Customer Reviews

De Toth on De Toth: Putting the Drama in Front of the Camera (Directors on Directors)

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A READER from New York DIDN'T read.

First I suggest reading Andre de Toth's amazing autobiography, FRAGMENTS - Portraits from the Inside (Faber and Faber, 1994).

Having known de Toth since 1972, I can certify that he had a great deal of respect for the book's interviewer/editor Anthony Slide, or he wouldn't have given him his most prized possession, time.

Slide did his homework and spent enough time with de Toth to cover de Toth's films in detail. This was an amazing achievement since de Toth rarely wanted to discuss past, being a "now" and "future" man.

The "Herr future director" references throughout were to the READER, the aspiring director to whom the book was largely aimed.

When one reads BOTH books, one gets a huge impression of this amazing man's life, and the world as he experienced it.

My only dissatisfaction with both books is the relative paucity of photos. De Toth was a director of IMAGES, and there aren't enough.

Otherwise, between these books, you'll have an experience few film-maker books have ever delivered.

Even if you aren't an aspiring director - or in the movie industry - this is a fun read. Interview format books can be tedious and boring, but not this one. De Toth was one of the greats in his profession, though not as famous as some of his lesser talented peers. He has stuff he wants to get off his chest - about himself and others - and he's not worried about what people think. This interview is entertaining, humorous, and contains practical advice for people on other pathways through life. Anthony Slide does a great job interviewing him -- he pushes De Toth's buttons and De Toth gives him a hard time - and they're both loving every minute of it.

Andre DeToth is a fascinating character and one of the most underrated directors of golden age Hollywood. In this q&a book, the great DeToth is ill served by the banal questions and one dimensional approach of the interviewer. DeToth himself seems vaguely contemptuous of the questioner's dull inquisition, and refers to him with a sarcastic "Herr Future Director." DeToth (by evidence of other interviews and his own book of memoirs) is a hilarious, larger-than-life figure, and some of this comes through, but the interviewer's complete lack of a sense of humor more often deadens the proceedings.