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Distributed for Dartmouth College Press

Stardust Monuments

The Saving and Selling of Hollywood

Stardust Monuments spotlights the enduring efforts to memorialize and canonize the history and meaning of Hollywood and American film culture. In this engaging analysis, Alison Trope explores the tensions between art and commerce as they intersect in a range of nonprofit and for-profit institutions and products. An insightful tour of Hollywood’s past, present, and future, Stardust Monuments examines the establishment of film libraries and museums beginning in the mid 1930s, the many failed attempts to open a Hollywood museum ranging from the 1960s to today, and the more successful recent corporate efforts to use Hollywood’s past in theme restaurants and parks, classic movie channels, and DVD boxed sets. This fascinating narrative details the ongoing struggle to champion and codify Hollywood’s legacy, a struggle engaged in by Hollywood stars and corporate executives, as well as memorabilia collectors and users of IMDb.

256 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2012

Film Studies


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Table of Contents

Introduction – Spotlight Hollywood: The Power of Place • Essential Hollywood: Curating Motion Picture History in the Museum • The Great Whatzit? Self-Service Meets Public Service in the Hollywood Museum • Out of Bounds: Remapping Hollywood as Themed Experience • Hollywood in a Box: Channeling Hollywood through Home Entertainment • Handheld Hollywood • Acknowledgments • Notes • Bibliography • Index

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