Movie critics. Who needs them?

Well, it turns out that movie studios need them, and so do astute movie lovers. These scribblers in the dark who so often deliver the first opinions to the public on any film’s merits or demerits have had a crucial place in the movie food chain from the earliest days of cinema.

Those and other assertions are laid down in “The Complete History of American Film Criticism” (Santa Monica Press, $27.95) by Jerry Roberts, just published on April 1.

Roberts, himself a film critic, columnist, editor and academic, brings to bear a wealth of scholarly research to make the point that film criticism is a craft that has grown and flourished in tandem with the art of film.

Beginning with the first movie review in the New York Times in 1896, the book examines the work of silent era critics such as Robert E. Sherwood, Gilbert Seldes and Frank E. Woods, who wrote insightfully about the films of Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith. Next, it moves through the work of significant critics of the pre- and post-war years (Frank S. Nugent and Cecelia Ager among the former and James Agee, Manny Farber and Andrew Sarris as lights of the latter).

The great age of film criticism, according to Roberts, arrived in the 1960s with the ascendancy to Pauline Kael and the emerging work of Judith Crist, Roger Ebert, Stanley Kauffmann and Richard Schickel. The formation of the National Society of Film Critics and the early inklings of credible TV film critics (John Simon, Gene Shalit, Rex Reed, Ebert and Gene Siskel among them) marked a proliferation of the critics’ influence that pushed well into the 1970s and beyond.

Roberts employs mini-biographies and a chronological framework to build his case for this journalist specialty and its wide-ranging cultural and artistic impact. And along the way, he relates some rousing controversies that have colored the lore of film critics everywhere – including heated philosophical battles between auteur theorists and opposing critics, studio boycotts of various newspapers over supposedly “unflattering” coverage and the blacklisting of certain critics for writing “negative” reviews.

At their best, Roberts maintains, movie critics have helped educate generations of moviegoers on the distinctions between good and bad movies. They’ve helped focus attention on emerging or unsung directors, screenwriters, cinematographers and actors and have shed light on various innovations and groundbreaking movements in film art.

All in all, “The Complete History of American Film Criticism” provides a well-organized, comprehensive survey of an embattled journalistic profession that has played a key role in establishing film as one of the 20th century’s most important and meaningful art forms. Give it four stars!

- Dennis King

BY DENNIS KING

Mack Sennett’s name is synonymous with The Keystone Kops, that zany posse of clumsy lawmen who animated scores of Hollywood silent comedies.

As a producer, writer, director and feverishly innovative movie pioneer, Sennett was an early-day, one-man movie machine who not only created the hilarious Keystone Kops, but also invented such signature gags as the pie in the face and was key in launching the careers of such immortals as Charlie Chaplin, Harry Langdon, Gloria Swanson and Carole Lombard.

A grand, comprehensive book, “Mack Sennett’s Fun Factory” (MacFarland & Co., $125), is being released this month that gives voluminous evidence of Sennett’s seminal role in the motion picture industry and in the evolution of screen comedy.

The founder of Keystone Film Company in 1912 and recipient of two Academy Awards, Sennett enjoyed a 20- year run as one of Hollywood’s most prolific and successful filmmakers.

The 671-page hardcover book by journalist and film historian Brent E. Walker is jam-packed with enough arcane details and obscure background information to make an academic’s head swim. Along with a complete filmography taking in more that 1,000 Sennett film released between 1908 and 1955, the book includes casts and credits, synopses, filming locations, release dates and even cross-references to remade stories and gags excerpted in compilations.

There are also 280 photographs and biographies of several hundred performers and technicians who worked with Sennett.

Having truly earned his title “The King of Comedy,” Sennett gets the encyclopedia treatment in this massive hardback study. But lurking in its pages are many joyful surprises, loads of hilarious anecdotes and even the occasional pie in the face.