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A review by booksuperpower
Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood by William J. Mann
3.0
Tinseltown: Murder, Madness and Morphine at the Dawn of Hollywood by William J. Mann is a 2014 Harper publication.
An unsolved murder will always pique my interest. Toss in an old Hollywood setting with lots of famous names, history, and scandal and I’m sold.
The murder of William Desmond Taylor has fascinated true crime aficionados for ages. Taylor, a film director, was murdered in 1922 with a small caliber pistol. His death caused a media frenzy at the time, but to this day, the case remains officially unsolved.
The author takes readers through the various battles Hollywood fought with the moralists who waged war against the movies and the actors who starred in them, highlighting scandals- such as the Fatty Arbuckle trials, which does give readers an idea of the climate in Hollywood in and around the time of Taylor’s death.
It takes a good long while to really get to the meat of the tale, for the book to finally narrow the scope to focus on Taylor’s murder, which is, I think, what readers are most interesting in.
To set the stage, the author examines all the suspects and theories that have been investigated or reported on, as well as what the police were thinking at the time.
While I realize the author was attempting to widen the net and create a book, not only about the titillating murder of Taylor, a man with many secrets, but to examine the entire movie industry, the key players in the tale, and to expose the drug use, power plays, and various scandals in this era in Hollywood.
Unfortunately, this proves to be too ambitious of an undertaking, in my opinion. The organization, despite the obvious research, is extremely poor. While I do enjoy history, especially about old Hollywood, I struggled to remain interested in this book. It is very dry reading, and the portions I was most interested in didn’t take shape until the last quarter of the book. The book is in desperate need of some significant trimming.
That said, the conclusion is quite riveting- and surprising- as it seemed nearly every suspect named had a motive, but there was never enough evidence to arrest any of them. Some of the theories tossed about were quite absurd, which often happens in a high- profile case, and one in which the press wished to steer the investigation a certain way, speculating outside the realm of hard facts in order to sensationalize the case. Despite their best efforts, though, the evidence didn’t back up their conjectures.
Although the author uncovered a stunning story that could solve the case, after all this time, there was really no way to prove the validity of the information. The author’s case, based on the information he gathered, is as plausible as any other presented in this book and I am inclined to agree it makes sense- but, it couldn't be proved after all this time, and that is why the case is still listed as unsolved.
While this case is interesting, this book was bogged down with too much boring information, seriously slowing down the momentum, tempting this reader to skim over large sections to get to the good parts. Once the murder of Taylor became the primary topic, the writing tightened up and things certainly did become quite interesting. I am glad I learned who the probable murderer was, so it wasn’t a total loss.
3 stars
An unsolved murder will always pique my interest. Toss in an old Hollywood setting with lots of famous names, history, and scandal and I’m sold.
The murder of William Desmond Taylor has fascinated true crime aficionados for ages. Taylor, a film director, was murdered in 1922 with a small caliber pistol. His death caused a media frenzy at the time, but to this day, the case remains officially unsolved.
The author takes readers through the various battles Hollywood fought with the moralists who waged war against the movies and the actors who starred in them, highlighting scandals- such as the Fatty Arbuckle trials, which does give readers an idea of the climate in Hollywood in and around the time of Taylor’s death.
It takes a good long while to really get to the meat of the tale, for the book to finally narrow the scope to focus on Taylor’s murder, which is, I think, what readers are most interesting in.
To set the stage, the author examines all the suspects and theories that have been investigated or reported on, as well as what the police were thinking at the time.
While I realize the author was attempting to widen the net and create a book, not only about the titillating murder of Taylor, a man with many secrets, but to examine the entire movie industry, the key players in the tale, and to expose the drug use, power plays, and various scandals in this era in Hollywood.
Unfortunately, this proves to be too ambitious of an undertaking, in my opinion. The organization, despite the obvious research, is extremely poor. While I do enjoy history, especially about old Hollywood, I struggled to remain interested in this book. It is very dry reading, and the portions I was most interested in didn’t take shape until the last quarter of the book. The book is in desperate need of some significant trimming.
That said, the conclusion is quite riveting- and surprising- as it seemed nearly every suspect named had a motive, but there was never enough evidence to arrest any of them. Some of the theories tossed about were quite absurd, which often happens in a high- profile case, and one in which the press wished to steer the investigation a certain way, speculating outside the realm of hard facts in order to sensationalize the case. Despite their best efforts, though, the evidence didn’t back up their conjectures.
Although the author uncovered a stunning story that could solve the case, after all this time, there was really no way to prove the validity of the information. The author’s case, based on the information he gathered, is as plausible as any other presented in this book and I am inclined to agree it makes sense- but, it couldn't be proved after all this time, and that is why the case is still listed as unsolved.
While this case is interesting, this book was bogged down with too much boring information, seriously slowing down the momentum, tempting this reader to skim over large sections to get to the good parts. Once the murder of Taylor became the primary topic, the writing tightened up and things certainly did become quite interesting. I am glad I learned who the probable murderer was, so it wasn’t a total loss.
3 stars