Customer Reviews

Shooting Montezuma: A Hollywood Monster Story

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The story was very interesting in the way it was MASKING fack from fiction. A great read,am looking forward to reading more of Jan Merlin;s books

It's a no-holds-barred battle of the egos in Jan Merlin's excellent book SHOOTING MONTEZUMA. Loosely based on Merlin's experience in a `vaguely similar enterprise' the book tells the tale of young actor Kurt Mitchell, who mortgages his future for the chance to work alongside a number of Hollywood legends. Too late Mitchell discovers just how painful (in more ways than one) that experience will be.

Surrounded by the celebrity elite, our hero finds solace in his surroundings (beautifully articulated by Merlin) and a handful of noble working-class chums. But like the spoiled children they are, the film's `stars' continually demand center stage and in doing show shine a spotlight on their pathetic and immoral behavior.

At times amusing, at other times disturbing, Montezuma is always interesting. Another recommended book from a novelist who remains one of fiction's best kept secrets.

Veteran Hollywood character actor Jan Merlin has based this novel on one of the most remarkable experiences of his life--- his participation in a film called THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER. The novel's hero, Kurt Mitchell, undergoes a year-long makeup ordeal identical to Jan's, and like Jan is cheated of screen credit though he plays one of the film's key roles. Apart from this Jan gives a vivid picture of the Hollywood studio system in its dying days, and the horrors of location filming (Ireland for the actual film, Brazil for the imaginary film that is the basis of the novel). He has also added a subplot involving a series of child murders. The whole mix works quite well; as usual in Jan's novels the characters all come to life, whether based on real people or not, and the evocation of sights, sounds, odors and details is so vivid in each of the novel's scenes that the reader seems to be there. At about 200 pages, and with situations that keep you turning the pages, this is a particularly fine book for summer reading.

As one who teaches film studies, I am often surprised at how much is formulaic in the movie business. Yet, some of the most formulaic movies (murder mysteries, special effects stories) may contain the most surprises. This roman a clef tells the story of a famous Hollywood tale and the movie that serves as its backdrop. Readers of this fascinating account may be surprised, pleasantly and not, by the attitudes of big stars and bigger directors. Done in a movie script format, the novel only underscores the cruel fiction of "entertainment" in the Hollywood mode. How much is true? From my own historical studies, I would say more than not; and what is not true may be changed to protect the illusions movie fans live by. Was it John Ford who used the tag line to "print the legend"? Well, Jan Merlin prints the legend with warts and all. A must read for anyone who thinks he knows the movie business and movie trivia.

Wow! I can hardly wait to see the E! network version of this great book. If you want the inside picture of the movie business, this book has it all over The Player. The author knows what really happens on a movie set and in the makeup room. This one will blow the roof off one of the big studios! Highly recommended for film buffs.

This is a fascinating and ultimately affecting roman a clef about the making of a film very similar to "The List of Adrian Messenger," and written by an actor very much a part of that real-life film. "The List of Adrian Messenger" was a mystery film directed by John Huston and starring George C. Scott and Kirk Douglas. The film's big gimmick was that for much of the film, Douglas would be in heavy disguise, as would several big stars doing small cameo roles. At the end of the film, Douglas and the cameo stars (Robert Mitchum, Burt Lancaster, Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis) would peel off their masks and take a bow. It seems that in reality, the stars only did the peel-and-bow sequence, and another actor or actors actually portrayed their roles in the main body of the film. Author Jan Merlin played most, if not all, of these roles-in-disguise, including that of the picture's star, Kirk Douglas. Therefore, much of the acting in five different roles in the film was done by one man, who never even received credit in the film. Merlin, who was quite a familiar face in the 1950s and 1960s in both films and television, has a secondary career as a writer, and his novel based ("vaguely," he says) on his experiences in "The List of Adrian Messenger" is a very good one. Aside from some overly ornate verbiage early on, and far too many typos, this is a compelling book, far more compelling by the end than I expected. It indulges in a bit of melodrama involving the criminal activities of one of the principals, and for a long time, it seems as if nothing is going to actually happen. Yet Merlin's story builds slowly and ultimately reaches a dramatic and cynical climax of some power. It is very clear that Merlin harbors strong grudges from the way he was treated during the real 1962 film, for several of his easily identifiable altar egos for real-life film industry people are quite distastefully drawn. What comes across most vividly are two things: a terrific view of the movie-making business from an unusual perspective, and a sense of the the depressive effects of extended disrespect. Having myself on a couple of occasions been treated as invisible or worse by deliberately rude or dismissive stars I was working with, the ugly feeling engendered in Merlin's stand-in for himself in the novel is very familiar. "Shooting Montezuma" is a very good addition to the short list of good novels about Hollywood. It might make a pretty good movie.

Like any good conspiracy theorist, we all want to know the REAL story about what's going on behind the closed doors of big institutions. This books appeals to that instinct, but with some actual validation from someone in the business.

I met Jan Merlin at a science fiction convention shortly after the book came out (he was there for having played "Roger Manning" in the early TV series "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet"). He had copies of "Montezuma" with him, and while a bit pricey (I thought) for a paperback, I never pass up an opportunity to get an autograph!

The book turned out to be a tremendous read with just enough verisimilitude to make you believe this is really what happened on "Messenger." Of course, Merlin's later career as a writer allows him to embellish the faux characters with some traits and motivations that are pretty obviously fictional, so half of the fun is sorting out the fact from the fiction when, in fact, it's all fiction (except for the parts that aren't).