---
product_id: 131867861
title: "Scandals of Classic Hollywood: Sex, Deviance, and Drama from the Golden Age of American Cinema"
brand: "anne helen petersen"
price: "€ 11.80"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 12
url: https://www.desertcart.hr/products/131867861-scandals-of-classic-hollywood-sex-deviance-and-drama-from-golden
store_origin: HR
region: Croatia
---

# Scandals of Classic Hollywood: Sex, Deviance, and Drama from the Golden Age of American Cinema

**Brand:** anne helen petersen
**Price:** € 11.80
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Scandals of Classic Hollywood: Sex, Deviance, and Drama from the Golden Age of American Cinema by anne helen petersen
- **How much does it cost?** € 11.80 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.hr](https://www.desertcart.hr/products/131867861-scandals-of-classic-hollywood-sex-deviance-and-drama-from-golden)

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## Description

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Sex! Gossip! Movie Stars!
  

*by J***D on Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2014*

Since this is mostly going to be about what went wrong for me with this book, let me start by saying:  It's good!  Buy it!  I'm glad I did.  Having said that...I've been waiting for this book for six months--thus, like any Hollywood movie, it was bound to struggle to live up to the anticipation. Don't get me wrong; for any lover of classic hollywood, this is a good read, and I'd probably have loved it if I hadn't been devouring Anne Helen Peterson's online articles--whether through Hairpin, Buzzfeed, her blog, or other media--for a couple years now. But I have and therein, I think, lies the slight disappointment with the book.While the promos promise the chapters are not repeats of the Hairpin articles, that is a bit disingenuous. The articles aren't transplanted verbatim, but many of the stories (Fatty Arbuckle, Clara Bow Dorothy Dandridge, Montgomery Clift, and others) are repeats and cover familiar territory.Still, a good story is always worth rehearing. What I miss most in the book is the lively, irreverent, voice Peterson uses in her online pieces, which often read like a personal email to you, the reader. SHE IS FUNNY. Her side remarks on Hollywood hypocrisy and comments on the plethora of images that populate her online text are vastly entertaining and sadly missing in this textRead this comment on a still of Lana Turner in a turban from the Postman Always Rings Twice:"I mean, THIS IS IT, right? Like there's no need for another seduction scene ever? And the high-waisted white shorts and the knotted crop top ... does Urban Outfitters carry those in my size? Can someone teach me how to make my towel topknot look like that? Do I need to live in the South, seduce some guy who comes to the diner owned by my old boring husband, and get him to kill said husband? "Isn't that great? Doesn't it make you want to just hang with her, watching old movies and debating whether Joseph Cotton or Melvyn Douglas would be better movie star boyfriends?Unfortunately, there's too little of that in the book. While it's not academic, one can feel the influence and the self-restraint (believe me, I've written enough deadly literary analyses myself to know). There is an occasional glimmer of the old style, as in this sly comment on Marlon Brando's engagement: "And as she [his fiancee] told the press, she didn't love Brando because he was a star, but as a man like any other. Plus, she was a 'sloppy dresser' with 'odd manners,' and the two had first met at his analyst's office--clearly, they were meant for each other."I snorted latte out my nose at that one, and it made long even more for the AHP of Hairpin.Now, it's doubtless a monetary/copyright thing, but there's also an odd dearth of photographs--especially in the Kindle version that I read, which delegates the few images to the back of the book, where I only found them after I'd finished reading. A good part of the power in her online writing lies in the plethora accompanying imagery, whether movie stills, shots of gossip mags or whatever. They not only allow the reader to visualize the commentary, but also engage in the analysis with AHP. Plus, as I said, her comments on the images are darned funny. That interaction is lacking in the bookNevertheless it says something that I started reading this Tuesday night, and finished by 11 am the next morning. And that I'm actually bothering to write a review, which I don't usually do. It's a good and enjoyable read. AHP has really carved a niche for herself in her analysis of Hollywood semiotics and what it means for the rest of us. She takes gossip and makes it "respectable."

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Insightful Look At The Hollywood Image Machine
  

*by J***N on Reviewed in the United States on November 13, 2014*

The title is a bit of a misnomer.  What Peterson does here, and beautifully, is look at the image making machine of a bygone era.  She's very savvy and as a longtime Garland fan I didn't expect to learn much new.  And did I?  One very telling thing.  Every one is aware that Garland's diet was strictly supervised by the studio, but I had assumed this was information that was confidential at the time it occurred.  I did not realize that her dieting struggles were so public, and that this information was passed out by the studio.  Peterson understands the gossip industry as if she were on the inside, and as a result gave me a new perspective on an old perception.Also, Peterson doesn't play around with the facts.  Where there is doubt about something, she doesn't hedge about the fact.  She doesn't claim to know everything, and is therefore a lot more trustworthy than whose who do.  Plus, she's very respectful of those she writes about.Salacious scandal?  You won't find much here.  A very insightful look at how stars of a past era were marketed and sold, and how this affected their psyches?  It's on every page.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Great read. Great author
  

*by J***S on Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2017*

I love this author. She makes me more and more interested in classic Hollywood with her academic but also humorous approach to the subject. I'm not very interested in celebrities and scandals, but she enriches this topic and really highlights why it's important to the history of Hollywood and sociology in general. I really wish she included chapters on other famous people but she cut out a lot of celebs she covered elsewhere. I really wanted to read about Rita Hayworth, but maybe we have to wait for her to come out with another book that will include more scandals of classic Hollywood. She has a new book out about female public figures of today and I can't wait to read it.

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*Product available on Desertcart Croatia*
*Store origin: HR*
*Last updated: 2026-03-08*