Reviews
Juxtaposing current conditions with historical photos, Davis shows how much time has altered the face of our city. Her book is a comment on this transition, and a reminder that change is the only constant.
Flickering Treasures is not only a collection of beautiful and evocative photos, but a sociological journey through twentieth-century America. Having Baltimore-bred filmmaker Barry Levinson contribute a foreword is icing on the cake.
This is the finest coffee table book about a local subject that I've seen... This is amazing.
... [Flickering Treasures] would make a nice gift for anyone who loves movies, architecture, or the city of Baltimore.
Amy Davis, a photojournalist for the Baltimore Sun, combines vintage with modern color image contrasts to document these urban wonders, considering the social, economic, technological, and political influences on their rise and fall as she crafts a beautiful, iconic collection that will appear to readers far beyond Baltimore City's borders.
This book belongs in the library of every Baltimorean that loves movies and their city’s history. I’m giving "Flickering Treasures" Five Stars and the highest recommendation.
Flickering Treasures is not only a collection of beautiful and evocative photos, but a sociological journey through 20th century America
Juxtaposing current conditions with historical photos, Davis shows how much time has altered the face of our city. Her book is a comment on this transition, and a reminder that change is the only constant.
The book is an engaging, often fun and frequently nostalgically joyful combination of historical images and theater "biographies" that are tied to conversational memories as expressed by those with the greatest familiarity with the theaters.
The strength of Flickering Treasures lies in the numerous photographs that take center stage in this book in which [Davis] juxtaposes numerous vintage with her own artful photographs in order to procure a "dialogue with the past, not its replication". Consequently, her book does not merely document how numerous movie theaters became stores, office buildings, churches or were taken over by nature. Instead, the photographs create a compelling story that highlights that the history of Baltimore's forgotten movie theaters is also about transformations, opportunity, loss and lack of (architectural) preservation or neglect.
Between the pages of this book lies a deep dive into the colourful and rich moviegoing history of Baltimore (US). Davis' meticulously researched, beautifully photographed, and professionally presented title is a proverbial treasure trove.
A sweeping, almost encyclopedic portrait of the movie theaters of Baltimore, Flickering Treasures should be well-received by general readers for its rich combination of background profiles and engaging interviews. Equally impressive, a virtually complete set of matching historic and modern photos chronicles both decay and adaptive reuse. Captivating.
Both a celebration of the splendid glory of what was once the Baltimore movie palace experience and a funereal dirge for what became of those grand old bijoux as the passing of time pulled them toward squalor. To behold the book is, in some sense, to behold the arc of America's cities in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Book Details
Foreward, by Barry Levinson
Preface
1. 1896–1909
2. 1910–1914
3. 1915–1919
4. 1920–1924
5. 1925–1929
6. 1930–1939
7. 1940–1949
8. 1950–2017
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Map and Timeline
Notes on Research
Credits
Index
Foreward, by Barry Levinson
Preface
1. 1896–1909
2. 1910–1914
3. 1915–1919
4. 1920–1924
5. 1925–1929
6. 1930–1939
7. 1940–1949
8. 1950–2017
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Map and Timeline
Notes on Research
Credits
Index of Contributors
Index of Theaters