Weegee

Naked Hollywood

1953 Original Edition

Mel Harris

New York, Pellegrini & Cudahy. 1953. First Edition. Hardcover. With the scarce dust jacket. Large quarto. Unpaginated. Yellow boards. Very Good in a good plus dust jacket. A nice copy of this classic photographic album of Hollywood as it really was in the fifties. Weegee takes candid photos of the celebrities and their fans, as well as using creative technique to produce optical illusions. With over 130 black and white images printed in gorgeous gravure and in the scarce original dust jacket. "Walker Evans once wrote that the photographer "is in effect voyeur by nature."" Few lived up to that definition better than Weegee (born Arthur Felig), the colorful tabloid-news photographer, whose "stage was the street" (Roth, 118), exploring the lives of "night people and criminals—with all the sensationalism of dime thriller novels" (Parr & Badger I:120). In this sequel to his groundbreaking Naked City (1945), Weegee and editor Mel Harris selected the best of over 2,000 photographs, revealing a side to Hollywood only Weegee could capture.

Very good in a good plus dust jacket. DJ lightly soiled and rubbed w/ moderate wear and several tears to edges and to the top and bottom of the spine as well as a few creases. Several taped repairs. Few small chips. Corners and edges scuffed and rubbed. Not price clipped. Yellow cloth hardcover is clean and bright. Light wear to the edges. Very good internally. Soil spots to pastedowns. Crisp. Binding tight. Hinges sound. Great photographs printed in gorgeous gravure. Clean images. Tanning to page edges.