TV review - "Playhouse 90 The Last Tycoon" (1957) ***1/2

 F Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished novel at one stage meant for Humphrey Bogart and Bacall but he died so they wound up with Jack Palance and Lee Remick. Palance's performance is fascinating - intense, empathetic, strong.

Support cast is amazing - Peter Lorre as a burnt out director, Keenan Wynn is an exec, achingly pretty Lee Remick is a nubile thing hot for Palance (shock).

Story ambles and kind of ends - I think he dies at the end. But then the novel was unfinished. Has that late 50s TV seriousness. 

Movie review - "Maisie" (1939) **1/2

 Curious to see this as it sounds so fun - the adventures of showgirl Maisie (Ann Sothern). Striking in that it was so influenced by Red Dust - Maisie gets stranded somewhere exotic (here, a Western ranch), falls in love with hunky foreman (Robert Young) gets involved in a love triangle involving a married woman who is cheating on her nice husband. Only here the woman is cheating with another person not Maisie's love interest - Hays Code!

Clearly meant to be a Jean Harlow film. Sothern is fine. Young fine not terribly macho. Ian Hunter is the wet cuckold. 

There is a murder and a trial. Strong female lead - female screenwriter.  

 

Book review - "Joan Crawford" by Scott Eyman (2025)

 Very good book. Eyman loves to step up when redeeming maligned figures. He's sympathetic to Joan but doesn't gloss over her negative qualities. Solid research. A few too many smart ass asides.

Book review - 'The Creative Producer" by David Lewis (1993)

 Lewis is best known as the boyfriend of James Whale. He also produced a number of films. Has some excellent credits at Warner Bros and MGM in particular. He struggled later in the 1950s - films like Raintree County and what not.

His memoirs are fascinating - a different insight from the Golden Age. Like everyone his memoirs are self serving - takes credit for things like coming up with the insanity angle for Kings Row rather than incest with Casey Robinson. But we hear different takes on films like Kings Row but also Each Dawn I Die, Four's a Crowd, Camille.

Interesting views of people like Irving Thalberg, Hal Wallis, Jack Warner, Dore Schary, Sam Wood, etc.

Book review - "Irving Thalberg" by Mark Viera

 Thalberg is such an engimatic figure in Hollywood history but Viera does a good job of digging into the primary sources and making him into a real person. It's hard to ascertain the contribution of a producer but Viera rises to the occasion.

Book review - "John Gilbert The Last of the Silent Film Stars" by Eve Golden

 Engaging bio of Gilbert, who is well known among buffs for the career implosion that followed the coming of sound. By all accounts he was a charming, nice person - though not the most stable romantic partner. Golden suggests he was manic depressive, which seems to fit. He would fall in love with all his co stars which I'm sure is fine if they were into it but he would've been a sex pest had they not been.

Gilbert's rise was relatively rapid though no doubt it didn't feel that way at the time. He was a show biz baby, travelling circuit... wound up in Hollywood, plugged away for a few years. Then was championed by Irvin Thalberg at MGM who put him in a series of movies, some very well remembered (especially the Garbo vehicles), all successful.

Then came sound... and the best bit of this book (the rest is good, incidentally, just drama wise this is where the meat is). While some stars easily segued, Gilbert struggled. His voice was fine but his films were bad - flowery dialogue, clunk direction. These things happen, and Gilbert was better positioned than most to bounce back - he wasn't a foreigner, had some stage training, also could have gone into action movies. But his salary was huge so MGM couldn't afford to co star him with anyone, he didn't get along with Louis B Mayer so it's unlikely Mayer would've wanted to do him any favours.

To say "it was a conspiracy" is to let Gilbert off the hook. He was a grown man. He should've known he needed co stars, better properties, better directors. People attack Mayer because Mayer thrived while Gilbert went under.

He still could've come back - he did with Queen Christina but couldn't exploit that (re-signed with MGM when he shouldn't), then got another chance a role in Desire with his (and everyone's) girlfriend Marlene Dietric but had a heart attack (a follow up one would kill him)... because he was a big boozer. It's still moving but it was his own fault. A lousy husband and dad, seems like a lot of fun, a good actor, a great story well told in this book.

Jack Conway - most underrated studio director?

 It's hard to call directors underrated because the minute someone pays them attention they're kind of rated.

