Customer Reviews

I Shot an Elephant in My Pajamas/the Morrie Ryskind Story

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Morrie Ryskind was the screenwriter of classic movies such as My Man Godfrey, Stage Door, and numerous Marx Brothers films. He also wrote plays with George S. Kaufman, musicals with the Gershwins and Irving Berlin. Thankfully he lived long enough to also write this witty and compelling tale at the end of his life in and out of showbiz.

One of my favorite stories in the book was Ryskind being kicked out of Columbia University just a few weeks before graduation by writing a satire about the President of the University. A few years later that same President was forced to present him with a Pulitzer prize for a play he wrote. Sweet revenge.

Later in life Ryskind became an avowed anti-communist and it cost him his career in Hollywood. He may be the only guy in history who could claim to be a close personal friend of Groucho Marx and William F.. Buckley.

This is a short book, but full of interesting stories about 1930s Hollywood, the early battles of the screenwriters guild, and how communists and the Hollywood Ten changed motion pictures. The writing is sharp and funny every step of the way.

I learned of this book through Simon Louvish's reference in his biography of the Marx Brothers called, Monkey Business: The Lives and Legends of The Marx Brothers. That's another book well worth reading.

I Shot An Elephant In My Pajamas, Morrie Ryskind with John H.M. Roberts; Huntington House Press (1994)

I am grateful that Mr. Stamper beat me to the punch; his review states almost exactly what I would have written.

So put me as well in the Ryskind camp, & I say the following with admiration for the writing & editing skills of Mr. Roberts, which leads me to my only factual disagreement with the above.

Morrie did not "write" ISEP; he was, so to speak, the book's narrator. Roberts interviewed him on a weekly basis for a protracted period of time in 1985. Shortly thereafter, the Oddly-Clad Hunter (the book's title is an intentionally confusing set-up line invented by MR for Groucho Marx) passed away at the age of eighty-nine.

From there, Roberts did the heavy lifting, & in doing so, produced a very readable book. He made his task look easy. It is not.

Ryskind's warm & informal, conversational "tone" rings true. Roberts made certain that this primary & convincing asset consistently remained unadulterated, & that's why ISEP is very much recommended.

(Why not five stars? An index was omitted. This is a major blunder which publishers both renowned & unheralded nonsensically & habitually commit; it discourages future serious researchers from using the memoir as a source. Thus there went Star Five. Sorry.)