Not as good as Staggs' book on All About Eve because that had the X factor of finding the Girl. This one he's done his research, especially on the musical versions (including Swanson's attempts in the 50s and 60s to do one), the original script, chatting to Nancy Olson as well as others... I loved the opening scene of Wilder meeting a drunk DW Griffith at a party. I maybe would've liked more on the silent era stuff and Brackett (he gets points though for bothering to read Brackett's novels). A lot of it did feel like padding and I felt Staggs was unnecessarily mean about much of Wilder's non Brackett output.
After reading this I went back to Brackett's published diaries and those entries, short as they were, are far superior to what's on here.
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