What are you reading?

[SSO Admins]

I finished Dangerous Men, it wasn't as good as Complicated Women, I think that's because I knew more about the men of the era. The women and women's filmsI find the most fascinating.

I think it's also because male roles didn't change as much with the coming of the code as the female roles did. The code marked a real shift for female characters -- for men the change was much more subtle.

[SSO Admins]

Courtney found me a copy of the 1971 book "Faces, Forms, Films: the Artistry of Lon Chaney." Not too far into it, but it seems like a good read about my all time favorite actor.

[MichiganJ]

Courtney found me a copy of the 1971 book "Faces, Forms, Films: the Artistry of Lon Chaney." Not too far into it, but it seems like a good read about my all time favorite actor.

This was the first film biography I ever bought. Love the pictures, and for the time, the book was pretty informative.

If you haven't read them already, I recommend the three Chaney books by Michael F. Blake:
Lon Chaney: The Man Behind the Thousand Faces; A Thousand Faces: Lon Chaney's Unique Artistry in Motion Pictures and The Films of Lon Chaney. All three make for some fascinating reading.

[charliechaplinfan]

I took one of the biggest books on holiday with me, thankfully seeing as we were there for an extra week. The Emperor and the Wolf is a joint biography of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. What a fabulous read, it's detailed and focuses more about the career of both men, it does touch on their private lives and it tells their stories at the same time to highlight how their careers intertwined. It was fascinating to read about how Kurosawa would pick out a project, write the script with his collaborators and his directing methods. As his fame grew his projects became greater and demanded more time and bigger budgets but this coincided with the coming of the TV and he struggled to find funding being helped in the seventies and eighties by Steven Speilberg and George Lucas. He was still making films in the nineties but had by then gone back to smaller scale movies. Toshiro Mifune was somewhat of an enigma, not much was known of his early life, he was in the photographic core of the Japanese Air Force but was too rebellious to be given any missions instead he helped develop pictures and in the later stages on the war trained young men to join in the fight against the enemy. When the war ended he tried to get work at Toho in the photography department but someone entered him into the new faces competition, he was wildly rebellious but Kurosawa saw something in him and the rest is history. He sounds like he was a nice man, modest and unassuming but needed to be in character all day for the duration of filming to bring his portrayals to life, quite scary I could imagine with some of the roles he portrayed. He parted ways with Kurosawa because he was pursuaded to become his own production, something everyone felt was a mistake, he was a good employer had many employees loyal to him just like Kurosawa's were devoted to him. Kurosawa's productions were such that they'd command a big commitment in time from his actors, something that Mifune couldn't afford with his own production company. Kurosawa it seems never understood this and a little bad blood was felt. Mifune took on roles that would help keep his company afloat.


O

[charliechaplinfan]

One of the most gripping bits of the biography is when Japan surrendered, the people were expecting to have to commit suicide. Kurosawa talks about going to work that morning and everyone was subdued, knowing what was coming that their honour wolud require the sacrifice, until the Emperor came on the radio and told his people that that sacrifice was not required. When Kurosawa was going home the atomosphere had lightened, people were glad, even though they were facing grinding poverty, they had their lives.

[mrsl]

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The books about Mifune and Kurosawa sound fascinating, but to someone who used to read 2 or 3 books in a week, and now takes a month to read one, I'm afraid it sounds too long for me, and I am missing so much.

After finally finishing Lauren Bacall, I'm now into Bette Davis, which is really quite a combination of Bette and her co-writer. I find I prefer the autobiography to the biography. The person himself can write in a more personal way without sounding to invasive if he/she wishes, but a biographer always sounds like he/she is making something nasty out of a simple meeting.
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[Ann Harding]

I have been reading Pola Negri autobiography published in 1970. After watching several of her films at the Cinémathèque, I wanted to know a bit more about her. That book proved to be really informative about her childhood and her early career. She comes out as a really strong woman who had to be from a very early age the breadwinner of the family. What struck me is the fact that she was in a family without a father - her father had been imprisonned for plotting against the Russians - like so many actresses in those early days of cinema. Lillian Gish, Gloria Swanson or Mary Pickford, all of them had to work to earn a living. Being an actress was about the only job available for a woman at that time. To be successful required enormous willpower. So I can only take my hat off: she made it against the odds. Her description of Poland under Russian rule is very interesting showing the resiliance of the Poland who was invaded countless times. The book shows her very good relationship with Lubitsch who was her prime director for many years. As for her love life, her two marriages were abject failures, not unlike those of Gloria Swanson. Being a famous working woman and married at the same time was certainly too much for men in those days. (Myrna Loy says so as well!) As for her affairs with Chaplin, Valentino, etc., I can only say that her descriptions are well done. Valentino is depressed and terribly unsure of himself while Chaplin wants to shine in society constantly. Overall, it's not a great piece of literature, but it gives you a glimpse of what it was like to be a famous actress in the 20s.

