The Life and Times of Claude Rains (Paperback)

~ Carmella Felice (Author)
Key Phrases: Carmella Felice, Warner Brothers, Claude Rains (more...)

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: AuthorHouse; First Edition edition (November 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1425953018
• ISBN-13: 978-1425953010
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #983,892 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Please seek out another biography, June 6, 2007

By	History Reader (United States) - See all my reviews

Having purchased this book under the impression that it was a legitimate biography of the great character actor, Claude Rains, I was disillusioned to discover that it is merely a collection of the author's files about the actor. Cohesive narrative, analysis of a magnificent career and humanity offered by the telling anecdote are all missing. Please save your money.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Bizarre self-published book, May 6, 2008

By	Candace Scott (Lake Arrowhead, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This is an odd and forgettable book filled with spectacularly bad writing, grammatical/spelling errors and a glaring lack of source material. There's not a single citation, footnote or bibliographical reference and this weakness cripples the project. From the foreward, it's apparent the author has a crush on Claude Rains (who doesn't?) and set out to write a "definitive" work on the actor. If this was the goal, then the results point to a spectacular failure.

First, there is the author's propensity for inventing dialogue between Claude and most of his six wives. Worse still, the dialogue is ludicrously written. A teenager's ramblings on a school folder would be more entertaining than this nonsense. Instead of the conversation sounding like something the real Claude Rains might actually have said, we're stuck with lines such as, "Boy, what's that cooking on the stove, darling? Potroaast with onions? Wow, that's great." Such nonsense would be more at home in the mouths of Ozzie and Harriet than Claude Rains.

Woven throughout there are elements of truth and the author did consult some legitimate interviews with Rains. The book is not a complete waste because there are some actual snippets from original articles scattered about. But in the end, the asinine dialogue, the lack of character analysis or any intelligence from the author sinks this book to the bottom of the sea. Hopefully it will remain buried there, unseen and unread.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good but lacking, June 14, 2007

By	Movie Mike "Movie Mike" (Maryland) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This book needed a proof reader. A few segments were repeated and sometimes in a slightly differennt form, indicating portions of the draft were included with the "finished" copy. I liked the subject enough to overlook these shortcomings but just barely. Please, take the time to proof-read this before you print it again.