NONFICTION - Feb. 13, 1994

MARRIED In the Movies edited by Kyle Roderick (Collins Publishers San Francisco: $14.95; 80 pp.). They say love is blind, but some of the most visually arresting moments in movie history are wedding scenes--a point well-made in this celebration of seven decades of cinematic “I do’s.” From the macabre (“The Bride of Frankenstein”) to the misty-eyed (above, Bette Davis in “The Old Maid”), this collection of black-and-white movie stills escorts readers down the aisle with many of the silver screen’s best-loved, and best-loving, stars.

Some photos have the warm, fuzzy and familiar appeal of your favorite Christmas songs: e.g., Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart in the 1940 classic “The Philadelphia Story.” Others are more deliciously offbeat--Beverly D’Angelo as a pregnant, floating bride in an LSD hallucination scene from 1979’s “Hair”; Lucille Ball, pre-”I Love Lucy,” and Esther Williams, pre-bathing-suit era, vying for the affections of Van Johnson in “Easy to Wed”; and Hayley Mills, looking very post-Pollyanna and deeply apprehensive as she ties the knot with Hywel Bennett in “The Family Way.”

Kyle Roderick’s text (picture captions laced with a few anecdotes) is minimal and his photo collection less than complete: Where is bride-to-be Bo Derek getting to the church on time at the start of “10”? Or martyred mother Barbara Stanwyck pathetically forced, in the unforgettable “Stella Dallas,” to view her daughter’s high-society wedding from behind a gate? But this little picture book remains a nifty catch for those who love love, not to mention the movies.