But Jack Conway surely has some claim for being one of the most unfamous directors of famous films. I think because he worked so long at MGM, whose directors were often dismissed (Clarence Brown, Victor Fleming). They were also dismissed because they died young too and thus missed boomer critic mythologising.

But how's this for a top ten

1) Libeled Lady (1936)

2) Red Dust Woman (1932)

3) Boom Town (1940)

4) A Tale of Two Cities (1935)

5) Tarzan and His Mate(1934)

6) The Hucksters (1947)

7) Viva Villa! (1934)

8) Too Hot to Handle (1938)

9) A Yank at Oxford (1938)

10) The Unholy Three (1930)

That's a pretty good list and they're just films I'm famililar with. The best Jean Harlow movies, the best Tarzan, some excellent Clark Gable flicks.

Movie review - "Ninotchka" (1939) ****

 A skilfully constructed vehicle for Greta Garbo, even if it takes us 20 minutes to see her but the time is well spent, setting up the three comic commissars who arrive in Paris from Russia to get some jewels, stuff up, and so they send in Greta.

She's fine. I'm not a big Garbo fan but she is well cast. Melvyn Douglas is her co star, a part that really needs Cary Grant, but he's fine too. Lots of fun to see Bela Lugosi in one scene as Greta's boss. The wacky Russians are fine. Ina Claire is good.

I loved how every character has a strong motivation, and how Greta doesn't sell out Russia - she and Ina Claire have a terrific collision where Claire whines about having to given up her Russian home and Greta points out what pricks the aristocracy were. I love how upfront Greta is about being turned on by Melvyn Douglas from the get-go. She's a strong character.

There is a long, unfunny drunk sequence - maybe it's me but I don't think being drunk is as hilarious as Hollywood filmmakers in the 1930s did. I never got the final gag with one of the Russians wearing a sign outside. 

I don't think this film is as amazing as others do but it is very good.

Book review - "Garbo" by Robert Gottleib (2021)

 Entertaining enough biography which seems to rely heavily on other biographers. It breezes through her life, times and films - it feels like a long essay, which is fine. It includes an anthology of other writing on Garbo, including profiles by Ken Tynan and Lili Palmer, which seems like cheating. Goes into the dressing in clothes and possible bisexuality and all that. Garbo isn't that mysterious she just photographed well and honestly couldn't give a stuff. People go in raptures over her. It's odd.

Book review - "Buster Keaton" By James Curtis

 Long. Maybe didn't need to be - there's lots of description of synopsis and gags. The best bit is the first section - the tale of Keaton in vaudeuville with his parents, trying to stay one step ahead of the authorities. It didn't seem to do him much psychological damage. Maybe a little more time in the classroom would've made him a better businessman. Or maybe not (Chaplin didn't).

I think Keaton was a genius - brilliantly trained who sound the perfect medium - silent comedy. He had an ideal patron in Joe Schenck and was protected for many years. Keaton benefited from a perfect storm of good fortune (vaudeville training, patronage of Fatty Arbuckle, the fact films were so new and silent, and had been doing for just the right amount of time)... then had a perfect storm of bad things, some of which TBH were his fault (moving to control-obsessed and cost-conscious MGM, blowing all his money on a ridiculously elaborate house, and most of all boozing). He had a lousy 30s but even then remained a box office draw at MGM longer than is commonly thought... had a bad second marriage... but the last two decades of his life were happy: a nice third marriage, plenty of work, critical acclaim. Died at an old age for a smoker.

I like how this book have credit to the later AIP films (my first exposure to Keaton) and to television.

A fine life, a worthy tribute. Maybe a little overlong.

Book review - "Pictures Will Talk : the Life and Films of Joseph L. Mankiewicz" by Kenneth Geist (1978)

An extremely good look at the career of Mankiewicz, one of the best known writer-producer-directors from Hollywood's golden age. He had a remarkable career - he made it to the top relatively quickly and stayed there until the end. He managed to retire with his money, his respect and his marbles, which is pretty good.

Mankiewicz came from smart stock - dad was educated, so was mother. He got into films via his brother Herman, who was a journalist who became a screenwriter and was famous for co writing Citizen Kane and not living up to his potential. He drank and Joe didn't. Joe was also a better politician -he could charm, particularly actresses, many of whom he had affairs with. He found a good home at MGM and earned his reputation with Manhattan Melodrama.

