Blue Movie [Paperback]

Terry Southern (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1971

This satire of Hollywood features King B, an Oscar-winning director who's seen (and filmed) everything, Sid Krassman, a producer who's made a fortune catering to the tastes of the American public, and Angela Sterling, a misunderstood sex symbol who desperately wants to do something 'serious'.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Southern has managed to lay a kind of prose on us that can perpetrate a complete hoax while telling a mother’s own truth.” —Chicago Tribune

 

“If there were a Mount Rushmore of American humor, Terry Southern would be the mountain they’d carve it from.” —Michael O’Donoghue, SNL

 

 “Terry Southern is the illegitimate son of Mack Sennet and Edna Saint Vincent Millay.” —Kurt Vonnegut

 

“Terry Southern is the only author capable of handling mayhem on a gigantic scale.” —Esquire

 

“Terry Southern writes a mean coolly deliberate, and murderous prose—and in it we may have at last found the rightful heir (saints protect me from sacrilege) of Nathaniel West.” —Norman Mailer

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Signet; First Edition edition (May 1, 1971)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451046080
• ISBN-13: 978-0451046086
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,406,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outrageous, Irreverent Fun, March 15, 2002

By 

Craig Clarke "Living After Midnight: Hard and... (New England) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Blue Movie (Paperback)

This was my third trip through Terry Southern's version of Hollywood, and I rarely reread. This is one hilarious novel. Funny, erotic, surreal, offensive, all the things a good book should be.

The main premise of the book is simple: what if Hollywood's greatest director decided to make a high-budget porn film. Good actors, good lighting, good writer, good director (of course), everything missing from garden-variety smut.

They are able to secure funding and Southern takes us through every step of the filming process. Casting, all the behind the scenes politics, rewrites, and especially the shooting.

Southern writes explicitly of all the action that is to take place on screen. So, if you are offended by explicit descriptions of varied sex acts, then this book is not for you. Everyone on this film is obsessed by sex, and there is as much going on off screen as there is on.

If that were all this book had to offer, I would say skip it, but Terry Southern is a man who can write. This may be smut on the surface, but underneath, it's literature. He knows when euphemism will work better than directness, and when to "cut away" from a scene--when enough is enough.

So, if you are interested in what happens during the making of a film--of any kind--then read this book. If you are interested in good writing, then read this book. And, especially, if you want to have a good, rollicking time, then read this book.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Can a porno flick be art?, August 29, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Blue Movie (Paperback)

For those familiar with Southern's screenplay for "Dr Strangelove" and his famously raunchy novel "Candy," "Blue Movie" will be a delightful pousse-cafe. Hot on the heels of his historic collaboration with Stanley Kubrick, Southern explores a simple thesis: what if a great film director decides to make a movie with explicit sex scenes involving A-list actors? (Far-fetched, you say? At one point Mike Nichols was set to direct Julie Andrews in the film version of this book.) But Southern is less interested in making grand statements on cinema and sex than in exploding their myths, preferably with a great gas cloud of black humor. "Blue Movie" is not for the feminist or the easily-shocked; but for the reader in search of the hipster's guide to porno filmmaking, it is indispensable.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Dirtiest Book Ever Written?, June 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Blue Movie (Paperback)

The Dirtiest Book Ever Written? Perhaps. In terms of its content, Blue Movie puts the Marquis de Sade to shame. Not only is it more prurient than the good Marquis' works, but its a lot funnier. As a result, every reader to whom I have recommended it has said that it is the funniest book they've ever read, but not at all dirty.