I read this 384-page book in one sitting, something I don’t do very often, but Sam Irvin has done such a great service to those of us who love larger than life personalities that the life of Kay Thompson deserved my full attention. There are probably few outside of the New York/Hollywood-over-40-show-biz-crowd that would even remember who this remarkable lady was, and that is another reason to rejoice at what Mr. Irvin has done in painstakingly researching this fabulous woman from her early days in St Louis as the impossibly named Kitty Fink right through her rise to power in Hollywood as the woman behind most of the creative talent at MGM {Kay was the vocal coach for many of the biggest names in town}.

Now for me this woman resonated straight away because I had spent a certain part of my life as a Talent agent in Hollywood and difficult actresses were commonplace, yet so few had the talent to make you go the distance in being a part of their lives. Kay Thompson achieved immortality as the author of a series of very adult children’s books centered around a six yr old mascot of the legendary Plaza hotel in New York. A cottage industry has long been in place to maintain this character well into the 21st century.

Kay Thompson came into my life much the same way she came into Sam Irvin’s, as a thinly veiled Diana Vreeland parody in Stanley Donen’s FUNNY FACE. In what was to have been an Audrey Hepburn/Fred Astaire showcase, Kay Thompson simply steals every scene she is in. The highlight being her rendition of the “THINK PINK” number which rocked the house as if Auntie Mame all of the sudden had a musical number in it. The irony here is, of course, that Kay Thompson was the original choice to play Vera Charles to Roz Russell’s Mame.

Kay Thompson should have been a huge star after her performance in FUNNY FACE, yet a combination of ego and bad judgment created a decidedly different story for the diva in question. This situation has played out many times before with powerhouse personalities like Isadora Duncan and especially the Machesa Casati whose life story would be filmed sort of by Vincente Minnelli as his ill conceived swan song A MATTER OF TIME, in which his daughter by Judy Garland, Liza, played an ugly duckling to a very miscast Ingrid Bergman. Kay was also considered for the Bergman role, however fate intervened so she would be spared the comparison to her own life of excess. Sam Irvin has gone the distance in locating and connecting all the dots in the zany world in which Kay Thompson lived, going from Hollywood to New York, then Rome, where she drifted as surely as if her old classmate Tennessee Williams had written her into his Roman Spring as a real life Mrs Stone. This is an exhaustive biography making Kay Thompson the skeleton key for anyone interested in Broadway or Hollywood from an insider,s perspective.

The person who shines through most of Kay’s later years is Liza Minnelli, who Kay took in hand after the death of her mother Judy Garland. It would be through Kay’s optimism and genius of knowing what would work for her young protege that Liza was able to blossom into a world-class entertainer. Liza never forgot this attention, and if not for Liza’s generosity this biography would have ended in a decidedly more macabre manner than it does. Kay was given a place to live in style for the rest of her life and for that alone Liza Minnelli deserves our admiration and respect.

I could easily go on and on citing more of what Sam Irvin has done right in bringing this amazing talent back into the limelight where she has always belonged. There are others like Kay who deserve the Sam Irvin treatment and I am going to suggest right here and now that he consider doing a biography of Dolores Gray, another showstopper who never really made that many films and became a sensation in cabaret. Dolores had the same effect Kay had in FUNNY FACE whenever she was onscreen in the MGM remake of KISMET. Francis Faye also come to mind as another lady whose talents made her a world wide sensation yet remains relatively unknown today.

What Sam Irvin has done in writing this book is simply smashing, he has brought back one of the bright lights of both Broadway and New York at a time when we really need to be reminded just how entertainers like Madonna and Lady GAGA were allowed to exist in the first place…..you owe it to yourself to spend an evening with Kay Thompson and THINK PINK!

In the tradition of Gore Vidal’s MYRON…(the sequel of sorts to his camp classic MYRA BREKINRIDGE) comes yet another revisionist take on old movies. This time however the characters are not lost in an old movie; they really are the old movie. In Myron our protagonist falls asleep while watching Maria Montez in all her Technicolor glory as COBRA WOMAN, however when he wakes up he finds himself in the movie itself. The premise of Peter H. Brothers novella is simply taking a second more detailed look at Bela Lugosi’s camp classic DEVIL BAT as if it were a true story that could not really be told in the pre-war era of Hollywood with the production code enforced as it was in 1940, the year DEVIL BAT was being filmed over at Monogram pictures.

Mr. Brothers’ love of Lugosi and all his films is evident on every page since he must have had to watch this film dozens of times to prepare for this retelling and revising of the characters. If you are planning to read this book it is essential that you see the film at least once to fully appreciate what he has accomplished here. The title includes the line THE JOURNAL OF JOHNNY LAYTON and it is with Layton that the tale officially begins. The differences are many and a few are surprising, especially the revelation that the overweight police chief Walker is gay and on the make for our handsome humpy reporter Johnny…a detail no doubt left on the cutting room floor over at Monogram, but reinstated here courtesy of Mr. Brothers imagination. The evil Dr. Carruthers as played by Lugosi is well represented here and with much time given to discuss his motives for revenge against those who stole from him in the first place. Of all of Lugosi’s films done during the 40′s, DEVIL BAT mirrors the actor’s plight with his terrible career moves after the success of DRACULA in 1931. By the time he was making these potboilers at studios like PRC and Monogram he was paid flat fees of $ 5000 or less for each one of them, like VOODOO MAN or RETURN OF THE APE MAN. In this film Bela takes revenge on those men who stole his invention and openly took pleasure in doing so…his response was to create a hybrid of killer bats that, when given a scent he cleverly placed on the victims throat, would then swoop down from the night skies, tearing their throats out….very vampiric of course; after all this is Lugosi we’re talking about here.

