SPEAKING OF HARPO by Susan Marx with Robert S. Bader (Applause)
As somebody who devoured up each phrase in Harpo Marx’s memorable autobiography Harpo Speaks, I reveled on this posthumous publication by his widow Susan. The place else within the 12 months 2022 might one learn recent observations of Harpo and such fabled cronies as Alexander Woollcott, Ben Hecht, and Oscar Levant? That is catnip to a Marx devotee like myself. Mrs. Marx is particularly candid in her ideas about her husband’s well-known brothers. She was exasperated by Chico, had little use for Groucho’s mean-spirited humor, and had no use in any respect for Zeppo. Considerably, she was a devoted aunt and sounding board for his or her offspring and in some instances their ex-wives as effectively. Susan’s recollections of the movies she appeared in (as Susan Fleming) are temporary and never particularly enlightening however her recollections of Harpo at work and play are all-encompassing and (I’m pleased to say) completely optimistic. I discovered the later chapters about her life as a widow lower than compelling however that’s a small criticism contemplating the bounty of riches the remainder of the guide gives. Because of lifelong Marxian Robert Bader for working with Susan to plumb her reminiscence and for piecing collectively this priceless guide.
ERNEST LEHMAN: THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS by Jon Krampner (College Press of Kentucky)
This extremely readable biography of considered one of Hollywood’s most profitable screenwriters is as welcome as it’s overdue. However the man it portrays will not be at all times the hero of his personal story. Lehman was an insomniac, a hypochondriac, and an often-antisocial fellow who would stroll out of his spouse’s dinner events and retreat to a room the place he chatted with fellow HAM radio operators. He had little to do together with his two sons. He drove colleagues loopy together with his mania for revisions and adjustments to his scripts, as much as and together with the eleventh hour.
But that is the person who wrote North by Northwest and Candy Scent of Success (primarily based on his personal quick tales). That alone would assure his entry to the screenwriting corridor of fame. His contributions to The King and I, West Facet Story and The Sound of Music are underrated to today. He eradicated songs, resituated others within the continuity and crafted dialogue to guide into and out of them so seamlessly that his efforts have been taken as a right. (A fellow author congratulated him on his “typing.”) He produced and tailored Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, giving Mike Nichols his first directing job in Hollywood—which he quickly regretted, resulting in a decades-long feud.
Writer Krampner is a little bit of a personality himself, taking two-thirds of a web page to element how he didn’t safe an interview with actor Bruce Dern. But his guide makes for good studying, eccentricities and all.
Yet one more guide on Alfred Hitchcock? Sure, and a rattling good one, too. If you happen to noticed the chapter excerpted in Self-importance Honest you understand that creator French posits that having James Mason reside in an ultramodern home close to Mount Rushmore in North by Northwest modified mainstream film villainy without end. (Consider the lavish lairs inhabited by James Bond villains, for instance.) She gives ample context for every of her well-considered theories, going as far as to hint the historical past of the 2 buildings that dominate Psycho: the Victorian mansion (within the second Empire Revival fashion) and the one-story motel. She additionally attracts a direct line from the USC Faculty of Structure and Hollywood manufacturing design—though Henry Bumstead and Dorothea Holt Redmund graduated with BFA levels. Like Hitchcock himself, who discovered fascination within the commonplace, French explores concepts that may appear evident to a Hitchcock aficionado however haven’t been expressed earlier than, and definitely not so eloquently. With well-chosen illustrations, this can be a guide of real discovery.
CAPTAIN OF HER SOUL: THE LIFE OF MARION DAVIES by Lara Gabrielle (College of California Press)
Writer Gabrielle has given us a present: an sincere biography of a lady whose life and profession have lengthy been misunderstood. Drawing on classic interviews and different major supplies that haven’t been examined earlier than, she paints a sympathetic portrait of a lady who loved her life and endured greater than her share of slings and arrows. Because the longtime mistress of publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst, she lived within the shadows even whereas sustaining her standing because the film colony’s most celebrated party-giver. The resuscitation of her silent movies lately additionally permits the creator to judge Davies’ work in larger element than any of her predecessors. In brief, that is the guide Marion Davies has at all times deserved.
THE ACADEMY AND THE AWARD by Bruce Davis (Brandeis College Press)
Having served as Govt Director of the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences for twenty years, the creator is uniquely certified to doc its historical past. However this isn’t a private memoir: Davis dug deep into the group’s information and skim via numerous minutes of committee conferences with a purpose to chronicle the group’s founding and progress and bury a few of its myths—together with the serpentine story of how its world-famous award obtained its nickname. That this Hollywood establishment survived its first tumultuous decade is a story which Davis recounts with wit and discernment. His erudition is icing on the cake: what might have been dry and educational is as a substitute a extremely readable guide that may lay declare to being definitive.