Oscar Night in Hollywood, 1948

The great Raymond Chandler writing about the Academy Awards, and the motion picture industry as whole, for The Atlantic Magazine in March 1948:

Show business has always been a little overnoisy, overdressed, overbrash. Actors are threatened people. Before films came along to make them rich they often had need of a desperate gaiety. Some of these qualities prolonged beyond a strict necessity have passed into the Hollywood mores and produced that very exhausting thing, the Hollywood manner,which is a chronic case of spurious excitement over absolutely nothing. Nevertheless, and for once in a lifetime, I have to admit that Academy Awards night is a good show and quite funny in spots, although I’ll admire you if you can laugh at all of it.

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Mar 1, 1948
Length: 15 minutes (3,820 words)
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