Hollywood song Book

This comprehensive guide describes 7,000 Hollywood movies for which songs or scores were especially written. It cover all genres, including rock musicals. Many of the films are not musicals but are listed because a theme song was written for them. Some films listed include no songs; for example, a song was written for Psycho but the movie was released without it. Not included are most concert films, which do not usually have original music written especially for them. A notable exception is Woodstock. Bloom is also the author of a similar book on musical theater, American Song: The Complete Musical Theatre Companion (Facts On File, 1985).

Volumes 1 and 2 of this 3-volume work list the films alphabetically by title. Included in each entry is the studio that released the film, year of release, composer, lyricist, choreographer, producer, screenwriter, director, original source on which the film is based, cast (all stars are listed as well as selected character actors and supporting players), and songs. A notes section contains various other information of interest, such as alternative titles, songs that were cut from the picture, songs used instrumentally only, Academy Award winners, etc. Volume 3 lists the films chronologically from 1922 to 1989 (with three titles listed for 1990). It also includes a name index, which notes if the person was a cast member, choreographer, composer, lyricist, etc. A song index enables the reader to find the films for which songs such as "Moon River" (Breakfast at Tiffany's)or "The Power of Love" (Back to the Future) were written.

Several books cover movie musicals. Parish and Pitts' Great Hollywood Musical Pictures (RBB N 1 92), for example, haslengthy descriptions of 340 musicals. The authors note which cast members performed each song, but the book has no song index. Hollywood Song, however, has a much broader scope, covering thousands of films that contain at least one song. This valuable and extensive work will be a good purchase for large film and music collections.