15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
On Masterpieces and Disasterpieces, January 17, 2009
This is a perfect book to read if you love movies, and it's too cold out to go to one! Culled from Vanity Fair's vast output of movie exposes, this compilation, from different staff writers, focuses on 13 titles. Classics like Rebel Without a Cause, All About Eve, Reds, and Midnight Cowboy are included, along with such legendary disasters like Cleopatra and Myra Breckenridge. The behind-the-scenes trivia is fun and the stories are generally well written with amusing observations from the (surviving) cast and crew of each film. Among those things I learned: Burt Lancaster was hardly a Prince among men, and Debbie Reynolds was among those considered for the heroine in "Rebel." The chapter on "Eve" subsequently became an entire book from that writer. Includes a foreword from present-day editor Graydon Carter.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Behind The Scenes Tales of Tinsletown, May 27, 2009
Vanity Fair's peek into the behind the scenes making of thirteen iconic films is well worth the price of admission and then some. I've always been curious about how All About Eve, and Rebel Without A Cause came about. Who knew that Mel Brooks originally envisioned The Producers as a novel tentatively called "Springtime for Hitler?"
Readers may be unaware that Midnight Cowboy was based on a novel by James Leo Herlihy and that the script for Saturday Night Fever evolved from a magazine article published in New York magazine entitled "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night." The fascinating back stories of these films may well pique readers interest in searching out the original source material.
Lengthy essays on the making of Cleopatra, The Graduate, and Tommy sheds new light on films that were milestones in their heyday. The only disappointment was the chapter on Myra Breckinridge. There wasn't nearly enough dish on Mae West's role in the film, and what scant facts are offered, are erroneous. West did not live in the penthouse of the Ravenswood apartment, but in suite 611, of the seven floor building. As well, she never owned the building as stated. She was much too savvy in that matter, knowing it would be the perfect opportunity for fans within the building to disturb her over mundane maintenance matters.
This is the kind of book so heavily laced with fascinating detail that you will want to revisit it again to glean what you missed on the first reading. Highly recommended.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
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Hollywood Lore Exposed in Thirteen Intriguing Behind-the-Scenes Accounts, July 21, 2009
Those who are enamored with Hollywood mythmaking are served well by
Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter's collection of behind-the-scenes accounts of thirteen renowned films - many true classics, others simply notorious - even if some of these stories have already made it to print before. However, the quality of the film has less bearing on these accounts than the storytelling skill displayed by the likes of James Wolcott, Peter Biskind, and Vanity Fair contributing editor Sam Kashner, who contributes five pieces. Spanning Orson Welles' bastardized 1942 follow-up to
Citizen Kane,
The Magnificent Ambersons, to Warren Beatty's 1981 epic about John Reed,
Reds, just about every account proves how an idiosyncratic blend of fragile egos, runaway budgets and studio politics still cannot avert the role of fate in making these movies memorable.
There is plenty of good gossip in the book, much of it already turned into established Hollywood lore, and the pieces may just alter your perspective on these films once you see them again. A good example is David Kamp's account of the ludicrously elongated filming of
Cleopatra, which starred the multi-married Elizabeth Taylor in her own high voltage melodrama replete with adultery, absurdly large pieces of jewelry, and sympathy-inducing medical emergencies. Kamp also covers the sad story behind "The Magnificent Ambersons", a period piece which was edited without Welles' knowledge. His editor, Robert Wise (later a distinguished filmmaker in his own right), remembered sending the director's cut to Welles in Brazil and did not remember getting it back. Always perceived to be a lost masterpiece, the film may just be a case of a disappointment which the director distanced himself from by taking a government gig to make a failed South American documentary.
Studio ignorance plays a big role in several of these movies. There were high expectations for Gore Vidal's
Myra Breckinridge, the novel of which summoned a price tag of $900,000 for the film rights in 1970. Yet, a neophyte writer-director named Michael Sarne was given the task of commandeering the big-budget production (featuring Farrah Fawcett in her big-screen debut) based on one modest film. However, the same gamble was placed on Mike Nichols directing
The Graduate and Mel Brooks stumbling through
The Producers, even though Brooks had no idea where to place the camera amid escalating tensions with star Zero Mostel. On "The Graduate", casting decisions proved crucial when one considers the fact that Doris Day and Robert Redford were the first choices to play Mrs. Robinson and Benjamin Braddock. There are equally memorable stories about classics as diverse as
All About Eve,
Rebel Without a Cause, Sweet Smell of Success, and Saturday Night Fever. This is a must-read for cineastes. All others have been forewarned.
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