In the three-part series, A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese through American Movies, Martin Scorsese reveals that the first book about movies he ever read was A Pictorial History of the Movies, by Deems Taylor, Marcelene Peterson and Bryant Hale, 1950 edition, which he found in the public library and which he displays on camera. It reminded me that the first books about movies I discovered (and devoured) in the library were A Pictorial History of the Talkies, by Daniel Blum (1958 edition) and The American Movie, by William K. Everson (1963). The first such book I ever bought was the 1968 edition of A Pictorial History of the Talkies, purchased in high school. I have more recently purchased both of the other books, although my copy of the Deems Taylor book is the 1943 edition.

Another early book for me was An Illustrated History of the Horror Film (1967), by Carlos Clarens.

What was the first film book you ever read?

And if you can’t remember that, what was the first film book you ever purchased for yourself?
Quentin Tarantino has talked about this in podcasts and he cites Andrew Sarris' The American Cinema and Pauline Kael's When the Lights Go Down.

(I thought this thread was more relevant to Movie Talk than Book Talk since it addresses members' lifelong obsession with movies.)


Of course, neither Scorsese's copy nor my copy have retained their covers.



The 1958 edition I read in the library.

Speaking of Scorsese, I’m pretty sure this is the first film book I ever sought out to read:

I remember having a few movie books as a kid (that my parents bought me). This is one I remember spending time with (and it was this edition with the full color pages from his "new" Golden Voyage of Sinbad):

It was probably a couple horror movie books I borrowed from the library when I was around six or seven years old. My mom warned me that I might get nightmares, but I was a monster obsessed kid, so I wanted them anyway. Oh, and I totally had a nightmare or two from the books. Didn't stop me from loving horror movies though.

Had the original 1981 hardcover edition and devoured it, then tried to watch all the movies in the book.

These were my first 2 books:

A really fantastic book for getting into film. It's now in its thirteenth edition that includes contributions from a third author, Jeff Smith. He and the other two authors (Bordwell and Thompson) have a great series of videos together on The Criterion Channel as well. Sadly, David Bordwell died in February of this year.

I think mine was the Power Rangers movie companion guide back in the 90s

Maybe?

Escape From The Planet Of The Apes Book And Record Set

I still have this. Loved the Planet Of The Apes when I was a kid ...



Sadly, missed out on the other ones in the series ...

I have this one, too ...

"Classics of The Horror Film" (Which Jaymole posted) was also my first purchase.

Before that happened, there was this library-favorite of mine:

Funnily enough, I finally bought this last year for the first time.

Yeah, that was my first film textbook at UCSB.
But as a kid, I had this fun book about movie bombs.

The Making of Kubrick's 2001.

I loved POTA as a kid as well. I never had any of these book and record sets, but I did have a bunch of the Mego Apes action figures (and still do).

Yup. Gifford's was mine too. I was also a King Kong ('33) fanatic, so I also had this around the same time, maybe a little later.




Can you imagine the Fox News fueled hysteria that would result from a parent allowing a grade schooler to have a book with a topless woman illustrated on the cover- or that it was openly out for sale on the racks in bookstores (which is how I found it to ask for it)?

We had similar tastes when we were young...this was also one of my first books (one of the chapters was about how big was King Kong's penis):

Possibly David Gerrold's Making of Star Trek. Before that I was reading magazines like Starlog here and there.

And of course I had the book and record sets when I was really little.

I had the action figures, too! Sadly, they're long gone now. Really wanted the adventure sets (village, jail, treehouse, etc.) but didn't get them ...

Still have this from my comic book collecting days when I was a kid ...

Yeah, I had that one too. The main reason I didn't dig it nearly as much as any of the other books, is the same reason that I think I would enjoy the hell out of it now.
All those wordy essays and esoteric photos of distantly related Kong ephemera, when all I wanted to see at the time were actual screen caps from the film.
I ran across a nice HC of it with the DJ in a comic shop on 14th st in NYC about twenty years back, and have been kicking myself ever since for not grabbing it.

And hell, how could I forget this- Still have my original copy too

Mine would have to be that series of books that focused on a Universal monster and various other monsters. They were short hardcover books with orange cover font and the rest was black and white. Loved that series. I know if someone has the complete collection of those books they go for a pretty penny on eBay.

You mean like a book about a film where I could SEE the pictures, HEAR the tape, and READ the book? We'll, that obvious: The Story of The Empire Strikes Back.

Blast from the past! I think my brother owned that one. It was a fun read, even though I'd never heard of those movies (and had no way of watching them at the time).

The book was fun, but years later Michael Medved, along with Jeffery Lyons, took over for Siskel and Ebert on Sneak Previews, and he proved to be a terrible TV critic (though still better than Rex Reed).