The It's a Wonderful Life Book

Book Description

Tells the entire story of the film's production and presents us with an extraordinary wealth of original material. More than 200 photos.

Customer Reviews:

A must-have for any "Lifer".......2000-09-26

Jeanine Basinger has put together the definitive collection of primary source information available about "It's a Wonderful Life."

Anybody who considers him or herself a "Lifer" (a fan of the movie, usually an extreme fan such as myself) needs to purchase this book.

Almost everything you want to know is in here, from the original story the film was based on to interviews with Stewart, an introduction by Capra, pictures galore, the final script, script revisions, notes about suggested censorship, and much, much more.

There is even information in here you wouldn't even think about asking. An example is the name of the "stars in charge." One is named Joseph. What is the name of the other galxy (Hint: The answer isn't God).

I often get e-mails asking me questions about the film. If I don't have the answer, this is the first book I pick up. Of the many times I've been asked questions, I have always found the answer in this book.

This is the ultimate IAWL reference.

Wonderful in every way; just like the movie!.......1999-01-21

Could it be possible that a book written about the most inspirational American film of all time do justice to it? The answer is a resounding "YES!". Jeanine Basinger's "The It's a Wonderful Life Book" is the ultimate tribute to the film that Jimmy Stewart, Frank Capra and millions of people all over the world call their favorite of all time.

Diving into the archives of Frank Capra to tell the evolution of the movie from cradle to grave (though it will never die!), Ms. Basinger manages to tell the story with such sincerety, fascination and charm that you get the feeling that everything surrounding the movie was just as wonderful as the final product! Best of all, the details of the making of the movie are so vivid that you almost start to feel that YOU WERE THERE!

The first thing you realize as you read the story of IAWL is that is was a really big movie from the gitgo. That is, Mr. Capra had high aspirations for it and did EVERYTHING in his power to make it his greatest and lasting achievement (little argument here) and that Hollywood was watching.

Fans may know that the story started as a Christmas card called "The Greatest Gift" which finally found its way into Mr. Capra's hands where, after many writes and re-writes into a script, got the Capra touch transforming it into his baby. Then casting began with each actor painstakingly chosen to be the perfect person for each particular character.

Anecdotes abound, starting with Capra's embarrassingly jumbled explanation of the storyline while recruiting Stewart. (Fortunately, all Jimmy needed to hear was that Frank wanted him.) Then we hear the one about Stewart's shattered confidence in acting which is restored when Lionel Barrymore pulls him aside for a peptalk. Finally, We're told that the famous phone scene where George kisses Mary was done in a single take AND THAT TWO PAGES OF DIALOGUE WERE SKIPPED! (Capra saw the magic and said "Print it!").

We also learn some fascinating facts about the production such as the 300-yard long set which made Bedford Falls' Main Street and how a record-breaking heat wave took place during the shooting of the snow scenes (in which a new technology was developed for making more realistic-looking snow which won the crew an honorable mention at the Oscars!). Other incredible details are too vast to mention - you've gotta read it for yourself!

The book is worth it if just to learn all of these amazing facts. Most amazing, though, is the LOVE that the two driving forces put into this film culminating in a "Capraesque" out-of-this-world PICNIC for the cast and crew.

Book Description

"[This book] is highly accessible and fascinating, a real page-turner. . . . Without becoming at all simplistic, it explains an important artist in a believable, concrete, and usable way, one that will delight non-specialists but also deeply instruct specialists."

—John Herbert Roper, author of C. Vann Woodward: A Southern Historian and His Critics

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for The Young Man from Atlanta and Academy Awards for the screen adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird and the original screenplay Tender Mercies, as well as the recipient of an Academy Award nomination for the screenplay of The Trip to Bountiful and the William Inge Lifetime Achievement Award, Horton Foote is one of America's most respected writers for stage and screen. The deep compassion he shows for his characters, the moral vision that infuses his social commentary, and the kindness and humanity that Foote himself radiates have also made him one of our most revered artists—the father-figure who understands our longings for home, for human connections, and for certainty in a world largely bereft of these.

