Russian Writings on Hollywood

Trapped in the totalitarian dictatorship of Soviet Russia, the young Ayn Rand found a lifeline in the form of foreign movies. These offered a glimpse of the world abroad and of life’s potential, fueling the spirit of a passionate girl starved for glamour and romanticism.

In her late teens, Rand attended movies almost daily, keeping a diary in which she recorded every movie she saw, along with a list of cast, director, date and a grade rating. And in 1924, she entered the State Institute for Cinematography, in Leningrad, with the intention of studying screenwriting.

Shortly before leaving Russia forever the teenaged Ayn Rand pursued her love of cinema even further, making her first attempts at professional writing in the form of two articles about the American film industry. One of them, published in 1926, was a booklet called “Hollywood: American City of Movies”; the other, published in 1925, was a biographical article on her favorite movie actress at the time, “Pola Negri,” and was Rand’s first ever published work.

These articles—virtually unknown during Rand’s lifetime—were made available in English for the first time in 1999 with the publication of Russian Writings on Hollywood. In addition to the English translations, Russian Writings on Hollywood contains facsimiles of the original Russian booklets as well as a copy (and an English translation) of Rand’s movie diary.

Russian Writings on Hollywood provides a glimpse into the passionately held values of the young Ayn Rand—ten years before her first novel, We the Living, was published in the West. And being her first published works, they show the very beginnings of the development of Ayn Rand’s literary style:

“About fifteen years ago . . . a man of small height, soft movement and imperious voice arrived in a suburb of Los Angeles. He cast his eyes upon the green hills, upon the transparent air, upon the dazzling sun and set up a shed on the outskirts of Los Angeles. This shed looked just like all the other sheds, but it contained an object heretofore unknown to Los Angeles: a movie camera. Later the city grew and the man grew. Both of them rose very high. The city was Hollywood. The man Cecil DeMille.” (“Hollywood”)

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Pola Negri
  • Editor’s Note
  • Facsimile of Russian Edition
  • English Translation
• Hollywood: American City of Movies
  • Editor’s Note
  • Facsimile of Russian edition
  • English Translation
• Ayn Rand’s Movie Diary
  • Editor’s Note
  • Facsimile
  • Typeset reproduction
• Ayn Rand’s List of Favorite Actors and Actresses
  • Facsimile
  • Typeset reproduction
• Afterword

(Softcover; 223 pages)

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