Customer Reviews

Hollywood: A Third Memoir

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

McMurtry is one of my favorite authors of all time. He can be a brilliant craftsman. He created some of the best characters in American literature. And he CAN tell a compelling and memorable story. But he doesn't most of the time any more. Hollywood is jumbled in time, phrase, and subject. It's disorganized, and there aren't enough moments of insight or brilliance to justify the price or time to read it. I think McMurtry is writing on fumes. Here is a case in point. Toward the end of the book he describes the days before,during, and after winning several Oscars for Brokeback Mountain. But those moments are interspersed (for no apparent reason) with bits and pieces of other, unrelated, memories. I was just left wondering why his editor didn't step in with some organizational suggestions. In the end, I felt that the book was like a bowl of jello -- pleasant enough, a little jiggle here and there, but otherwise bland and unmemorable.

McMurtry's last in his memoir trilogy can only be described as the thinnest of tomes in thought and length. If he were to write a fourth installment, it could be done on a sheet or two of paper tripled-spaced. As it is, he seemed to have written his last installment as a few hasty emails to his editor.

I've enjoyed both McMurtry's fiction and non-fiction over the years, but he has slowed down considerably. It's sad to read him as his writing days dwindle down to a precious few.

He's had a long, prolific, illustrious career, for which I am thankful.

This third installment of memoirs by the brilliant and eclectic author Larry McMurtry is a brief look at his life in Hollywood as a screenwriter and owner of several books made into movies. Somewhat anecdotally, McMurtry traces his early beginnings in Hollywood, following the path of writing, awards, challenges, disappointments and situations up to the present time. Forthright, authentic, and personal writing adorn the pages of this little book providing a glimpse into the maze of Hollywood and its unforgiving theater. Using short chapters (Chapter 26 is my favorite), McMurtry almost randomly gives wings to his failures as well as his fortunes. It makes for light reading with insightful moments, alternating between the amusing and the poignant.

McMurtry's style of non-fiction writing often feels as though he is gathered in the living room telling stories to people sipping coffee. This makes for an almost folksy, yet highly intelligent approach to writing that touches on several levels. Fun stories abound and we learn about the people in his life in Hollywood and are amazed by the myriad of experiences he had in his career. Flirting with glamour, McMurtry also seems to resist the limelight, finding the life in Hollywood to be shallow and silly at times. His admiration for certain stars--Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson to name two is offset by his disappointment in certain producers, writers, and stars (although he does a good job of avoiding direct criticism). It makes for an enriching read for anyone seeking to understand the world of screenwriting and movie making. Many of the events chronicled are stunning--the salary for a screenplay, the complexities of agents, the time spent making a film, and the attitudes toward writers. All refreshing insights for sure.

On a deeper level, we marvel at the skill and talent of a writer whose works have found their place in Hollywood, television, and bookstores throughout the world. A writer of modern fiction, Westerns, history, essays, and screenplays, his achievements are remarkable. In spite of the light reading and brevity of this book, readers should and can be in awe at the marvelous career of Larry McMurtry.

That said, this book is 146 pages of recollections and stories about people and events. While entertaining, it misses the mark on emotional content and we never quite connect to the anguish nor the successes. Almost as though we are taking a tour and hearing about McMurtry's life in Hollywood from a tour guide. We may be curious as to the anxieties, fears, and elations of McMurtry's world of Hollywood, but this book does not satisfy that curiosity. Yet, to be fair, much of his writing style in fiction and non-fiction is presented in a cavalier manner, forcing the reader to find the emotion in the people and in the situations. One of the best lines occurs on page 71, "Best not to professionalize a passion, as lovers the world over have discovered when they marry and notice a cooling."

I enjoyed this book and am glad to have read it (kind of expensive for 146 pages), but of the three, I enjoyed Books the most. In fact, it is intriguing that throughout this book about Hollywood, the love of books continues to shine. In the end, in spite of the tremendous successes McMurtry has had as a writer and a recipient of numerous awards, his true love seems to be books. When you drop a book scout into Hollywood, he is still ultimately a book scout. Recommended for McMurtry fans and anyone interested in the process of screen and script writing.

