I've enjoyed Bart's writings in the past - his history of MGM, his collection of essays about the late 90s, his pieces for Variety and Deadline. I noticed the quality would drop whenever he talked about himself - he would always paint himself in the best possible light, claiming to have made key decisions that contributed to successes, claiming to have warned about choices that led to disaster - but he had good access and was a skilled writer. He is always easy to read.
This is a memoir of Bart's time at Paramount in the late 60s and early 70s, a period he often (as in, all the time) refers to in his essays.
It's perhaps the most self-centered Hollywood memoir I've ever read - and I've read a lot of them - and around half-way through I started hating Bart and couldn't stop.
You see, according to Bart, it's Bart who has concerns about Darling Lili, it's Bart who suggests to Robert Evans that he get Francis Coppola to write The Godfather, it's Bart who champions Love Story and suggests Arthur Hiller direct, it's Bart who helps Warren Beatty cut the sex scene in Don't Look Now, it's Bart who thinks Where's Jack? is a bad idea but helps make The Italian Job behind Charles Bludhorn's back, it's Bart who's not sure Paddy Chayefsky is the right writer for Paint Your Wagon, it's Bart who champions Harold and Maude, it's Bart who liked The President's Analyst, it's Bart who suggests True Grit to Hal Wallis, it's Bart who cautions Paramount on Day of the Locust, it's Bart who swaps Emperor of the North for Play It Again Sam, it's Bart who has doubts about Redford's suitability for The Great Gatsby.
Bart, according to Bart, is just so darn wise.
Look, any book about this time and that has up close looks at characters like Robert Evans and Sidney Korshak is going to be interesting, but most of it has been done before and better in other books. Bart wastes pages on recaps about Korshak and Gulf and Western when we want personal insights.
Some of it is interesting - accounts of the making of Blue for instance and Downhill Racer, WUSA, The Parallax View and Sheila Levine is Dead. Stories of The Godfather, Rosemary's Baby and Love Story are more familiar. I would have loved more on the less familiar Paramount movies from his period - say, TR Baskin, Will Penny - or the movie Bart wrote, Making It.
Bart has exasperated affection for Bob Evans, as he should since Evans gave him his job - in part because Bart wrote a flattering article about Evans under the Old Mates Act. Charles Budhorn comes across as Bludhorn always does - a colorful cartoon. Bart is vicious on Frank Yablans - really vicious. There are digs at Robert Redford and Warren Beatty.
The book is laced with homophobia - he brings up Rock Hudson's sexuality all the time, ditto for William Inge and John Schlesinger, and not in a complimentary way.
He also tends to slag off women - Elaine May is duplicitous, Ali MacGraw is a flake, Julie Andrews is sexless, Julia Phillips is a drug addled fool (he criticises plenty of men too but he also admires lots of them, whereas there's little admiration for women).
There is the odd surprise opinion - he would have preferred Bogdanovich's version of The Getaway with Cybil Shepherd as the girl, and wanted Marlon Brando and Coppola on Gatsby (which actually would have been awesome)
Robert Evans' memoirs are a lot more fun and actually feel more accurate. This feels like a book written in a hurry for cash and was really disappointing.
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