Customer Reviews

Picture

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Lillian Ross, a writer for the New Yorker, heads to Hollywood in 1950 to watch John Huston make his next picture, "The Red Badge of Courage" at MGM, and manages to capture a horrifying snapshot of the studio system at its worst during a difficult time of transition for the film industry. She happens to be on hand to see Louis B. Mayer forced out and Dore Schary installed as studio head while the film is in mid-production. There are several scenes of Huston grinning and bearing it as Schary pompously lectures the great director of "The Maltese Falcon," "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "The African Queen" on how to make a movie. Schary pompously cites how he "solved story problems" in several of his own stodgy, now-forgotten pet projects as producer, like "The Next Voice You Hear." In one hillarious scene we see Arthur Freed, MGM's great producer of musicals, playing yes-man to Schary, and we glean, perhaps, how Freed, by appeasing the new boss, managed to keep some autonomy for his own expensive production unit through much of Schary's cost-cutting reign.

Then come the ill-conceived (or deliberately rigged) sneak previews. This serious war drama is screened at a local theater for an audience that came to see a Ginger Rogers romantic comedy, and the audience response is... (surprise!) vociferously negative. They find the film depressing, and many walk out. The old adage that new executives try to kill the projects put into the works by their predecessors may apply. Schary uses these preview results to justify having the movie re-cut while Huston is out of the country working on another film.

Anyone who suspects that there never was a golden age of Hollywood without inept executives and corporate committees will enjoy this book. You wonder how anything good ever gets made. Cynics will chuckle, film lovers will just shake their heads in sorrow. Of course, there is that other adage about not wanting to see how the sausage gets made...

Lillian Ross made her name with this New Yorker series about a half century ago. It was startling in its cynical and very humerous view of the self important and self delusional power players at MGM. With all that we have learned about this industry during the intervening 50 years the story has lost much of its potency, but is still a classic of the genre.

I read it in its original form all those years ago. It was a wonderful and hilarious read. But the protagonists, of course, were extremely upset and hated it. Happily,Lillian has survived; still writing for New Yorker.

Lillian Ross has given movie fans and those with a serious interest in film an extraordinary book about the final days of the studio system--and shows exactly why it collapsed. A few years later the independent film-maker emerged, and another book details that experience. Interestingly enough, both books deal with Audie Murphy. Like the Ross book, A THINKER'S DAMN by William Russo recounts the foibles of movie-making, this time in Saigon with Joe Mankiewicz in 1957. Each provides a timeless impression of a bygone movie era.

I FOUND THE BOOK TO BE A FASCINATING , BLOW-BY-BLOW ACCOUNT OF HOW THIS MEMORABLE BUT OVERLOOKED FILM WAS MADE. I HAVE THE MOVIE ON DVR AND CAN WATCH THE SCENES AS SHE DESCRIBES WHAT IS GOING ON BEHIND THE CAMERA IN THE BOOK. THE BOOK LEFT ME WITH A SENSE OF LOSS , BECAUSE OF THE DESCRIPTIONS OF ALL THE MEMORABLE FOOTAGE THAT WAS CUT, AND IS NOW LOST. HER DEPICTIONS OF THE KEY INDIVIDUALS INVOLVED IN THE MAKING OF THIS MOVIE , FROM PRODUCER , PLAYERS , STUDIO HEADS AND ALL OTHERS INVOVLED IN MAKING THIS MOVIE IS FASCINATING.

An entire book on the creation of John Huston's "The Red Badge of Courage." What's most amazing is that Ross seems to be a fly on the wall. She attends big meetings with Hollywood execs. She is along with the gang during casting, shooting, editing, and previews. This is reporting like reporting was meant to be. It is such a good first-hand account, that people uninterested in movies will find favor with it.

I can add little to the accolades already assembled here, save that Ross's "Picture" fulfilled every promise I had read of it. It's ironic that her report of the making of John Huston's "The Red Badge of Courage" artistically surpassed the movie itself. For journalists, film buffs, and anyone who loves clean prose, this is a classic work: a bittersweet valentine to a Hollywood that no longer exists.

The end, on post-production, is priceless. Especially the material about adding the score. But I think Louis B. Mayer comes out as the true hero, because of his skill at balancing commercial and artistic considerations.

Lillian Ross's books "Picture" and "Portrait of Hemingway" were listed as two of the top 100 best-of-the-century works of Journalism compiled by 36 judges working under the aegis of New York University.

The book came on time, in good condition. It was not for me, so I didn't read it. Can't review for writing or content.