I was surprised how many flops were on his resume but he always bounced back. He hit a sort of producing peak with Woman of the Year and The Philadelphia Story but Louis B Mayer wouldn't let him direct so he went to 20th Century Fox, where he thrived under Daryl Zanuck. He's best known for A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve but made many other solid films, such as Five Fingers and The Ghost and Mrs Muir. Even misfires like People Will Talk are interesting.

Mankiewicz left Fox, whereupon a lot of Zanuck apologists say he never made another decent film. I think that's not true. He's work was always interesting, even when flawed - Guys and Dolls, Suddenly Last Summer, The Quiet American.  Of course the biggest "flawed achievement" was Cleopatra which almost killed Mankiewicz but has some great stuff in it - it's definitely one of the better epics, especially in the first half.

He hung on, managed to make a bunch of other films including Sleuth - this book features some fascinating observations of the making of the film, including Mankiewicz's directing technique.

There's lots of fantastic quotes, particularly from Mankiewicz who was very much alive when the book was written. Surprisingly little about his son Tom's career. The author admires its subject but not to the point of ignorance.

There are some annoying little errors - David and Bathsheba was actually a big hit - and some items where I questioned the writers taste (All the Presidents Men a bad screenplay?). Mankiewicz's power over women - they all fell in love with him apparently - seems a little more suspect to read about in the MeToo era, and also I note all the girls who loved him were neurotic actresses.

Still this is easily the best book on Mankiewicz out there.

Movie review - "Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story" (2017) ****

Superb look at the life of perhaps Hollywood's greatest startlet/inventor, Hedy Lamarr, whose private life was interesting enough (a stunning beauty, marriage to Austrian munitions manufacturer, early nude/orgasm scene in Ecstacy, fleeing to the US and MGM fame)... but then they throw in her inventing in her part time, quite successfully.

Lamarr is a fascinating character: warm, imperious, smart, funny, addicted to speed and plastic surgery, Jewish (but who would hide that even from her kids), an occasionally great and also terrible mother, bad taste in men, not great with money (she wound up with a pension despite her MGM salary and marrying an oil man).

The biography is very good helped by some great "gets" - a taped interview people did of her, home movie footage, grabs of the Austrian films. I did feel the filmmakers were a bit mean taking MGM to task for miscasting her - I felt Louis B Mayer used her very well.  I mean, she was obviously brilliant and gorgeous but it doesn't mean she could act. She was made for stuff like White Cargo.

Book review - "MGM: Hollywood's Greatest Backlot" by Steven Bingen (2011)

If you're are even vaguely interested in studio backlots from the Golden Years of Hollywood this is a book for you - exhaustively researched and photographed, it covers the legendary backlot at MGM with it's all American street, train station, backlot London, Esther Williams pool, etc.

I admired the research and passion and appreciate the photos but have to admit: studio backlots aren't a big thing with me. Or maybe the problem is more I read this on my phone via kindle when it should be a coffee table book ideally.

Because it's about MGM there is an aura of sadness about it which the author admits - we remember MGM more because its dead. I was surprised the backlot was used so heavily and for so long - many of the photos refer to the films crappy movies of the 60s and 70s. Really - and this is all hindsight - they should've turned pretty much the whole thing over to TV in the 60s and 70s. Maybe that's a way it could've survived.

There's a lot I didn't know including the story of the Lins, wire dealers who bought the backlot, and further examples of mismanagement from Jim Aubrey.

Book review - "The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney" by Richard Lertzman and William Birnes

Rooney was a fascinating star - someone who was born in a trunk, acting from the age of 2, a headliner at 3, a film star at six (in a series of short films), then washed up at 11, rediscovered by MGM and Max Reinhardt (who put him in Puck in Midsummer Night's Dream), became a star again at MGM particularly as Andy Hardy but also in a series of musicals with Judy Garland. By the end of the 1930s he was the biggest star in the US.

Rooney found the perfect studio in MGM - Louis B Mayer loved Americana and musicals, and Rooney thrived in both genres. He also did well in schmaltzy dramas such as Boys Town and The Human Comedy. Rooney earned a lot of money but spent it just as fast, on loans and gambling and other bad habits. He womanised like there was no tomorrow but fell for Ava Gardner before she was famous. His popularity began to ebb as he got older and he missed two crucial years of his career serving in the army.