I won’t spoil the rest by giving away too much about what is revealed as our handsome reporter uncovers the underbelly of a small American town, as revealed on the late late show, with the addition of a third dimension, undreamed of by those who only know this material from the film.

Peter H Brothers first came to my attention via the films of Ishiro Honda since he has done a study of the Japanese director of ATTACK OF THE MUSHROOM PEOPLE before taking on the sage of the devil bats. He is also an actor, and of course a lifelong Lugosi fan….anyone who sees themselves in this must check this book out ASAP.

POSTSCRIPT

I am no stranger to revisionist writing myself, only instead of DEVIL BAT my Monogram film of choice was VOODOO MAN. If you want to read how I brought character actor George Zucco out of limbo long enough to do his “Cabaret act” in a dream of mine regarding time spent with Kenneth Anger then go to the Camp David archive and find WELCOME TO THE BREAKFAST SHOW……only RAMBOONA knows for sure….

And now for a book named, appropriately, after cheese – Scandinavian Blue, a scholarly study of the era of increasingly no-holds barred sex in Scandinavian film that made the names “Sven” and “Inge” the butt (you should pardon the expression) of so many dirty jokes.

We start, like many pornographic movies, innocently. In the Fifties, a genre of film called “summer films” which depicted stories of irresistible nudity and lovemaking along isolated, idyllic lakesides, became insanely popular in Sweden. (Long winters, sparse population, Aquavit….). The sex was pretty, but morally paid for by unwanted pregnancies and sordid consequences. Even Ingmar Bergman made a summer film – SUMMER WITH MONIKA starring Harriet Andersson. It has, however, a Bergmanian twist — Monika is a rebellious teen who likes sex, consequences be damned, and leaves her husband and the baby at the end of the film. Stevenson points out she is the first in a long line of the director’s heroines to stare into the camera and “not give a damn what anybody including the audience thinks.” One tends to forget how influential Bergman was in the late Fifties and early Sixties; a neat little photo from Truffaut’s 400 BLOWS of Jean Pierre Leaud looking at a still from Monika makes one wonder if Bergman’s early fame did not get a considerable aerodynamic lift from his Scandinavian insouciance towards sex and nudity.

This kind of obsessively researched and thoughtful information is typical of Stevenson’s approach to his subject. Unfortunately, as his subject ripens it does not always do justice to Stevenson’s dignified scholarship. In 1969, Denmark legally abolished all censorship in print, imagery, performance, etc. At a time when the whole Western World was feeling the love of sexual liberation, republishing ‘Fanny Hill,’ celebrating Kinsey and Masters and Johnson, the scene in Scandinavia quickly moves beyond the art film and goes, whole hog, into everything that can be put on film and sold as smut. Thereby hangs the rest of the tale/tail – 280 plus pages packed with the details of nearly every Scandinavian film marketed for its sex during the period. If there is any flaw to this book – and it is perhaps a small flaw since it is self-evident – it is Stevenson’s willingness to downplay the one thing that may be even more powerful than sex – money. It is not that he overlooks it – indeed he frankly analyzes and critiques distributors and their strategies. I just personally find it a wee bit disingenuous that so many directors really thought they were making anything other than pornography. Of course nothing clouds the brain more than the “other brain.”

In the vast herring net Stevenson trolls with, he does manage to catch many interesting figures like filmmaker Mai Zetterling, who moved from in front of the camera to behind it, and made such personal and eccentric films as NIGHT GAMES and LOVING COUPLES, which have been compared to Bunuel and honored at Cannes; and Vilgot Sjoman, director of the famous I AM CURIOUS YELLOW. The latter, which is unknown to anyone under the age of 50 today, was a ubiquitous pop culture beacon of the era. Looking back, it seems to me that the period of sexual liberation has quickly been swept under the carpet – we may have effectively disowned that part of our pasts as it came to seem dangerous and distasteful in the age of AIDS, Bush and the deification of the American Family. Stevenson is part of a small but growing number of scholars who look at popular fantasy not with the jaundiced jabber-speak and psychobabble of Lacanian scholars like Zizek (who is often right but practically incomprehensible) but with a straight-shooting, no shit diction that reminds me of Chris Hansen on Dateline inviting pedophiles to take a seat.

All in all, I am glad to have learned what I did by reading this book – just not so much of it. Perhaps it is best summed up by what Time Magazine said about a 1967 film, also starring Harriet Anderrson, called PEOPLE MEET AND SWEET MUSIC FILLS THE HEART: “at once boring, roguish and very entertaining.”

For every lightbulb and Kleig light in Hollywood there is a story to go along with how that light was lit, as well as how it dimmed and went out altogether. In the case of wunderkind Bruce Kimmel, as one light began to dim, he reached into his imagination and screwed another one in its place.

Bruce has been a good friend of mine for a number of years, yet I really didn’t know all that much about his background until now. My first memory of Bruce had to be a cover of ‘Films and Filming’ magazine which paid tribute to THE FIRST NUDIE MUSICAL, written and directed by Mr. Kimmel – and by the way, did I mention he acts in it as well. This was all well before we actually met, so I was not influenced by anything the first time I saw it at the Fox theater on Hollywood Blvd.

Bruce then endeared himself to me forever by writing another film entitled THE CREATURE WASN’T NICE, featuring one of my heros, Patrick MacNee, the immortal John Steed of THE AVENGERS, my all time favorite series in the world. One of the songs from that film, “I Want To Eat Your Face,” has been a favorite since I heard it, and became very useful in courtship rituals of mine…but I digress. Bruce, as you can imagine, is something of a renaissance man in an era where they are increasingly hard to find. He acts, writes novels, directs plays, and oversees a successful business that brings joy and laughter to all of us that love the musical theater, so as you can imagine he has very few straight friends.

