Buy Used

£10.09

+ £5.49 delivery

Used: Good | Details

Sold by ErgodeBooks Ships From USA

Deliver to Finland

7 used & new from £10.09

Deliver to Finland

See All Buying Options

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 2 images

Follow the author

David L. Robb

Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors the Movies Hardcover – 20 Apr 2004

by David L. Robb (Author)

2 ratings

See all 6 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Amazon Price

New from

Used from

Kindle Edition

"Please retry"

£11.06

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

—

£26.24

£10.09

The only thing Hollywood likes more than a good movie is a good deal. For more than fifty years producers and directors of war and action movies have been getting a great deal from America s armed forces by receiving access to billions of dollars worth of military equipment and personnel for little or no cost. Although this arrangement considerably lowers a film s budget, the cost in terms of intellectual freedom can be quite steep. In exchange for access to sophisticated military hardware and expertise, filmmakers must agree to censorship from the Pentagon.

As veteran Hollywood journalist David L. Robb shows in this revealing insider s look into Hollywood s "dirtiest little secret," the final product that moviegoers see at the theater is often not just what the director intends but also what the powers-that-be in the military want to project about America s armed forces. Sometimes the censor demands removal of just a few words; other times whole scenes must be scrapped or completely revised. What happens if a director refuses the requested changes? Robb quotes a Pentagon spokesman: "Well I m taking my toys and I m going home. I m taking my tanks and my troops and my location, and I m going home." That can be quite a persuasive threat to a filmmaker trying to keep his movie within budget.

Robb takes us behind the scenes during the making of many well-known movies. From The Right Stuff to Top Gun and even Lassie, the list of movies in which the Pentagon got its way is very long. Only when a director is determined to spend more money than necessary to make his own movie without interference, as in the case of Oliver Stone in the creation of Platoon or Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now, is a film released that presents the director s unalloyed vision.

For anyone who loves movies and cares about freedom of expression, Operation Hollywood is an engrossing, shocking, and very entertaining book.

Special offers and product promotions

Amazon Business : For business-exclusive pricing, quantity discounts and downloadable VAT invoices. Create a free account

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items when the Enter key is pressed. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Matthew Alford

4

Paperback
£5.93

Product details

Hardcover: 350 pages
Publisher: Prometheus Books (20 April 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1591021820
ISBN-13: 978-1591021827
Product Dimensions: 14.2 x 2.5 x 21.3 cm
Customer reviews: 2 customer reviews
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,218,359 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #485 in United States Cinema
- #1466 in Ethical Issues
- #4595 in Film History & Criticism

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

Product description

Synopsis

As veteran Hollywood journalist David L Robb shows in this revealing insider's look into Hollywood's 'dirtiest little secret' - the final product that moviegoers see at the theatre is often not just what the director intends but also what the powers-that-be in the military want to project about America's armed forces.

About the Author

David Robb (Beverly Hills, CA), an award-winning freelance journalist who has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize three times, has published articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, The Nation, LA Weekly, Salon.com, and Brill's Content. For many years he was a labor and legal reporter for The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety.

Customer reviews

5 star		100%
4 star 0% (0%)		0%
3 star 0% (0%)		0%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

2 customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Five Stars

30 May 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

a real eye opener

Helpful

Comment

Matthew Alford

Five Stars

20 December 2016

This book changed my career direction markedly. A remarkable piece of journalism.

Helpful

Comment

Most helpful customer reviews on Amazon.com

Amazon.com: 21 reviews

BlacKnight28

A hard hitting book that doesn't let you forget the facts

23 April 2014 - Published on Amazon.com

Verified Purchase

As a military public affairs officer myself, I bought this book thinking it would be a tell-all about the great relationship between Hollywood and the military; however, I was quickly wrong. This book obviously written by someone with a law degree or at least knowledge of constitutional law, makes it very clear his disdain for a decades-old technique for recruiting future service members. Throughout much of the book, I will admit that I failed to see Mr. Robb' s points most of the time, especially considering the millions of dollars of equipment the Pentagon loans to movie makers in exchange for a professional and serious depiction of the military. However, at the book's end, is when I can see the author's points. It does beg the question should DoD have the power to bend facts and rewrite history itself by only allowing what and who it wants portrayed?

Much of the book's examples are from the 1950s and earlier, so it would've been good to have updated stories from the 90s and 2000s...but overall a decent thought-provoking book.

One person found this helpful

F. J. Zubek

Compromising for props

5 July 2013 - Published on Amazon.com

Verified Purchase

This is, at its core, what the book is about.

Hollywood makes many kinds of films. Fantasy, science fiction and comedies and war movies. While they can re create many of their own props much of the time, its tough to build a dozen helicopters or even an aircraft carrier from scratch. So in order to properly tell a good war movie, there are times when its very, very cost effective to use authentic machines.

The problem is that the military, while eager to help, ( after all the people in uniform enjoy watching movies too) understandably wants to be shown in a good light.

And that's where the compromising begins. And the drama that happens behind the scenes, in and of itself, makes for some good story telling. Fact of the matter is, it was Hollywood that has done most of the compromising. While we have seen many many moving, dramatic stories of our military in action over the years, Robb reveals in these pages that there were times when story had to be watered down a bit to please the military in order to gain access to the machines it needed in order to put the films on the screen.

If you are a fan of war movies and are interested in what goes on behind the scenes, this particular book might provide some eye opening insight. You may in fact find yourself going back to re watch your favorite war film after reading what Hollywood had to do in order to tell that story. Very good book!

One person found this helpful

Roadvirus

Five Stars

18 May 2017 - Published on Amazon.com

Verified Purchase

After reading this book, you will never watch a military-related film the same way again.

Deborah M. Alexander

Truth is Stranger than Fiction

7 December 2014 - Published on Amazon.com

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

A book that uncovers and describes yet more facts of how taxpayer money goes to pay for propaganda to warp our minds. Truth is stranger than fiction, and maybe always was.

SparkyV

It's interesting, but the author's even further to the ...

3 March 2015 - Published on Amazon.com

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

It's interesting, but the author's even further to the Left than I am. The information is very interesting, but when he editorializes, I can finally see what conservatives mean by "entitlement."

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	AbeBooks Books, art & collectables	ACX Audiobook Publishing Made Easy	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services

Audible Download Audiobooks	Book Depository Books With Free Delivery Worldwide	DPReview Digital Photography	Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations

Home Services Handpicked Professionals Happiness Guarantee	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities	Kindle Direct Publishing Indie Digital Publishing Made Easy	Prime Now 2-Hour Delivery on Everyday Essentials

Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands	Amazon Warehouse Deep Discounts Open-Box Products	Amazon Business Service for business customers	Whole Foods Market We Believe in Real Food

	Amazon Second Chance Pass it on, trade it in, give it a second life

Follow the author

Similar authors to follow

Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors the Movies Hardcover – 20 Apr 2004

Special offers and product promotions

Customers who bought this item also bought

Sponsored products related to this item

Product details

Product description

Synopsis

About the Author

Customer reviews

2 customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Most helpful customer reviews on Amazon.com