Customer Reviews

Cary Grant: A Celebration: Paperback Book (Applause Legends)

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Often, to sell copies, authors of celebrity biographies stoop to including gossip, rumors, and throughly unsubstantiated claims to ruin the reputation of the celebrity. Among other things, the nice thing about Cary Grant A Celebration is that it does not need to resort to these tactics, which are very tasteless, not to mention disrespectful for the celebrity involved.

In addition to having its lack of gossip as a recommendation, A Celebration is really a clear, interesting analysis of Cary Grant's career. It goes through each movie he made, reviews it, and presents a comprehensive theory on Grant's work and the times and man that led to its creation. The reviews, which are blended in to the narrative, are very useful for fans who want to know which movies are worth watching besides the obvious choices.

So, anyhow, this book has a simple but truthful biography of a real Hollywood legend, whose talent and originality on screen was only matched by his reticence and desire for privacy off of it. It is also a useful reference. For all of Cary Grant's fans and anyone interested in classic cinema in general, this is highly recommended. If you aren't interested in any of the above things, why are you looking here anyhow?

As the author notes in the beginning, this is an essay to "enrich the reader's understanding of what Grant was up to on the screen". Mr Schickel is a film critic and thus his viewpoint in this essay is that of a critic but focused on one actor covering 72 films. The essay does not deal with Cary Grant's personal life but rather the lives he portrays in his more than 70 movie roles. It is this aspect that I found the book very disappointing. With few exceptions, all the pictures of Cary Grant were taken from films or studio publicity shots. Mr.Schickel theme throughout is to describe Grant in terms of his roles and conversely his real life persona being expressed in his role. The occasion for writing this book is Grant's 80th birthday, a very personal and defining event in anyone's life, yet after finishing the book, I found that I learned very little about his life, about his dreams, aspirations or disappointments. What did Grant at the age of 80 think about his life and career? The author give no hint of this nor offers any insight from Grant's fellow actors/actresses or contemporary directors, producers or screen writers. The author continuously analyzes Grant's on-screen role with events in his life, especially his childhood in England. It's impossible to say how accurate these comparisons are, but in my view this is no vehicle to document a famous screen star's life. I don't believe it enriched my understanding of Gary Grant; if anything, it is artificial and contrived. Finally, the author makes blunt assessments of Grant's movies, particularly his later ones, without providing any rationale for his judgement. For example, the author describes the characters played by Ingrid Bergman in "Notorious" and that of Grace Kelly in "To Catch a Thief" as be nymphomaniacs without any rationale for this puzzling assertion. Schickel also uses motion picture jargon such as "program pictures" without giving any explanation for the reader. In summary, we are presented with Mr. Schickel's opinions and judgements regarding Grant's films with little to convey to the reader Cary Grant, the person.

Richard Schickel seems to love Cary Grant. And good on him. What he fails to do is translate that love to a book that should convey to the reader the life of Cary Grant.

He spends most of the book waxing lyrical about the different roles he has played and how his own personal feelings are represented in the roles he undertakes.

In a book that claims "to be more than a review of his movies" Richard Schickel completely bypasses his non-film achievements and notoriety. Maybe he is trying to shield the reader from his more questionable side.

The only refreshing deviance from the morbidity is the suggestion of his homosexuality, which is quickly refuted by another few pages of dripping prose.

I am now searching for another book to provide me an insight into this man. This one did not do it for me.