Now on to the book itself… which I read in one sitting because it is a well written book that flows from one page to the next with more famous names than there are “raisins in a fruitcake,” to quote from the jacket reviews.

The author himself advised me, in his dedication, that I would most likely know most of the people he would be writing about anyway. Well he was right about that in spades. Except for the early years, when nobody famous knew him but his parents, I recognized somebody from my past on every page. Now don’t get the wrong idea that this book would only be of interest to me, because if you love show business and the musical theater at all, you will find yourself hopelessly caught up in the life and times of this unique little guy, who approaches life like it was a sitcom where things always seem to fall into place for our hero by the final fadeout.

Did I mention that Bruce is two years older than me? Well he is, and it shows on every page as he describes, for example, his time playing the next-door neighbor to the now legendary PARTRIDGE FAMILY. I especially like the photo of our hero with hair, deep in conversation with the terminally cute David Cassidy in the book’s ample photo galley. Bruce seemed to have it all during this period, with a high profile on television and his foot in the door to episodic immortality. Then it all seemed to go south for a while, and our hero did what all heros worth their salt do – he reinvented himself. However, to find out just how all this worked out you must go online and buy a copy of this book and read it for yourself.

For me this was a ride worth taking, as I feel I know Bruce Kimmel in a way that simply would never have happened otherwise. After all we are basically two people far too into ourselves to ever find this sort of biography out, unless one or the other of us writes a book. Which, as it turns out, is just what happened….

So Bruce, when you read this, and I know you will… please be kind, after all you will get a chance to review mine at the beginning of next year.

I couldn’t help but feel sad when asked to review the book DENNIS HOPPER AND THE NEW HOLLYWOOD. I am certainly a fan, and I’m thrilled that he just received the Hollywood star, but it is in the public knowledge that he is terminally ill with cancer, and Hollywood is known to give artists their due when it looks like they might soon be knocking on heaven’s door. Robert Altman got his Lifetime Achievement award the same year as his death. At 84, Roger Corman just received his. Lets hope he has more healthy years ahead. With that being said, this is not a eulogy. It’s just a review of a book.

Up until his diagnosis, Hopper wasn’t exactly what you would call a “movie star”. Only a couple of performances from the last three decades stick out in my mind. BLUE VELVET being the top of the list. Then there is SPEED and that one great scene in TRUE ROMANCE opposite Christopher Walken.* Yes, there was the Best Picture winner CRASH but he was overshadowed by a large ensemble. He starred in at least one movie a year up until he got sick (and he still has two awaiting release). He also did television (the CRASH series), and video games (GRAN THEFT AUTO). The man worked; but he mostly did independent films. It is hard to imagine a more different career than that of his long-time buddy and collaborator Jack Nicholson. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jack popped up as the male lead in the new Jennifer Aniston rom-com. It’s not that Hopper isn’t as good looking as Nicholson, it’s that Hopper is too dangerous of an actor to star in a Nancy Meyer movie. He can’t phone a performance in like other actors, he has too much going on behind his eyes. He would make everybody feel nervous. Hopper has always been a rebel. His spot has always been a bit on the outskirts of Hollywood. Which is appropriate since he was one of the key artists of what we now call “The New Hollywood”.

“The New Hollywood” is hard to explain. It differs from other film movements like the “French New Wave”. This is because the artists were not DIY directors like Jean-Luc Godard. Most of these filmmakers went to film school. The movies they made were funded and distributed by major studios. The difference was that they were young, and were tapped into a counter culture. Their films followed anti-heros, they were open about their political beliefs as well as their sexual freedom and recreational use of drugs. Hollywood knew that they could use these fresh-minded artists to connect to a young audience.

Although this is where Hopper might stand on his own. EASY RIDER is said to be the only truly independent film of this movement.

DENNIS HOPPER AND THE NEW HOLLYWOOD was an art exhibition in France, and eventually made it’s way to Australia. After looking at the book I wish it would have found its way to New York. I knew Hopper dabbled in other art forms such as photography and fine art, but I am surprised at how good he was! It turns out his talent really shines throughout all these mediums. His photography is excellent, usually in a rich black and white, either portraits of his friends/other famous artists, or just capturing what seems to be candid moments in 1960′s America. While not as realized as his photographs, his abstract expressionist paintings aren’t too shabby. I found myself a couple of times checking the caption, expecting to see the name of a famous artist, and being surprised that it is a work of his own.

Speaking of famous artists, He has acquired millions upon millions of dollars worth of art throughout the years, most of which were personally donated by the artists themselves who are friends of his. He owns pieces from Warhol (he once fired a gun at one while he was high, and you can see the bullet holes!), Franz Kline, Rauschenberg, Robert Irwin, Basquiat, the list just goes on. It is probably the most impressive personal art collection I’ve ever seen. Inevitably, there is controversy as to who will inherit said collection. In recent news, his current wife, Victoria Duffy (whom he is in the middle of divorcing), disappeared with a good portion of his collection.

DENNIS HOPPER AND THE NEW HOLLYWOOD is a nice book, and beautifully put together, but I must warn the reader that it is a coffee table book. You won’t learn much about Dennis Hopper the man. It is an overview of Dennis Hopper the artist but offers no critical analysis whatsoever. It is a glossy picture book peppered with a chronology and short selected interviews with Hopper. It lets you make your own judgments, and hopefully will encourage you to seek out or revisit his film work, because the screen clips really can’t do justice to this man’s extensive and unique career.