McMurtry was at his best in the days when he wrote "The Last Picture Show".Maybe this book should have been titled "The Last Book".I sure got the feeling ,as I forced myself to continue to read to the end,that this may just be the "last book" we'll be getting from a writer who gave us so many good ones.His last several books have left me disappointed;but this one is the greatest disappointment of them all.He created wonderful characters and stories and even went back on several occasions and gave us the continuing story and ending of characters who almost came to be our friends.There was always a sense of sadness and emotions connected with his characters;but he seems to have lost this great gift he used in his novels.The reader always sensed the deep feeling he had about the land and the people he created;but in this book the reader got only the sense that McMurtry was tired of it all.At least three times ,he mentioned that he wanted work,"because he needed the money".I got the feeling that was the only reason he wrote this book.If not that,the publisher pressured him for "one more".
I have read all of McMurtry's books I started with "Lonesome Dove" and "Cadallic Jack",my favorite;but if "Hollywood"had been the first one I read;I doubt if I would have ever read more.
All I can say is ,don't let this be your first McMurtry novel to read;it's nothing like his earlier and better work.

I was really disappointed by this book because I'm a fan of Larry McMurtry's and feel that I have paid for books before that had most of these stories in them, notably "Film Flam." It's not that he's not interesting and there isn't more information here, but I wish I'd checked it out at the library instead of purchasing it because I knew a lot of the stuff about the making of "Hud" and "Last Picture Show" as the author has written about them before.

The more people know and like McMurtry, the less they seem to like this book. His fans apparently expect a lot more than this slight, casual set of rememberances about screenwriting and Hollywood.

I'm aware of McMurtry, of course, but haven't read his fiction. I picked this up (at the library)and breezed through it in a pleasant few hours. The brevity and simplicity of the prose is indicative of McMurtry's great skill as a writer and his subtle humor makes the short trip even more enjoyable.

A light, but not tossed-off, book of reflections by a charming memoirist.

this is the third installment of larry mcmurtry's memoirs, focused on his hollywood days. it's a very slight book, feeling like either an outline of notes to be expanded, or else the unstructured ramblings of someone trying to squeeze the last few dollars out of an unsuspecting public. to say it's a disappointment is to severely understate the case, "hollywood" is a waste of my time and yours.

Once a great writer, McMurtry now seems like he just doesn't care any more, at least in this book, his "third memoir" HOLLYWOOD. I expected great things since, after all, he had a hand in making some of the greatest films of our time, but what he chooses to tell us is both vague and infuriatingly bland, except when it comes to settling scores with people who hurt him at one time or another. At least that's what I suspect happened with Peter Bogdanovich, the director of The Last Picture Show, whom McMurtry doesn't write a sentence about without including some jab or another. We never find out why, it's sort of like we have to read past McMurtry's mysterious resentment, like trying to read through a boulder.

All the stories seem like re-hashes, and after a bit I realized that, in fact, McMurtry had already written them up before, and he admits as much, saying, "If you want to find out more about this, read my earlier book where I wrote it better." What can be more insulting than being required to pay money to be told, more or less, that you're a sucker.

From time to time there's a tidbit about an interesting clash or personality, and one anecdote could have been a sensation had McMurtry had any energy left to make it into a story. This was the story of the dream of the aging screen star Jennifer Jones, to play one more great role, Aurora in Terms of Endearment, and her scheming to get the part that as we all know eventually went to Shirley MacLaine. McMurtry ain't exactly what you'd call gallant about Jennifer Jones, but he does seem to realize briefly that he was in the company of a legend of classical Hollywood cinema. The studio refused to make the movie based on the faded and questionable starpower of Jones, yet told her that if she recruited her male counterpart, the similarly retired Cary Grant, to return to the screen in Terms (as the astronaut Jack Nicholson wound up playing) then they would finance it. Well, that didn't fly. Would it have been a good a picture as the movie they wound up making? Probably not, but oh, what a pity.

And one day, perhaps, we will read the screenplay McMurtry wrote with Leslie Marmon Silko as a vehicle for Goldie Hawn. There, I bet you never expected to see the names of Leslie Silko and Goldie Hawn in the same sentence, so I'm giving this book a star. Otherwise, it is a disgrace from beginning to end. I asked the air, "Did he even write it?" but what I meant was, "Can you actually call this writing?"

This was a fast, fun and readable book. It was sheer fun reading tidbits about Peter Bogdanovich, Cybill Shepherd, Swifty Lazar, and Elizabeth Taylor, and seeing how a boy from Texas found himself in the company of stars. A breeze of honest arrogance by the man who grew to prefer private jets and exclusive restaurants and hotels is offset by an underlying current of humility. The high point for me is when McMurtry is riding home from a boring awards program in the back of a limo; through a sleepy, half-cocked eyelid he sees his son's name (James McMurtry) on a marquee and finds that to be the best award of all. In the end we see him realizing that a limo was not really his to enjoy, and thus he is forced to get out and walk through his old haunts. The book has many moments of understated humor which I found delightful.

I very much enjoyed this book by Larry McMurtry. I have read numerous books by him and so far they all have been good reads. Take a peek! :)