Nonetheless he was still a draw when he came back - some of his post war films were popular such as Love Laughs at Andy Hardy and (surprisingly) Killer McCoy, where he played a boxer. Summer Holiday and Words and Music lost money however and Rooney and MGM parted ways - a stupid decision on Rooney's part because he missed out on the studio pension. He also ventured into independent filmmaking for which he was temperamentally unsuited and was soon washed up as a major star. Does anyone remember Quicksand, The Fireball, He's a Cockeyed Wonder, My Outlaw Brother, The Strip, Sound Off, Off Limits, All Ashore, A Slight Case of Larceny, Drive a Crooked Road, The Atomic Kid?

But he was still Rooney, still very talented, with a phenomenal work ethic. He did TV, radio, Las Vegas, made a reputation as a character actor (The Bridges at Tokyo Ri, Requiem for a Heavyweight). He was never out of work. A good thing too for his private life was a mess - constantly getting married and divorce, always burning through money, associating with gangsters (he played Vegas a lot and was always in hock to dodgy people) - a lot of people he knew wound up murdered, such as business managers and one wife.

Things turned around in the 1970s - Rooney had a run of genuine good film roles (The Black Stallion, Bill) and a stage smash with Sugar Babies. This earned him a fortune - which he proceeded to blow. His last years were a depressing mixture of lawsuits and allegations of dementia and elder abuse - one was never sure what Rooney was genuinely suffering and what he was making up.

This isn't a fun book - for all his talent Rooney seems to have been a pretty appalling person, constantly making stupid decisions and pronouncements, grasping for cash, turning on those who loved him, generally being insufferable. It's very sordid with it's gangsters, gambling, murder, abuse, dashed hopes and dreams. Rooney never learns his lesson and keeps making the same mistakes so he's a frustrating person to follow.

The book felt well researched though maybe over reliant on secondary sources. It "goes there" - there's descriptions of Rooney's lovemaking with Gardner including about her nipples. I wish they'd referred to primary sources more such as studio documentation. But generally this is a good book.

As an aside - I've sometimes wondered whether Rooney's status as a star could've been maintained after World War Two. If he'd stayed at MGM longer and they'd looked after him. It was a challenging time for Hollywood and Dore Schary was never going to be an exec who liked stars like Rooney but MGM did still make musicals and comedies. The last proper Andy Hardy film made a comfortable profit - I think it was a big mistake to end the series; there were plenty of stories to be had with Andy going through college, becoming a young lawyer and getting married. I'm not saying it wouldn't be a challenge but I think it could've been done. Anyway, we'll never know...

Movie review - "The Devil Doll" (1936) **

At first I wondered why this wasn't better known among horror aficionados - it's got a great title, was directed by Tod Browning, co-scripted by Eric Von Stroheim, and gets off to a strong start with Lionel Barrymore and a fellow old codger escaping from Devil's Island. (I've got a soft spot for Devil's Island escape sequences). The old guy dies but not before telling Barrymore that he's a mad scientist who can shrink things a la the doctor in Bride of Frankenstein, and he has a crazy wife who has a similar hairstyle to Elsa Lanchester in Bride of Frankenstein, so when Barrymore says he wants to wreck some Count of Monte Cristo style revenge you think "ok he's going to use the shrinking things machine and kick some arse" which isn't a bad idea for a horror film, if a little more Bela Lugosi/Monogram than Lionel Barrymore/MGM.

But anyways that does happen a bit, but Barrymore actually spends most of the rest of the film in drag as a little old lady. It's played straight believe it or not, and is just plain silly.

Maureen O'Sullivan is always likeable as Barrymore's estranged daughter; Frank Lawton is wet as her fiancee. I wish the actors playing the people Barrymore gets revenge on had been stronger. Rafaele Ottiano - who I don't recall ever having seen in anything before - is fun as the crazy widow of the mad scientist.

Movie review - "Camille" (1936) ***

If you're a fan of Greta Garbo you'll love this movie because it gives her a chance to act all over the place - play coy, funny, tragic, romantic, sexy, etc. Camille is a dream part for an older woman - you get to wear fantastic clothes, all the men pant over you (including a handsome elder one and dashing younger) and you get to die and have all the sympathy.

