Engaging essays on a wide spectrum of Hollywood directors and the films they created.Journalist and filmmaker Bill Krohn has been the Los Angeles correspondent for the French magazine Cahiers du cinma for over forty years. Letters from Hollywood brings together thirtyfour of his essays many of them appearing in English for the first time. Focusing most pieces on a particular director and film Krohn uses his inside knowledge of the studio system to illuminate an art that is also a multibilliondollar business. He connects currents in French film criticism and theory with an unfolding account of American cinema past and present offering penetrating insights into directors and their work. Beginning with Allan Dwan who learned how to make movies before Hollywood was born by watching D. W. Griffith Krohn presents a panorama that encompasses Alfred Hitchcock and Woody Allen Stanley Kubrick and Sergio Leone Star Wars and I Love Lucy. He covers everything from gangsters to gremlins from blockbusters to nobudget cult films like Moon Over Harlem and Plan 9 from Outer Space in a style that is accessible to anyone who loves movies or has a passion for writing about them.