Book Review: Robert Paul and the Origins of British Cinema by Ian Christie

Abstract

has already offered a surfeit of evidence and argumentation. It bears noting that Picture Personalities was a slim volume whose index ended at page 160. Coincidentally, I reviewed the book as a grad student; summarizing my reservations in the pages of The Velvet Light Trap, I suggested that ‘most of my complaints concerning the book are directly attributable to its brevity and indicate that deCordova’s expert account of the star system would only have increased in impressiveness had its scope been expanded.” (p. 105) Finding myself coming full circle with Shail’s weighty volume, I am inclined to the inverse as a conclusion: there is probably enough material in The Origins of the Film Star System for two books, and its bifurcated structure confesses as much. Readers will be excused if they find themselves caught between wanting less (demonstration through evidence) and desiring more (the conceptualization of stardom). That caveat aside, Shail has provided a fresh account of the emergence of the star system, impressively systematic in its argumentation, that could easily become the new standard for the next thirty years.