*Allow FIR’s editor to mention a few more: APOCALYPSE NOW, THE RIVER’S EDGE, and RED ROCK WEST.

Whenever I see James Whale’s brilliantly funny and smart horror classic THE INVISIBLE MAN, I pay attention to that final shot in the film where the unseen title character materializes on the hospital bed, just as life leaves him. First you see a skull resting on the pillow, then it’s covered in veins, then it becomes a person – a young-looking Claude Rains. Rains is perfectly groomed and shaved after months of being invisible, not able to see himself in a mirror. It’s an early example of cinema’s “the cool factor”. Whale must have known he was starting a great film career for Rains, so he made sure Claude was all prettied up! Up until now, audiences only heard that signature semi-hoarse British voice brilliantly carry the film. 1933 audiences seeing THE INVISIBLE MAN on it’s first run had discovered an exciting new film talent.

Rains was already forty-four when Whale cast him in his debut film. (In 1920, Rains starred in BUILD THY HOUSE, an obscure, but now lost British silent film) Fans often wondered – where did Rains come from, what did he do before he caused all that havoc while invisible? Author David J. Skal, a horror film historian noted for such works as Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screenhas teamed up with Rains’ only child, Jessica Rains to come up with An Actor’s Voice – Claude Rains, a tasty 290-page biography. Skal and Rains organized volumes of unpublished notes and rare voice recordings of Mr. Rains.

Skal presents this previously unwritten history of Rains’ early life as something of a male version of MY FAIR LADY. William Claude Rains started his career as a teenaged stagehand in England, hampered by a Cockney drawl and a lisp (Classmates mocked the youth by calling him “Willy Wains”) Two major occurrences molded that drawl into the velvety voice that made such lines as “I am shocked, shocked, that there is gambling here!” immortal.

It’s that voice, with those old English Theatre barnstorming deliveries that help carry THE INVISIBLE MAN. Could you imagine Brando or Stallone deliver lines like : “Even da moon’s frightened duv me. Duh ho worle’s frighen to debt!” It’s that same barnstorming that made 1937’s THEY WONT’ FORGET jump out of the screen. My only negative with this book is that it brushes past this and other notable Claude Rains films too quickly. In THEY WON’T FORGET, Rains is Andy Griffin, a backwoods Southern District Attorney whose only occasionally duties were scaring the law into the town drunk. Now he’s the prosecution in the trial of the century! When Griffin addresses the courtroom, it’s INVISBLE MAN’S insane Jack Griffin let loose again – manic – yelling – gesturing. But Rains’ can be beautifully understated as well. Skal points out the scene in MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON where Rains (as a crooked senior US Senator) confronts young idealist Junior Senator James Stewart:

“You see things as black and white. A man as angel or devil. That’s the young idealist in you. And that isn’t how the world is run, Jeff. Not Government or Politics…. Thirty years ago, I had those ideals. I was you.” It’s a very real scene, a dark scene in an otherwise feel good movie.

The crème of Hollywood directors often used Rains to grace their films – Mervyn LeRoy, Michael Curtiz, Alfred Hitchcock, William Dieterle. Skal reprints the critical reviews of all Rains’ films, including his last, the overblown GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD. Critic Stanley Kaufmann’s review read “There are two exceptions to the generally bad acting here. Rains, as the sick old Herod who slaughters the innocents. The other is Max von Sydow.” Good reading!

What’s the quickest and most painless way to learn to write a screenplay?

No, it’s not the Robert McKee bonding weekend, which I have always thought must have been based on the brainwashing chapter in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE….

It’s not an “Insider” class on the Internet led by some dweeb in his pajamas exactly like you pretending to be a “major Hollywood agent.”

It’s not an MFA from a fancy film school where your graduation speech will be given by someone who used to be Michael Eisner…. (Neither fun nor painless.)

If you want to learn the bones of commercial screenwriting practically in your sleep, do it in your undershirt while eating Haagen Dazs and laughing your head off – and pay only $13.95–go to Amazon right now and order HITCHCOCKED, the new novel by Hal Spear and Rocco Simonelli.

Hal Spear is a comedian who has written for the likes of Jay Leno, Drew Carey and Howie Mandel. Rocco Simonelli is a screenwriter with a string of commercial successes (including co-creation of THE SUBSTITUTE – 1,2 and 3). He is also the author of a book about independent filmmaking (Shoot Me), and has taught screenwriting for a number of years. Together, they have produced a wisecracking thriller starring a film professor and the proverbial smart and gorgeous girl who’s-not-as-tough-as-she-seems. The professor – Marlowe, no less — is the person central casting would have sent if they suddenly woke up in 2010 and had to cast BRINGING UP BABY. And Cary Grant was dead and everyone else was from New Jersey. Denise Brigham is an amalgam of every heroine from Kate Hepburn to Jessica Beal – the fantasy girl every hero wants to end up with.

Being that Marlowe is, like Indiana Jones, commissioned from his post in a college, the nerdy professor of film sees everything in terms of movies. A lovely repartee develops between Denise and Marlowe, testing each other on their knowledge of movies and giving the reader clues to how the villains can be foiled. The villains — swarthy and villainous – lead the pair on a romantic romp through the history of Hollywood.

The pace is fast – perhaps too fast to allow for the organic growth of character. But that’s quibbling. HITCHCOCKED is the verbal equivalent of a box of Cracker Jacks – and the prize is that it is every bit as tightly constructed as a good movie. Figure out how the authors did it and all that stands between you and the next AVATAR is several hundred million dollars.

For the purpose of full disclosure (sounds like a movie starring Marlowe and Denise) Rocco Simonelli was the author’s colleague at the School of Visual Arts for 10 years. He is every bit as funny in person.

