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Hollywood's Golden Age: As Told By One Who Lived It All

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Beginning in 1923, when the 14-year-old Famous Players-Lasky movie studio message boy Edward Dmytryk met Lillian Gish (`unquestionably the most beautiful woman I had ever seen') until the 1950s, when, according to Dmytryk, the unholy trinity of blacklists, judicial assaults on monopolistic practices, and the one-eyed devil Television conspired to radically change Hollywood, `Hollywood's Golden Age: As Told By One Who Lived It All' is an affectionate memoir of a life spent at or near the center of the film industry.

Easy-going and conversational, Dmytryk approaches his story with a decided lack of rigor. Hot gossip is totally absent and general impressions impose themselves in places where specific details normally dwell. For instance, comedian Jack Oakie is remembered as someone who `pinched a nickel until the Indian (later Thomas Jefferson) begged for mercy' and as the master of the triple-take, but that's about it. If, as Dmytryk indicates, Oakie more than once ate lunch on Dmytryk's dime (or nickel), he shares no personal tidbit or hints at what they may have talked about. In other words, the meat here is definitely not in the details. In fact, the best part of the book is the first half, wherein Dmytryk somewhat distantly recalls his progress from studio factotum to studio projectionist to assistant `cutter' (film editor - `the art is in the cutting'), to first editor. His later career as director seems a little bare in comparison, although many of Dmytryk's greater films - The Caine Mutiny, Murder My Sweet, Crossfire, Warlock - merit a book of their own. If the Oakies of this book flitter through this book with only a passing glance, other Hollywood characters are able to rise to anecdote level. Director Leo McCarey, actors Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable and John Carradine, among others, are remembered fondly with wry stories.

`Hollywood's Golden Age' was published in 2003 (Dmytryk died in 1999) with a preface by his widow, Jean Porter Dmytryk. Incidentally, Dmytryk's wife is only briefly alluded to but never mentioned by name. Nor does Dmytryk mention his children. This makes me think - it's nothing more than a guess - that `Hollywood's Golden Age,' with its rough chronology and loose structure, was an early draft of a more ambitious project. As it stands it's less a dispassionate documentation of events and more an impressionistic montage. A montage told in flashback whose images, if not always sharply focused or perfectly centered, are nonetheless compassionately lit. Many of the cameo stars, like Oakie and Gish, are gone in a smile and the wink of an eye. Others, like Spencer Tracy, step forward for a line or two. Considering the author, I can't think of a more appropriate format.

A final word - Dmytryk was one of the `Hollywood Ten' who were among the first artists to be blacklisted by the industry. Dmytryk's involvement in events is more complicated than most of the other participants. `Hollywood's Golden Age' doesn't include any information on Dmytryk and the blacklist beyond some rather superficial observations on `the inquisition.' If, like me, you're interested in Dmytryk's side of the story, he directs our footnoted attention to his book `Odd Man Out,' currently out of print but apparently readily available on the used book market.