Customer Reviews

Randolph Scott: A Film Biography

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jefferson Brim Crow is an unadulterated fan of Randolph Scott, and his adoration of the great Western star is evident. Unfortunately, Crow is no film history scholar, and his book is really not much more than an impressively printed fan's scrapbook. Real biographical information is sparse, there are no substantial interviews of Scott's colleagues (of the four "interviews" in the book, two are one-sentence remarks and the other two are almost remarkably uninformative Q&A's of this sort: "Q: 'Do you know his birthplace?' A: 'I don't know.'").
The vast majority of the book is a collection of photographs, many quite interesting, but scattered randomly without connection to the adjacent text, i.e., photos of Scott's late 1950s Westerns in a chapter dealing with his early romantic juvenile period. There is a filmography with minimal detail, and a long section consisting of photocopied newspaper articles about Scott, many of which are no more than publicity blurbs. There is virtually no criticism of any kind; even the worst Scott films are beloved of the author and no critical evaluation of Scott's acting skills is attempted. And whether or not one believes or cares one way or the other about the rumors and innuendo regarding Scott's relationship with Cary Grant, it is astounding to find the one purportedly objective book to focus specifically on Scott's career completely ignoring the fact that such rumor and innuendo had significant effect on Scott's career and personal life. Crow never mentions it. It would be perplexing were it not evident that this is a fan book, written by a fan who has no interest in anything beyond promoting adoration for his idol. It's quite a nice book to look at, barring the abundant misspellings and middle-school syntax. But a real Randolph Scott biography or filmography, one that is useful to serious students of American film, has yet to be published.

Since I was a kid, Randolph Scott has always been my cowboy-hero. In spite of I was NOT allowed to see his films at that time, they were prohibited for children under 16 years, I have later seen qui te a lot of them, and most of them satisfying, and a handful very very good to my opinion. Unfortunately,I was never lucky to find any books or magazines etc. with him, until I this yearfound that AMAZON had the material I really had been loo king for (I live in Denmark, so we don`t see much of such stuff around here), too small a country in this respect, so I have lately received A FILM BIO graphy, with 200-300 hundred of pictures from his films, together with his movie-carrier from film no. 1 - to his last in 1962 no. 100. I must say, I really was surprised of the book`s content, it was exactly what I will call: ALL ABOUT THAT MAN - and who can ask for more. YES, that book will have my full recommandation, that`s for sure - if you are a RANDOLPH SCOTT fan, like me.

Excellent phots but weak on information about production of the films and their audience or critical reception.

5 stars for this book randolph scott a film biography over 250 top quality photoes of all his films on good quality stock paper plus a good wright up of all his films (recomended) les satisfied customer

As a matter of fact it is a great book on Randolph Scott, our favourite big screen cowboy heroe. I recommend it.

Mario Peixoto Alves