At the 2005 Academy Awards ceremony, Blake Edwards was presented with an honorary Oscar “in recognition of his writing, directing, and producing an extraordinary body of work for the screen.” It was the first step in a long overdue process of recognizing the octogenarian filmmaker’s cinematic contributions. Now, Sam Wasson’s new book, A SPLURCH IN THE KISSER: THE MOVIES OF BLAKE EDWARDS takes another giant step toward that goal.

The book’s curious title comes from the slapstick comedy with which Blake’s reputation is so closely identified: a “splurch,” Wasson explains, is a sight-gag’s ability to cut its subject down to size–in other words, in Blake Edwards’ comedies, he usually throws a pie in the face of the people who deserve a good drubbing. And Wasson clearly illustrates how Blake has done that time and time again not just onscreen but in life.

A SPLURCH IN THE KISSER is far less a biography than an in-depth critical essay, but in discussing each movie the author examines the issues in Blake’s personal and professional lives that inspired key moments or storylines in those pictures. More than simply discussing film theory from a distant or abstract point of view, Wasson has a definite feel for his subject and a great eye for detail, marrying a description of shots with an explanation of their purpose.

The book points out that throughout his varied career Blake Edwards has been an actor, producer, director and writer, though in many of his films he is better described as an auteur. Few filmmakers’ careers have been so all-over-the-map, ranging from romantic comedy (BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S, 1961) to suspense (EXPERIMENT IN TERROR, 1962) to out-and-out drama (DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES, 1962) to musicals (DARLING LILI, 1968, and VICTOR/VICTORIA, 1982) to biting satire (S.O.B., 1981).

But ultimately Edwards is best known to the outside world as a maker of slapstick comedies. OPERATION PETTICOAT (1959) put him on the map, but it was the PINK PANTHER films that made him a household name. Released in 1964, THE PINK PANTHER began life with David Niven, Ava Gardner, and Peter Ustinov, but when Gardner made trouble and was released from her contract, Ustinov dropped out of the picture, leaving Blake scrambling to find a replacement for role of French chief Inspector Clouseau. Edwards quickly recast Peter Sellers, and thus began one of the most successful comedy partnerships in Hollywood history.

To be sure, it was a love/hate relationship. Sellers was brilliant but mad as a hatter and he and Blake Edwards locked horns during the course of filming a string of hits ranging from the sublime (A SHOT IN THE DARK, 1964) to the tired (TRAIL OF THE PINK PANTHER, 1982, shot after Sellers died and cobbled together partly from recycled footage). But audiences fell in love with the bumbling police inspector and turned cinematic brilliance into box-office gold.

At his best, Blake Edwards is a master not merely of combining comedy and tragedy, but also using dry wit to make wry observation. Wasson’s book sheds light on Edwards’ lesser known (and arguably most effective) offerings, such as the excellent WHAT DID YOU DO IN THE WAR, DADDY? (1966) which was released on DVD a couple years back to little fanfare. Rarely has the cinema produced so poignant a statement on the futility of war with so little bloodshed.

Granted, he’s made his share of mistakes. Take BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S, for example; Play MOON RIVER, the hugely successful theme song longtime Edwards collaborator Henry Mancini composed for the picture (with lyrics by Johnny Mercer) loud enough and audiences could almost overlook Mickey Rooney, dreadfully miscast at his old buddy Blake’s assistance, as a Japanese photographer engaging in what is now considered un-PC slapstick. And a number of Edwards’ films have suffered at the hands of bad editing jobs foisted on the pictures by inept studio interference.

The first one was DARLING LILI, starring his wife, Julie Andrews, as a German counter-spy during World War I. It was a musical, on top of that, but even following on the heels of Julie’s hit musical THE SOUND OF MUSIC (directed by Robert Wise) it was a legendary box-office failure.

MGM was now in the red and the studio’s new president, James Aubrey, took matters into his own hands when he ordered a number of MGM films re-cut. “It was my best film,” Blake said of THE WILD ROVERS (1971), “and he butchered it. I beseeched them; they still butchered it.” Aubrey did the same with two more of Blake’s films and, adding insult to injury, labeled the director an irresponsible spendthrift

Blake and his new wife Julie Andrews (star of DARLING LILI) now also had a string of flops to their names. After the fallout they and their family retreated to Switzerland, and while lesser men would have given up (and he himself almost did), Blake turned to writing, channeling his anger and frustrations with Hollywood into the screenplay that would later become S.O.B. (1981), a kind of metaphorical autobiography of his career as a director.

After recharging his batteries he plotted his comeback by returning to the familiar territory of Inspector Clouseau, surefire moneymakers that announced he was back in business, then segued from the PINK PANTHER sequels into his most thoughtful and reflective period. The movies that followed mirrored his own mid-life crises: the bittersweet 10 (1979), which made stars out of Bo Derek and Dudley Moore; the aforementioned S.O.B., and the gender-bending VICTOR/VICTORIA (1982). While 10 and S.O.B. featured Julie Andrews in supporting roles, it was her star-turn as “a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman” in 1930′s Paris that solidified Mr. and Mrs. Edwards as a successful creative team.

VICTOR/VICTORIA, like so many of Blake’s earlier projects, featured a score and songs composed by Henry Mancini. Their collaboration as director and composer over a nearly 35-year period produced some truly memorable songs, including the themes to THE PINK PANTHER and DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES and the unforgettable MOON RIVER, sung by Audrey Hepburn to great success in BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S.

Wasson’s book proves a great success in providing a serious case for reevaluating Blake Edwards’ career. While it could use a few more still photos, A SPLURCH IN THE KISSER is a handsomely produced book and Sam Wasson is to be commended for shining a spotlight on an often-overlooked filmmaker, and especially for bringing attention to some of Edwards’ least-known movies.

