Customer Reviews

All the Sincerity In Hollywood: Selections from the Writings of Fred Allen

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Fred Allen, the only satirical comedian of radio's golden age, is revealed as a true American humorist, in the pantheon with Thurber, lardner and Twain. This book contains a wide selection of his writings, clear-eyed, wsitty, biting, compassionate. Excerpts from his two meoirs have the quality of what Frank McCourt wrote 50 years later in Angela's Ashes. Allen, we see, was the father of contemporary comedy and his influence prevails today. Letterman, Carson, Bob & Ray, Keillor, Your Show of Shows, Sat. Night Live - all are arguably legatees of his original sparkling style. This is perhaps the most deeply funny book I've read in years and will bring joy to readers of all ages. And it's a perfect gift for young people to give to parents and in-laws who, if they remember, say, tyhe Dionne Quintupl;ets, will be thrilled to get to oknow the great wit Fred Allen again. If there were 10 stars, I would award them to this book.

In ways that many (if not most) of his disciples down the generations still have yet to fathom completely, Fred Allen was his generation's most permanent and pungently elemental humourist, a first-class writer who never tired of refining and elevating his craft. Without vulgarity, he lanced America's fooleries and amplified her misappreciated fineries, often in the same slash. Most of what subsequent comic generations and their fans considered the cutting edge of those generations would have been impossible without him, though he himself might not always enjoy what his disciples wreaked on behalf of the art. And, as the selected letters even here should show, Mr. Allen had a quality that even his stickiest barbs could not long obscure: he was a genuinely warm, humane man, whose affection and friendship was probably coveted even more than his impeccable wit.

Ideally, the unpublished material included in this book would be augmented to republished editions of Mr. Allen's two memoirs (1954's "Treadmill to Oblivion," addressing the radio years that graduated him to his stature as the medium's most mordant satirist; 1956's "Much Ado About Me," an affectionately objective recollection of both his bittersweet New England childhood and his arduous vaudeville career, not to mention a splendid examination of vaudeville itself) and posthumous selection of letters (1965's "Fred Allen's Letters," whose original jacket art bequeathed the Hirschfeld caricature that announces this book). But until such justice is done, "All the Sincerity in Hollywood" re-introduces a man whose wit was too deep, too enduring, to leave him frozen in time as a mere ancient radio star.

This book is not a chronology of Fred Allen's life, but rather a selection of his greatest commentaries from throughout his long career. Included in the text is his priceless observation: "To a newspaperman, a human being is an item with the skin wrapped around it." As if that weren't awesome enough, the buyer of this book also gets: "California is okay if you're an orange."

Mr. Allen could make biting observations about journalists and politicians without offending devout Christian people like my older relatives. (They have regaled me with stories about his material.) Fred made biting comments while millions listened to him live, and parents didn't have to send their kids away from the Philco radio or the Zenith TV set. Fred never advocated negative behaviors for juveniles such as the premarital sex and drug use that Lennie Bruce recommended in the late 1950s.

I would like to see somebody read this book and then claim that anyone other than Fred Allen was the first thinking man's comedian in the United States. Can you do that ? Many latter day comedians (e.g. Father Guido Sarducci) agree with me that Fred Allen was the first such American artist. If you haven't read this book and you don't recognize his name, will you consider agreeing with us ? Or are you "going to talk back ?" (as Fred's sidekick John Doe used to say).

Another Allen sidekick was Senator Claghorn. He is in the book, too. What more can I say ?