It's done with MGM gloss which means plenty of over the top costume and sumptuous production design; the censor has pulled back on what Camille does for a living but it's still clear to adults what's going on.

The performances of Lionel Barrymore and Robert Taylor have been much criticised. Barrymore was indeed irritating - all ham and self righteousness, barnstorming his way around the set as he scolds Garbo; Taylor I went easier on - he wasn't a very good actor but he does his best and he's got the looks. Henry Daniell is superb and there is some garishly overly the top support from character actors like Laura Hope Crews.

I didn't really get into this and the finale, where Camille kicks the bucket, left me cold. Maybe I'm shallow. But like I say if you enjoy Greta Garbo you'll get into it. 

Movie review - "Grand Hotel" (1932) *** (warning: spoilers)

MGM at its most Irvin Thalberg-y, a big glossy all star melodrama. I didn't realise how few Greta Garbo movies I'd actually seen watching this - she's a terrible ham, beautiful and charismatic to be sure, but emoting all over the place and chewing up the scenery as the tragic ballerina, one minute about to kill herself then madly in love.

Equally playing to the back row are Wallace Beery and Lionel Barrymore, as a dodgy businessperson and dying clerk respectively. Lionel is especially hard to take, ACTING all over shop, making dumb pronouncements about money and being a little man. You wish someone would pull out a gun and end him early.

Far far better are John Barrymore, in a genuinely sensitive and restrained performance as the thieving Baron (he's terrific), and Joan Crawford, as a kind of secretary slash model slash mistress (the film is pre Code and thus allowed to be a bit racy.... there's also Garbo about to commit suicide, Barrymore and Garbo pretty clearly have sex, Beery kills J Barrymore brutally).

Lewis Stone is irritating as a Greek chorus as is Jean Hersholt as a porter. The art direction is impressive. Dated in many ways but still worth watching.

Book review - "Robert Taylor" by Charles Tranberg (2014)

Was there a luckier film star than Robert Taylor? No overwhelming passion to be an actor, or even famous, or show off - he just sorted of ambled along through life, growing up in Nebraska, going to college in California. He was a good looking guy, so they cast him in college plays, where he was spotted by MGM because he was a good looking guy. Then the studio signed him and cast him in some things, because he was a good looking guy, and his parts got bigger and he became a star very quickly. And despite basically getting all this way because he was good looking he stayed a star for 25 years.

Okay that's not entirely fair - he knew he was lucky, and worked very very hard, kept his head down, was conscientious and never phoned it in. He listened to his directors and found the perfect studio home in MGM, where he was happy for Leo B. Mayer to boss him around - and later on he got along well with Dore Schary. He had a good speaking voice, the benefit of a star marriage to the elder Barbara Stanwyck, and was comfortable co-starring against the big female names of the time (this is harder than it sounds - and also helped Fred MacMurray become a name). 

His career was managed well - pretty boy leading man parts in the mid 30s, tales of cocky kids who get redemption a la Tom Cruise in the late 30s, Westerns and war flicks in the 40s, film noir in the late 40s, costume blockbusters and Westerns in the 1950s (where he received an unexpected boost as a swashbuckling star). Stardom eventually faded but the decline was gradual - lesser budgets, a TV series, Disney, European thrillers. He died while still being highly employable.

There's a lot of genuinely good films on Taylor's resume: Camille, A Yank at Oxford, The Crowd Roars, Waterloo Bridge, The Bribe, Undercurrent, Bataan, Quo Vadis, Rio Valdez. To be frank, all these parts could have been played better by other stars at the time - he was from the Golden Age but remained a second rate star. (His 50s swashbuckers especially all seemed as though they should have had Stewart Granger in them instead.) Still, the length and bredth of his career demands serious appraisal and Tranberg does a good job. There is solid research and plenty of sympathy.

Taylor comes out of it well - a solid, decent stick, if a bit dull; an old school Republican, which meant he was a dick during the McCarthy era, where he named names, but he also served his country during the war; he enjoyed hunting, fishing and flying, disliked hippies, became Ronald Reagan's best friend towards the end of his life; he enjoyed a happy second marriage to a woman who wanted to stay at home and raise kids (if not her kids to a first marriage - one of whom killed himself shortly before Taylor's death of smoking-induced cancer). Definitely worth a read, especially if you're a fan of golden era Hollywood.

