In 1938 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced Boys Town, a timeless classic about Father Flanagan's home for wayward boys. Now you may read how MGM's "Dream Machine" came face to face with a celebrated priest's "Character Factory." New research presents the backstory to fans of the film. Movie mogul Louis B. Mayer and Father Edward J. Flanagan held winning hands in a high-stakes movie biography. Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney starred. Gene Reynolds (Tony Ponessa), Martin Spellman (Skinny), and Frankie Thomas (Freddie Fuller), explain how a half-dozen proposed scripts created a legendary Oscar-winning movie in exclusive interviews.
MGM Makes Boys Town
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Dr. William Russo is a film critic and author.
In recent years he has collaborated with Emmy-winning writer, Jan Merlin. The two men have one historical novel, The Paid Companion of J.Wilkes Booth. The team and has also written books on Hollywood features, Troubles in a Golden Eye (about the making of John Huston's Reflections in a Golden Eye), and MGM Makes Boys Town (a study of the efforts to film the docudrama about Father Flanagan which starred Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney). The latest tandem effort is Hanging With Billy Budd, which details the adaptations of the Melville novel to stage, screen, opera, radio, and television.
Russo wrote a memoir and study of James Kirkwood, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Chorus Line, based on years of discussions and conversations with his old friend. One of Russo's most popular books is A Thinker's Damn: Audie Murphy, Vietnam, and the Making of The Quiet American. This work also takes a notable literary work, by Graham Greene, and traces the evolution into a seminal American movie, directed by Joseph Mankiewicz. For this work, Dr. Russo interviewed all the survivors of the first American film made in Vietnam. The book provides, arguably, the most incisive portrait of film star and war hero Audie Murphy. He has contributed essays to Spencer Tracy Fox Film Actor, published by the New England Vintage Film Society, and has essays in the compilation book Stage to Screen.
As editor for Lukeion Press, part of Author22 Publishing, out of Las Vegas, he served guided writers like Frank Vinh Noan (Vietnam, My Love) who was Joseph Mankiewicz's assistant troubleshooter for The Quiet American, and William Cate, a young musician whose diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis led to the book, Body Hate: A Gay Man's Struggle.
Russo holds a Master of Arts degree and a doctorate.
An inveterate writer of letters, Russo has corresponded with some of the most famous people of the past fifty years from Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis to Richard Nixon and Dr. Richard Mudd, giving him a window into many worlds and providing him with first-hand research information for various books.
In 2011 he appeared in the film A Walk with Mal Tempo.
He has written a number of humor books, including Red Sox 2011: A Whimsical Autopsy. Others entertainments include: Sex, Drugs, Sports & Whimsy (2 volumes) as well as Rajon Rondo: Superstar. His latest book is Death, Taxes and Sports Whimsy, New England Patriots Whimsy.
In recent years he has collaborated with Emmy-winning writer, Jan Merlin. The two men have one historical novel, The Paid Companion of J.Wilkes Booth. The team and has also written books on Hollywood features, Troubles in a Golden Eye (about the making of John Huston's Reflections in a Golden Eye), and MGM Makes Boys Town (a study of the efforts to film the docudrama about Father Flanagan which starred Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney). The latest tandem effort is Hanging With Billy Budd, which details the adaptations of the Melville novel to stage, screen, opera, radio, and television.
Russo wrote a memoir and study of James Kirkwood, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Chorus Line, based on years of discussions and conversations with his old friend. One of Russo's most popular books is A Thinker's Damn: Audie Murphy, Vietnam, and the Making of The Quiet American. This work also takes a notable literary work, by Graham Greene, and traces the evolution into a seminal American movie, directed by Joseph Mankiewicz. For this work, Dr. Russo interviewed all the survivors of the first American film made in Vietnam. The book provides, arguably, the most incisive portrait of film star and war hero Audie Murphy. He has contributed essays to Spencer Tracy Fox Film Actor, published by the New England Vintage Film Society, and has essays in the compilation book Stage to Screen.
As editor for Lukeion Press, part of Author22 Publishing, out of Las Vegas, he served guided writers like Frank Vinh Noan (Vietnam, My Love) who was Joseph Mankiewicz's assistant troubleshooter for The Quiet American, and William Cate, a young musician whose diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis led to the book, Body Hate: A Gay Man's Struggle.
Russo holds a Master of Arts degree and a doctorate.
An inveterate writer of letters, Russo has corresponded with some of the most famous people of the past fifty years from Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis to Richard Nixon and Dr. Richard Mudd, giving him a window into many worlds and providing him with first-hand research information for various books.
In 2011 he appeared in the film A Walk with Mal Tempo.
He has written a number of humor books, including Red Sox 2011: A Whimsical Autopsy. Others entertainments include: Sex, Drugs, Sports & Whimsy (2 volumes) as well as Rajon Rondo: Superstar. His latest book is Death, Taxes and Sports Whimsy, New England Patriots Whimsy.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
good back ground for movie,
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This review is from: MGM Makes Boys Town (Paperback)
Very good details on the movie's background. The cast and crews tell there stories in book. Has a few pictures in book, The dvd is my favorite like the story and the extras from Boy's Town.
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