Twentieth Century Fox: Inside the Photo Archive

This rare glimpse into the photo archives of one of Hollywood's most formidable and enduring movie studios contains a compendium of images notable for what they reveal about the art of filmmaking. A picture of Gene Tierney on horseback waiting to shoot the scene where she scatters her father's ashes in Leave Her to Heaven, for example, offers a voyeuristic view of Tierney ""in character."" ""If you study her face,"" observes director Martin Scorsese, ""you can see that her mood uncannily reflects the mood of the scene."" The backstage, off-camera moments like this one illuminate this collection and set it apart from other movie-related, coffee-table tomes. Fox's photo archives date from 1917 and include such memorable movie images as Marilyn Monroe posing, her back to the camera, in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Orson Welles and Tyrone Power taking a coffee break on the set of The Black Rose. The organization is haphazard, with old photos facing new ones and different images from the same movie scattered throughout. Sadly, the book is light on text, and those unfamiliar with the Golden Age of filmmaking will wish it contained more in-depth caption information to give some of the obscure images historical context. Ultimately, however, this collection is a heady mix of the old and new, of the classic and the ""forgotten,"" and movie lovers who have a particular interest in films from the '30s, '40s and '50s will find it a visual feast.