Surprisingly, given the prolific amount of music Lalo Schifrin has written for film and television (see my feature in the Soundtrack section of Films in Review), very little of his autobiography touches on that aspect of his life. In fact he doesn’t touch on it in any detail until Part Five and chapter twenty-one of the book. But those insights he does provide are pearls of great price. He describes the Routines and Processes he employs when scoring; sixties TV assignments and the exhausting practice of writing for episodic television; the story behind his rejected score for THE EXORCIST and his dramatically changing feelings toward its director William Friedkin. We are also given what Lalo charmingly calls vignettes of encounters with Orson Welles whilst working on VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED; a dinner conversation about jazz with Marlon Brando; a conversation with Henry Mancini where Mancini revealed that the studio execs, after hearing his score for BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S told director Blake Edwards that the movie was o.k., but the ‘frigging’ song had to be cut out. The song of course was Moon River. Lalo also describes his working on THE CINCINNATI KID where the director and producer had different ideas as where the film was going, so to play safe Lalo wrote, for the first and last time, two scores for the same movie. We also hear amusing anecdotes relating to his work on ONCE A THIEF and THE LIQUIDATOR and finally his own reminiscences of a meal with film music connoisseur John Asher, composers Miklos Rozsa and Bronislau Kaper. The venue was Alfred Hitchcock’s favourite restaurant Chason’s, and the assembled guests each told their own stories about ‘The Old Hollywood’.

So, only two chapters out of 34 actually relate to his film work. This of course is neither a complaint on my part nor an oversight on his. This proportion clearly represents the relative importance that the different areas of music that Lalo’s skills encompass have had in his life, maybe not at any particular time, but certainly retrospectively, which is what autobiographies tend to be – a retrospective.

The early part of the book deals with his upbringing in a troubled Buenos Aires under the tyrannical Perons where he learned to stay out of politics (he remains apolitical to this day, preferring to remain an objective social scientist rather than an emotional activist); his early fascination with jazz which he listened to on illegally imported American records; his eventual discharge from the army (either through luck or divine intervention) and his acceptance into the Paris National Music Conservatory. We then experience his life in the Paris of the early 1950s and his continuing interest and experience in jazz alongside his classical tuition at the Conservatory, a combination of styles that would remain with him. After a brief return to South America Lalo began a jazz career with trumpet maestro Dizzy Gillespie that would last five years and a friendship that endured until Dizzy’s death in 1993. Lalo says his time with Gillespie was ‘one of the happiest periods of my life in terms of music’.

In the early sixties Lalo moved from New York to Hollywood and began film and TV scoring career that continues to this day. This is but a scant summation of those early years, but the essence of this book is Lalo’s passion for combining those two disciplines – classical and jazz, what he calls Jazz Meets the Symphony, and a combination so prevalent in many of his film and TV scores. We hear about his working with Stan Getz, Jimmy Smith, Sarah Vaughan, Quincy Jones; anecdotes about Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Groucho Marx, Barbara Streisand and many more. We also hear about his involvement in the world of opera, in particular working with the ‘Three Tenors’, Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras, his numerous classical music commissions and much information on the albums that have resulted from Lalo’s ‘Mission Impossible’ – of bringing together two musical styles – Jazz Meets the Symphony.

And, from his frank and candid comments on his observations, we also learn a lot about Lalo the boy, the youth and the man.

An enjoyable aspect of this book is its layout. It is presented in such a way that it’s not necessary to read it from beginning to end, though eventually you will, and you can dip into any particular section in any particular order. I for one went straight to the Writing for Film section when my copy arrived, but there are so many cross-references thrown in here and there you soon start to explore the whole volume over and over.

An unusual but appropriate inclusion to the book is a CD of Lalo’s music, again the lion’s share of the disc, like the book, devoted to his jazz and symphonic work with only two scores from the screen, Mission: Impossible of course and ‘Shifting Gears’ from BULLITT.

Highly recommended, and I particularly liked his notes on critics…

Although Pinewood Studios -70 Years Of Fabulous Filmmaking aspires to be the ultimate movie coffee table book, you may need to buy a new coffee table in order to display it. Weighing in at 12 plus pounds, the book packs a prodigious heft in both information and beauty of presentation, making it the literary equivalent of a Renaissance cabinet-vitrine. Simply thumbing through the pages of this book is impressive, as the reproduction quality of the photographs are stunning. Also, special inserts are interspersed throughout, giving one a sense of tradition at Pinewood, which continues to this day. One gets profiles and interviews with the famous, like Richard Attenborough, to the more specialized, such as Gerry Anderson, producer of UFO and SPACE 1999, who began as a Pinewood sound editor, and Billy Welles, the bare-chested gong ringer seen in the opening credits of all Rank Organization films through WW II. (J. Arthur Rank was the founder of Pinewood and the owner of more than 600 cinemas in the UK, including London’s prestigious Odeon.)

Over the years, whenever a film was particularly imaginative in its sets and photography (such as the “James Bond” series, SUPERMAN or SWEENEY TODD) there was usually a credit at the end stating, “This film was made at Pinewood studios.” What I didn’t know, however, is that Pinewood has a history that goes even farther back then filmmaking. Morris Bright, the author, tells us that “the late Sir Dirk Bogarde stood at the very spot that the Irish Free State treaty had been signed [in the manor house that constitutes the studio's main entrance] waxing far more lyrically about the history of where he was standing than any film he had ever made as a Rank star.” I’m uncertain whether Mr. Bright approves of film stars waxing lyrically, but a photo of the plaque commemorating that event is included in the front of the book.

