anyone who loves and lives the game.

This is a great book. Buy it for all the great photographs. The section on the V-16 cylinder is great. The text is good. Some of the authors remarks don't make a lot of sense. But all in all a great book for those of us who still love Cadillac Automobiles.

I found the book to be very well written and informative though I wish there were color pictures and interior pictures such as dashboards.

Excelent, comprehensive,loads of pictures, perfect for the serious collector.