Special edition

THE Hollywood Commemorative Edition [May 21] was terrific!

Don’t make me come over there and tell you how to improve it! First, put it into book form. Hold all the advertising for the final folio and make sure the principals agree to a group listing: “sponsored by....” Dig up all your great archival photos, reviews and memorabilia. Let Patrick Goldstein compile and edit the book. Have it in the bookstores by Oct. 1 in time for the holiday season (suggested retail price: $50). I intend to buy several.

IRENE DEBLASIO

Studio City

*

THE discriminatory tone of the issue alone was appalling.

African Americans were treated to the same ol’ Hattie McDaniel and Halle plus Denzel. Then there was the justification tribute to D.W. Griffith’s racist classic, “Birth of a Nation.” No page, though, was dedicated solely to the disgusting history of Hollywood’s treatment of blacks and the “black-face classics.”

Why then would we expect you to include Herb Jeffries and the Harlem western productions?

Why no mention of Ramon Novarro, Lupe Velez, Dolores del Rio, Ricardo Montalban, Cesar Romero and Gilbert Roland in the “Allure of Illusion” section? Leo Carrillo even has a beach named after him, for cryin’ out loud.

Desi Arnaz created a whole studio and invented live television camera techniques. James E. Olmos is the Godfather of Latinos in Hollywood, and no mention of him.

Finally, we cannot forgive any omission of Chasen’s, Perino’s, Club Mocambo, Musso’s, Micelli’s and Sarno’s as classic haunts. There is only one explanation: You have a young staff from New York who hate Los Angeles and have reel envy.

MARIA ELENA HERNANDEZ

Los Angeles

*

The photo in “Courthouse Confidential” shows Mae West during her obscenity trial in Manhattan in January 1930 -- three years before Mae was invited to make her first film in California [“Night After Night”] at the request of actor George Raft, who knew Mae when he was the bagman for gangster Owney Madden. It was George Raft’s job to collect Madden’s cut of the box office profits from Mae West’s financially healthy Broadway plays.

Even though Hollywood would like to claim Mae for their own in 1930, the fact is that Paramount Pictures didn’t even want the Brooklyn bombshell -- until the Depression forced them to cast a comedienne with a well-known name that would lure ticket buyers.

LINDAANN LOSCHIAVO

New York

Loschiavo wrote the play “Courting Mae West: Sex, Censorship & Secrets.”