Garson Kanin's novel, "Moviola," reads like an uncut version of a 1940's "spectacular." Here's the movie industry from Thomas Edison to Warren Beatty. Everybody makes a cameo appearance: It's a cast of thousands, each one a star. Reading "Moviola" is a bit like having the sky fall on you.

The basic story, which is hardly more than a parking lot for the digressions, concerns B. J. Farber, a 92-year-old movie pioneer and studio head who is thinking of selling his "dream factory" to a New York-based conglomerate….

As a preliminary to the negotiations, Farber tells … his life story, for the studio is his life and the story is an inventory of its assets. Before he will sell, Farber must satisfy himself that the conglomerate has a soul.

Farber's life story seems to be made up of scraps of everybody else's. Thomas Edison is stately, D. W. Griffith pontifical...