[charliechaplinfan]

It's true what you say about the female stars of the silent cinema, I think you can include the Talmadges in that group too. I found the description of her childhood and early adulthood up to her arriving in Hollywood the most fascinating, perhaps it's because my knowledge was lacking about the German cinema of the time. I remember getting the book to read more about Valentino and then finding Chaplin the more interesting of her amours, it made me realise that Chaplin was one of the most fascinating people in cinema history and I'm biased towards biographies of the early cinema. I found Pola's story and her way of telling it very illuminating.

[charliechaplinfan]

I finished reading a biography of Marlene Dietrich by Donald Spoto, I enjoyed it because it told the tale of her life but it annoyed me because he took pains to point out how lonely and pointless her life was at the end. Still Marlene's life is worth reading because you couldn't make it up.

[jdb1]

Alison, I've always found Spoto to be a scandal-mongering hack writer, and if I were you I'd believe only about 1/4 of what he writes. I gave up reading his nonsense years ago. Unreliable doesn't begin to describe his style. I have the impression most of what he writes is copied out of old fan magazines anyway.

[MichiganJ]

A few books I'm reading or recently finished:

Novels:

Nine Dragons--Michael Connelly's latest Bosch thriller. Very cinematic, somewhat predictable, but still holds some great twists, and his usual, well-written, page-turning prose.

Under the Dome--Stephen King meets The Simpson's Movie, While the characters are one-dimensional, the book is definitely a page-turner. Was hoping for more depth in the themes (a la The Stand), but still a fun read.

The Road--Cormac McCarthy's book is as close to poetry as a novel can get. Bleak, horrifying, and a beautiful read.

Movie books:

The Red Rooster Scare: Making Cinema American, 1900-1910--Richard Abel's book is a fascinating look at how the popularity of the early French movies in the U.S. caused concern about, among other things, immigration, prompting a rise in nationalism in cinema.

Four Fabulous Faces--Larry Carr's picture book featuring great photos of Swanson, Garbo, Crawford and Dietrich. While primarily photos, the captions are very informative.

Non-fiction:

Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition--just started reading this book by Daniel Okrent. Very interesting so far. Who knew that our forefathers (including the Puritans on the Mayflower, as well as our Founding Fathers) were such sots?

[charliechaplinfan]

Alison, I've always found Spoto to be a scandal-mongering hack writer, and if I were you I'd believe only about 1/4 of what he writes. I gave up reading his nonsense years ago. Unreliable doesn't begin to describe his style. I have the impression most of what he writes is copied out of old fan magazines anyway.

That was my impression of him, he released a few biographies a while back, he uncovered the Danny Kaye/Olivier fling (which I think has now been authenticated by Joan Plowright) I've read the Dietrich one before but cross referencing what he says about her affairs to what her daughter says it's all there. Dietrich was very open about her lovers and never concealed them. I wish he'd liked her though, she came across very much liuke Charlotte Inwood in Stagefright which in turn is meant to be close to Marlene, Hitchcock just wanted Marlene to play herself. I thought she was very one dimensional in Spoto's book. I'm going to have to reread what her daughter writes in her biography of her mother. I have the Photographs and Memories book that Maria did, that's a lovely coffee table style book, full of personal pictures and costumes.

[charliechaplinfan]

I've just picked up a book by Michelle Morgan called Marilyn Monroe, Private and Undisclosed. Morgan herself runs a British Marilyn fan club, the book concentrates on interviewing those in her life who have chosen not to wallow in the sensational part of her life, it concentrates more on her childhood, her time at the orphanage, her early modelling days, friends who knew the private Marilyn when she was famous. It has lots of private photographs, ones I've never seen before, given by family, friends and fans, candid pictures. I've read the first couple of chapters, I like the tone, it's reverent, Morgan wants to put the record straight about Marilyn, much of which was exageration, played up by the studio and played upon by Mailyn. Marilyn pretended not to be in touch with people she was still close to from her childhood and her step sister lest they get swamped by the media. It's an enjoyable take on Marilyn.

I've also picked up My Father, Charlie Chaplin, always a delightful subject to me, so far Charlie Jnr the writer seems in awe of his famous father but not afraid of telling a few truths.

[srowley75]

I'm rereading some Flannery O'Connor. The book I checked out was the Library of America compilation of her works, including Wise Blood and The Violent Bear it Away. I've never read any of her novels, so I'm going to concentrate on those this time. This volume also contains a collection of her letters.

With regard to her stories, I'm still torn between "Good Country People" and "A Good Man is Hard to Find."

-Stephen

[Birdy]

I just read Hot Toddy The True Story of Hollywood's Most Sensational Murder by Andy Edmonds. This is the story of Thelma Todd's rise to fame and her death in 1935. She was found beaten in her car in her garage and her death determined 'accidental'. The book asserts that Lucky Luciano was to blame, as he was trying to take over the 3rd floor of her cafe for gambling and she threatened him that she had turned lists of his connections in to the FBI. The book also says that Roland West, her ex, claimed responsibility on his deathbed. Anyone else read this or have an opinion on poor Miss Todd's death?
Birdy