This literary biography thoroughly investigates how Horton Foote's life and worldview have shaped his works for stage, television, and film. Tracing the whole trajectory of Foote's career from his small-town Texas upbringing to the present day, Charles Watson demonstrates that Foote has created a fully imagined mythical world from the materials supplied by his own and his family's and friends' lives in Wharton, Texas, in the early twentieth century. Devoting attention to each of Foote's major works in turn, he shows how this world took shape in Foote's writing for the New York stage, Golden Age television, Hollywood films, and in his nine-play masterpiece, The Orphan's Home Cycle. Throughout, Watson's focus on Foote as a master playwright and his extensive use of the dramatist's unpublished correspondence make this literary biography required reading for all who admire the work of Horton Foote.

In Capra's Shadow: The Life And Career of Screenwriter Robert Riskin

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In Capra's Shadow: The Life And Career of Screenwriter Robert Riskin
Ian Scott
Manufacturer: University Press of Kentucky
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0813123909

Book Description

Because screenwriter Robert Riskin spent most of his career collaborating with legendary Hollywood director Frank Capra, Riskin's own unique contributions to film have been largely overshadowed. With five Academy Award nominations to his credit for such monumental films as Lady for a Day, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take It with You, Here Comes the Groom, and It Happened One Night (for which he won the Oscar), Riskin is often imitated but rarely equaled.

Customer Reviews:

Entertaining and informative and well written.......2003-10-24

As is usual with many biographies, the genesis of a life is often much more interesting than its (generally successful) conclusion. The child is father of the man as Willie Wordsworth once wrote, and Mr Pressburger was true to his origins til the day he died. Hungarian Jew subject to the nightmare experienced by millions of fellow Europeans, he was a talented and richly cultured individual who very much made the most of his many talents, including an eye for the "girls". This is an interesting and well written biography which will appeal to those interested in cinema, European history, writing, and for those of you so inclined, the toings and froings of many of cinema's greats who were part of the cinema partnership of Mr Michael Powell, and Mr Pressburger. It also inspires one to have a relook at their wonderful films such as The 49th Parallel, The Red Shoes, I Know Where I'm Going, Black Narcissus and provides an understanding into the nature of "composed films".

A Grandson's search for his grandfather.......1996-06-11

Emeric Pressburger was a fascinating man. A Hungarian Jew
exiled during WWII he came to England and (together with
Michael Powell) made some of the most fascinating and
influential movies of the period.

This is the story of how Kevin MacDonald followed his
Grandfather's path through Europe and how and why a
non-native speaker could finish up being one of the
best observers of the English.

Emeric Pressburger often showed a deep understanding of
the British that is only granted to those "outside, looking
in". He always prided himself on being "more English than
the English". After all, some of use were just BORN English,
but he CHOSE to become English.

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Lauren Ellis

pathos and humor = LIFE

A Real Tearjerker

"This is not the movie, only the screenplay."

Shallow beyond belief

Life is Beautiful/La Vita E Bella: A Screenplay
Vince Cerami , Roberto Benigni , Robert Benigni , and Vincenzo Cerami
Manufacturer: Miramax Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Life Is Beautiful

GOOD WILL HUNTING: A SCREENPLAY

ASIN: 078688469X

Book Description

This romantic, hilarious, and astonishingly moving story, winner of the Grand Jury prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, explores the power of the imagination, set against the stark reality of World War II Europe. The companion screenplay to the Miramax film presents the profound yet tender story that has touched the hearts of so many.

Customer Reviews:

Lauren Ellis.......2005-09-05

Life Is Beautiful the movie concerns the triumph of the human spirit over the horrors and attracities committed against the european jews during the holocaust. It shows the extraordinary lengths that people will go to protect the ones they love. Although the film is set during the holocaust, the film is about compassion and love and desperate forcade one man must invent to firstly protect his son and secondly spare his mental anguish. As a result of having watched this film, I have realised that life is precious and life can be a living hell. Somehow though, life is still beautiful.

pathos and humor = LIFE.......2003-05-03

Guido, the central character in Life is Beautiful, is one of the most poignant characters in literature. He chooses to create an illusionary world for his son so that Giosue will survive the horrific conditions in a concentration camp. It becomes clear to the reader that Guido makes a decision as soon as he and Giouse are taken to the camp that he will, if necessary, go so far as to sacrifice his own life for his son's strength and survival. The theme of unconditional love transcending pain, horror, and incomprehensible ignorance is the ultimate message of the book. And, if anything, the reader empathizes even more with victims of the Holocaust because of Guido's presentation of his experiences. There is no "making fun" of the Holocaust in this book; there is only a celebration of love and the beauty of life. Everyone should read it and watch the movie!