Although it’s hard to believe, Pinewood, officially opened in 1938, was the first British studio to have both the shooting stages and the make-up and production offices centrally located and connected by central heating. Before this, actors had to trek outside in inclement weather wearing pancake and mascara. J. Arthur Rank was instrumental in having Pinewood built this way. (The settings are fairly luxurious, including a formal garden, which was used for the pre-credit chase sequence in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.)

In addition to innovative studio design, Mr. Rank formed a group of film directors after WWII (including Anthony Asquith, Sidney Gilliat and Michael Powell) called “The Independents” specifically for the purpose of initiating projects without any budgetary constraints. Although this ultimately led to the studio’s near bankruptcy in the early 1950′s, it also produced some of the most honored British films ever made, such as GREAT EXPECTATIONS and BLACK NARCISSUS.

The sound stages at Pinewood have been a witness to some of the most memorable moments in British film history, including the overhead tracking shot across a dance hall into a close-up of a man’s twitching eyelid from Hitchcock’s YOUNG AND INNOCENT, Wendy Hiller and Leslie Howard’s tempest-tossed chemistry in PYGMALION, the faces of ordinary citizens during the London blitz from Humphrey Jennings’ visionary war documentaries LISTEN TO BRITAIN and FIRES WERE STARTED (edited at Pinewood), Deborah Kerr sequestered in a Himalayan monastery for BLACK NARCISSUS, the staging of THE RED SHOES ballet and Sean Connery’s first intoning of the immortal words: “Bond. James Bond.” One could go on, and Mr. Bright does, in my opinion, to excess, but the over-the-top quality of his prose certainly matches his subject.

For an American, leafing through the book is also like being on the other side of the looking glass. Expecting rare production stills and lots of anecdotes on the Archers (directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger) and David Lean, whose best films, including THE RED SHOES and OLIVER TWIST, were all made at Pinewood, I was surprised to find that Lean and Powell/Pressberger’s films were only allotted a few pages of pictures each, with very little text. (Lean is at least given a page-long profile.) Instead, almost a third of the book – 100 pages, to be exact – is devoted to the “Carry On” series, the DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE comedies, and especially the films of Norman Wisdom.

“Who’s Norman Wisdom?” an American might ask. To be fair, Norman Wisdom was an accomplished actor – he stole THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKY’S from Bert Lahr, no mean feat – but his roles as a comic Everyman in these flatly directed John Paddy Carstairs films – Mr. Carstairs only came into his own as a distinctive stylist in the 60′s on THE SAINT tv series – featured in Mr. Bright’s book do not do him justice. Looking at thirty pages of stills of Norman Wisdom with the same, slightly hangdog expression reminds me of a time in my life when I couldn’t sleep and stayed up late watching television. Some 50′s British comedy produced at Pinewood (often starring Mr. Wisdom) would invariably appear on WPIX at 3 AM. The sets and costumes were so slapdash, the pacing so funereal, the actors so resolutely unfunny – at least to an American sensibility – that the films were utterly fascinating.

Part of the pleasure of a movie coffee table book is to vicariously re-live the experience of a beloved film by immersing oneself in the confluence of pictures and text. Unfortunately, when it comes to many of my favorite British films, Mr. Bright merely tosses out a smattering of stills and brief descriptions of such enduring classics as GREEN FOR DANGER, THE BROWNING VERSION and THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST with the unfocused rush of a suburban commuter attempting to catch an express bus.

Then again, one might argue that Pinewood classics of the late 40′s have been praised to the skies, while the intricacies of a Norman Wisdom comedy or CARRY ON CLEO from 1964 have been never written about, and represent an important, and generally underappreciated, aspect of British cinema. (Mr. Bright seems to have a particular fondness for CARRY ON CLEO, a parody of CLEOPATRA, stating : “Kenneth Williams’ classic exclamation: ‘Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!” now even appears in some dictionaries, in such high comedy regard is the line remembered.”) At the very least, these inexpensive if somewhat lackadaisical comedies, the cinematic equivalent of boiled beef and mashed potatoes, were extremely popular in the UK, and kept Pinewood studios from going under.

Though fairly silly, I have fond memories of the “Carry On” series as they were the first films I saw to give the impression that sex between consenting adults was a positive and mutually satisfying experience. Because of their slightly risque nature, the “Carry On” series was exhibited as art films in the US. In fact, I remember CARRY ON, REGARDLESS being the follow-up feature to Fellini’s LA DOLCE VITA at my local theater in Syracuse, NY.

Mr. Bright’s prose style is an odd mixture of the decorative and self-consciously ironic, as he anoints some low-budget Rank comedy of the 50′s as an icon of cinematic art, all the while giving one the literary equivalent of a wink, as if to imply it’s all in good fun. Still, as Claude Rains said in some Warner Bros. film, the title of which I no longer remember, “He knows his stuff!” All the information, much of it never published before, is what makes this book so entertaining to read.

The book is also a feast for the eye, making one want to grow up all over again in England so one can work in such a fabulous place. Pictures of the studio under construction and in full operation can be found alongside production stills stretching from the mid-1930′s through last year. ( For instance, one gets a glossy black and white of Alec Guinness drinking tea in full make-up as Fagin, as well as a color photo of Shirley Eaton being gilded for her scene in GOLDFINGER.)

An area where Mr. Bright excels is his chapter on the Army Film and Photography Unit based at Pinewood during WW II. Here Mr. Bright uses a talent for narrative and the illuminating detail in order to tell the story of the documentary cameramen who were flown into combat zones in order to wrest footage – often at risk of their lives – to inform the public as well as soldiers about to enter the same areas.

