Fascinating, Unseen Publicity and Behind-the-Scenes Photos From Classic Movies

By Jason Bailey

Sep. 24, 2014

Leave it to Karina Longworth — host of the indispensable movie-buff podcast “You Must Remember This” and author of two of the best books in Cahiers du Cinema’s “Anatomy of an Actor” series — to cook up a whole new angle for looking at old movies. Her new book Hollywood Frame by Frame: The Unseen Silver Screen in Contact Sheets, 1951-1997 collects those direct prints that photographers used for selection and editing purposes in the pre-digital age, assembling unused and previously unseen behind-the-scenes photos and publicity shots for such iconic films as Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Giant, Taxi Driver, Rear Window, and Some Like It Hot. They’re the cinematic equivalent of bootleg recordings — the almost-final versions, in which you see the elements slowly drifting together — as well as a fascinating document of Hollywood’s always-delicate process of packaging and presenting its product. We were lucky enough to get a look at a few pages from the book; check them out after the jump.