Movie review - "Harlow" (1965) **

Joseph E. Levine enjoyed a big hit with The Carpetbaggers, where Carroll Baker played a trashy movie star based on Jean Harlow with a script by John Michael Hayes, so it made sense for him to follow it up with a biopic starring Baker as Harlow with a script by John Michael Hayes - though this movie isn't that much more a realistic depiction of Harlow's life than The Carpetbaggers.

It doesn't help that much of the film is fictionalised - you have to do some extra reading to realise that Leslie Nielsen is meant to be Howard Hughes (who was also in The Carpetbaggers), Martin Balsam is meant to be Leo B. Mayer, Majestic is meant to be MGM, Jack Harrison is William Powell. Red Buttons plays Arthur Landau, the kindly agent who promotes her - depicted as a saintly Santa Claus type figure who loves his wife and is completely platonic about Harlow. Peter Lawford is allowed to play the real Paul Bern, Angela Lansbury her real mother and Raf Valone her real step father.

Most of the film centers on men trying to get Harlow into bed - the first assistant director (Peter Hensen), the impresario (Nielsen), movie star (Mike Connors), producer (Lawford). And she's tempted a lot of the time but is afraid to give into her cravings. It's that sort of level of trash. Harlow doesn't get dick from Lawford so she seeks it from Vallone, who says no; Connors wants to give it to her first then changes his mind; Nielsen is willing to do it, then she gets it whenever she can.

I've always had time for Carroll Baker as an actor - she had this great deep throaty voice and a vivacious presence. She's not much like the real life Harlow, who was sparky, naive and  a lot more voluptuous - you have to enjoy her on her own terms. Which is as a campy over the top ham.

Lovers of camp will enjoy some of the ripe dialogue, Baker's monologues, Harlow's search for sexual satisfaction, and the elaborate decor. There's some real "am I watching this?" stuff here, like a sequence where Baker tries to seduce Vallone, Connors and Nielsen in succession, and is knocked back by the first two. However Nielsen does the deed and then Harlow winds up picking up men in bars, waking up in hotel rooms with flashing neon signs outside. It's entertaining on some level and it's consistent awfulness and his quality cast do keep you watching, but in the end I was just offended for poor old Jean.

Book review - "Elvis' Favorite Director: The Career of Norman Taurog" by Michael Hoey

A book on Norman Taurog? Well, when you think about it, why not? There was a period there when he seemed to have directed every second film that screened on Saturday afternoon TV - MGM musicals, Martin and Lewis, Elvis flicks, AIP comedies - in part because he specialised in easy-to-watch fare: colourful comedies with musical numbers. His career went back even further than that: he won an Oscar in 1931 for Skippy, and he made his name directing comic silents.

Taurog started out as a child actor, went into props, and in the wild and woolly days of early silent cinema found himself a director, working with some dude called Larry Sermon. He worked his way up to longer movies and from then on was never out of work: a man who worked hard, wore his authority easily, and thrived in the studio system; who was particularly good with comics and children.

Taurog was a fatty, which no doubt contributed to the diabetes which led to him losing sight in one eye for the latter part of his career; eventually the other eye went to, and he became completely blind - this was the only thing that stopped him making movies. (I imagine he would have kept going into the 70s otherwise, maybe for TV.)

His personal life wasn't without incident: he had a messy divorce, remarried one of Louis B. Mayer's secretaries, who was a big noise in the Republican Party, and who encouraged Taurog's own political involvement: he was part of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals or whatever it was caused, the right wing group at the time of McCarthyism. He was the uncle by marriage to Jackie Cooper, who accused him of being abusive on set (though Hoey casts doubt on this, in a convincing way, pointing out Taurog often helped him later in life).

This book benefits considerably from the fact that Hoey knew Taurog well - he produced Palm Springs Weekend, which Taurog directed, then went to work for him as an assistant on several of his Elvis movies.  So there's lots of little personal touches and insights, such as giving a full account of the death on the set of Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, the antics of the Elvis mafia on his movies, the fact Taurog liked Elvis but grew to loathe Jerry Lewis. Hoey has done his research too on other movies although at times I felt he got sidetracked giving mini-bios of other people Taurog worked with.

But it's a very easy read, which consistently surprised me (Taurog was pall bearer for Virginia Rappe, of Fatty Arbuckle fame, the sheer cheapness of Colonel Tom Parker) and I liked this a lot.