Many of the editors and directors who shaped this raw footage into film later became known for their postwar work at Pinewood, such as Roy Boulting, Richard Attenborough and Bryan Forbes. Therefore, the story of the AFPU is also essential to the larger narrative of the British cinema. Still, this chapter is fascinating in itself. I only wish Mr. Bright could take this material and expand it into a separate book.

Fortunately, many of the cameramen and editors of the AFPU are still with us. Mr. Bright seems to have interviewed almost everyone, incorporating their spoken words and still fresh memories into his narrative. This has the chilling yet mesmerizing effect of immersing one in the daily life of a working documentary unit during the Battle of Britain. I must also commend the extraordinary eye of the book’s designer, who places photographs alongside the text so that one supports the other in the manner of a well-made film.

I myself had the pleasure of knowing Hans Barnystyn, one of the documentary cameraman based at Pinewood during the Second World War. When I met him he was a movie theater manager for Trans-Lux Corporation on the cusp of retirement. He told me a story (partially seen in the film SOLDIER OF ORANGE) about how he and a group of Dutch cameramen working with the resistance were parachuted into Holland in order to capture footage of enemy locations. Unfortunately, one of their number was a traitor and I believe that Hans was one of the few that managed to survive.

This book will please those people at the New York Film Festival who ask incessant questions about budgets, as Mr. Bright has included a great deal of information as to how much these films cost, as well as the ratio between box office receipts and the budget. (In this regard, Mr. Bright finds THE RED SHOES sorely lacking, for not only did the film go way over budget, but it was a box office failure in the UK.)

Mr. Bright is so resolutely gushy when dealing with what I consider the most dreadful examples of British films of the 50′s and 60′s that these sections of Pinewood Studios-70 Years might have been conceived as an elaborate practical joke. At least it would explain Mr. Bright’s enthusiasm for Ralph Thomas, director of the inept DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE series in which the only interest lies in the ever increasing lushness of James Robertson Justice’s beard (a young Dirk Bogarde, Kay Kendall and a freshness of characterization makes the first one a winner); as well as a wretched remake of Hitchcock’s THE 39 STEPS in which one isn’t sure who did what to whom, let alone why the camera seems to be focused at pigeons on rooftops (Is it possible Mr. Thomas mistakenly thinks he is remaking THE BIRDS?) while someone is being murdered offscreen; SOME GIRLS DO, a murky bargain basement Bond spoof featuring a catatonic Sydney Rome in white go-go boots who simply stands there (no doubt waiting for her closeup); and most notoriously, PERCY, a sluggishly paced string of smirky non-sequiturs about the world’s first successful penis transplant. Add to the mix grainy, washed-out photography, flimsy looking sets and actors who spend most of their time walking aimlessly down nondescript streets or fumbling in their pockets for keys and you’ll understand why I’m sent into a trance-like state by Mr. Thomas’ oeuvre similar to that induced by the films of the Canadian minimalist Michael Snow.

In reading these stories about producers and personalities that Mr. Bright has set before us, one wonders how any films at all were made, let alone such a large number of enduring classics. In particular, let’s consider GENEVIEVE, director Henry Cornelius’ transcendent 1952 comedy about a man, a woman and the antique car that initially separates, and then unites them during a cross-country race. Watching GENEVIEVE is like living through one’s favorite birthday parties simultaneously, all wrapped up in an 86 minute Technicolor portrait of perhaps the oddest yet happiest of nuclear families. Mr. Bright, after rushing through the 40′s, slows down some and spends a marvelous six pages on Henry Cornelius’ film, brightly illustrated with color stills of Kay Kendall and Kenneth More (who were third and forth billed, but ended up stealing the picture, Mr. More receiving an award as the best British performer of the year). It’s also a nice touch to include a photo of Larry Adler, the expatriate American harmonica player who composed GENEVIEVE’s score but was uncredited in the film.

Two years before GENEVIEVE, Pinewood tottered on the edge of bankruptcy, and a bureaucrat from Baton Rouge, LA, Howard St. John, had taken control of production, limiting each film to a budget of 100,000 pounds. The money for GENEVIEVE had mostly come from the British government, so Mr. St. John had no complaint there, but he had a particular dislike of Kenneth More and Kay Kendall, and after the film was finished, decided (along with J. Arthur Rank) that GENEVIEVE was box office poison and put the film on the shelf. 18 months later the Christmas attraction at the London Odeon cinema bombed, and Mr. St. John, filled with trepidation, was forced to put GENEVIEVE in its place. GENEVIEVE quickly became the top British box office attraction of the decade, made stars of Kenneth More and Kay Kendall and saved Pinewood from going under. (Mr. St. John also did everything in his power to stop DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE from being made, the other bright spot along with GENEVIEVE, both artistically and financially, in Pinewood’s production history of the early 50′s.)

There’s a lot more I could tell you, as the book goes on for over a 100 pages beyond what I’ve described, starting with a detailed and lavishly illustrated chapter on the entire “James Bond” series, from Sean Connery to Daniel Craig, continuing with the sci-fi and comic book films of the 70′s and 80′s, such as the “Alien” and “Batman” series, as well as lots of information on Stanley Kubrick and Tim Burton. A detailed 30-page filmography at the back of the book lists over 300 movies, from CROSS MY HEART, directed in 1938 by one Bernard Mainwaring, to Tim Burton’s SWEENEY TODD. Seeing as I have recently reviewed two collections of Hammer films, and therefore have a special interest, the only Hammers made at Pinewood were THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN from 1957, and DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE from 1968. Mr. Burton mentions the latter in his effusive and informative introduction.

RECOMMENDED.