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Book SynopsisTrade Review[An] eye-poppingly informative new book... To paraphrase Frank Loesser's 'Guys and Dolls,' with the publication of American Showman, the question 'What's playing at the Roxy?' can now be answered: 'First-rate cultural history.' -- Mindy Aloff Washington Post [American Showman] provides valuable insight into Roxy's dynamic contemporary moment--one characterized by world military strife, economic downturn, and a blossoming of technological innovation. Publishers Weekly [An] exhaustive biography. -- Ethan Mordden Wall Street Journal Dr. Melnick skillfully captures the substance and durability of Rothafel's prolific life.New York Times -- Sam Roberts New York Times A penetrating, exhaustive contextualized study of Roxy's crucial role in every aspect of the early film industry...highly recommended. Choice American Showman is a fascinating, passionate, and definitive biography of Samuel 'Roxy' Rothafel... Melnick unveils aspects of Rothafel's career that change our understanding of American film history from the late 1910s to the early 1930s. -- Charles Musser Journal of American History For anyone interested in the historical transition from the Nickelodeon era to the classical Hollywood cinema, Ross Melnick's American Showman is a must read. -- Jan-Christopher Horak UCLA Film & Television Archive An impeccably researched and definitive study of Samuel 'Roxy' Rothafel -- Bernard F. Dick American Studies Roxy?'s extraordinary life, as Melnick illustrates, serves as a powerful lens through which to examine a dynamic age of cultural change in American life. -- Josh Glick Business History Review Anyone who cares about the development of film exhibition in the early 20th century should consider it essential reading... even a casual film buff will find much to enjoy... the book is well written and not overly burdened with jargon. -- Leonard Maltin Indiewire With so many greatly exaggerated reports of the death of cinema abroad, what a pleasure to read Ross Melnick's scrupulously researched, exhaustive biography of movie-palace impresario Samuel 'Roxy' Rothafel -- a biography that doubles as a cultural history, looking to a moment when the movies were the upstarts, making vaudeville and live theatre quake in their boots. -- Nick Pinkerton Sight & Sound
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Part 1. Roxy and Silent Film Exhibition 1. A New Art for a New Art Form (1908-1913) 2. Broadway Melody (1913-1917) 3. The Movie House as Recruiting Center (1917-1918) 4. "The Man Who Gave the Movies a College Education" (1919-1922) Part 2. Roxy and the Emergence of Convergence 5. A Capitol Idea (1922-1925) 6. "It's the Roxy and I'm Roxy" (1925-1927) 7. It's All Playing in Sheboygan (1928-1931) 8. The Prologue Is Past (1931-1936) Afterword Notes Bibliography Index
