Ted Sennett has selected what he deems to be the cream of the crop of Hollywood films of every genre. He discusses them in terms of what made them special, how they reflected their times, if they set trends and so on. The book is informative and beautifully illustrated.

Many of the jazz standards were written for Hollywood films, both musicals and dramatic soundtracks. Great Hollywood Movies devotes about 25 pages to a chapter entitled, “What a Glorious Feeling-Great Musical Movies,” but otherwise this book is not as well suited to jazz standards reading and research as Clive Hirschhorn’s The Hollywood Musical. The general index includes some song titles.

Ted Sennett is the author of over a dozen books on the many facets and genres of Hollywood films and the editor of two volumes of The Movie Buff’s Book.