Word: moviola
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...MOVIOLA by Garson Kanin Simon & Schuster; 446 pages...
...Hollywood does not manufacture dreams; it preserves them in strips of celluloid that promise eternal life. Hollywood embalms desire. Hollywood is a necropolis lined with deities made to appear more beautiful and menacing than they really are. Hollywood, In short, is a good read, even when encountered in Moviola, an overwrought, eulogistic novel about the film business. The book is a greenhorn-to-mogul saga with cameo performances by great stars of the distant and recent past. There is even a bit part for Thomas Alva Edison, without whose inventive genius...
...this the misfortune, mismanagement and bad advice that led to legendary stardom? No matter. The Farbers have a stake in making The Industry smell like a rose. The Kanins don't mind either. DeMillean in scope and cast, Moviola reads like the greatest benefit performance ever told. - R.Z. Sheppard
Hamlisch has lived in Hollywood for the past two years, but he remains an unreconstructed New Yorker. Working at home on a rented moviola (a hand-operated viewer on which a film can be studied frame by frame), he even keeps the curtains drawn to thwart the distracting California sunshine. "Look at me," he says proudly, "I'm as pale as a Long Islander in February." He likes to tell about his own case of inflated Hollywooditis after the awards. "I thought," he says, snapping his fingers in fandango-like recall, " 'Baby, you are the real goods-Cole...
...story in the raw includes visual background, interviews, possibly speeches, plus an opening, closing and bridge narrative by the correspondent. By the time the film has all been run through and vetted frame by frame on the Moviola, the ratio of on-the-air footage to cutting-room-floor surplus is approximately 1 to 20. The deadlines are so relentless that few TV editors have the time to transpose film even if they want to. Just splicing together two frames of film can take up to 20 minutes, and a filmed interview can take even longer to assemble...