A Real Tearjerker.......2003-02-03

Begnini's account of a father who makes the ultimate sacrifice for his son is beautiful, touching, and, at times, comedic. Family Pick.

"This is not the movie, only the screenplay.".......2001-02-24

One has to admit, Miramax makes a lot of darn good movies, from SLING BLADE to GOOD WILL HUNTING. LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL is another great movie. In fact, LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL is one of the best movies of 1998. However, this is not the movie. This is only the screenplay. Sure you have all the lines that are in the film and a few pictures, but that's it. Frankly, if you haven't seen the film, I wouldn't recommend you reading or buying this: the words on a printed page are nothing like the movie. However, if you've seen the film you're probably a fan and it might be worth your while.

Shallow beyond belief.......2001-01-23

This is an insult to the intelligence of anyone that has any knowledge of the history of WW2 and the events of the Holocaust. I guess the allied forces should have invaded Normandy with a bunch of pies, rubber noses and floppy shoes. Sometimes clowns simply don't have a role to play and this is one of those situations. Benigni bringing up the name of Primo Levi was an insult to all of Levi's philosophical attempts to explain what happened to him and Europe's Jews.

Frida: Bringing Frida Kahlo's Life and Art to Film (Newmarket Pictorial Movebooks)

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Beautiful Book with Invaluable Content
A must for anyone who loved the moive
Fun to simply page through

Frida: Bringing Frida Kahlo's Life and Art to Film (Newmarket Pictorial Movebooks)
Julie Taymor
Manufacturer: Newmarket Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1557045402

Book Description

A magnificent visual book in full color with over 150 photos and notes about the making of the major feature film by the award-winning director (The Lion King, Titus) about one of the most famous artists and feminists in the twentieth century, starring Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina, coming from Miramax Films.

This is the true story of Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera, the larger-than-life painters who became the most acclaimed artists in Mexican history and whose tempestuous love affair, landmark journeys to America, and outrageous personalities made them legendary. Filmed mainly in Mexico, the movie traces Frida's life from her unbridled high school days to her death at age 47.

This vivid book includes production notes, details on cinematography, set and costume design, and visual effects, music, notes by director Taymor, interviews with the cast, excerpts from books about Frida, reproductions of artwork, a historical timeline, and background sketches on the real figures portrayed in the movie.

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful Book with Invaluable Content.......2004-06-18

Of all of Newmarket's wonderful series of Pictorial Moviebooks, this one is my favorite. The sidebars identifying many of the "real people" who appear in the film are helpful, but the best part is the side-by-side comparison of the paintings & the moments in Frida's life which inspired them. The wedding sequence is especially illuminating: the scene from the shooting script, the stills of Frida [Salma Hayek] examining herself in the mirror in her lace wedding gown, & the picture of the actual wedding painting all combine to reveal Frida's essential self-invention.

If you loved this film, you will definitely want THIS book which supplements BOTH the film & the Herrera biography.

A must for anyone who loved the moive.......2003-02-01

This book is a visual feast! Great photos and stories
behind the making of the moive...
A must for anyone who loved the moive .

But no mention or photo of Lila Downs???
Did I miss it??

Her fabulous singing is a vitual part of the film!!
I still gave the books five stars....but what gives??

Fun to simply page through.......2003-01-06

Enhanced with an informative Foreword by Kayden Herrera and with introductions by Julie Taymor and Salma Hayek, Frida: Bringing Frida Kahlo's Life And Art To Film is a superb companion title to Julie Taymor's electrifying and artistic movie "Frida", showcasing the true story of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, the Mexican painters whose acclaimed work and passionate love affair distinguished them during the twentieth century. Featuring full-color photographs on virtually every page which illustrate the screenplay text, as well as interviews with cast and crew members and production notes, Frida is fun to simply page through, a highly recommended addition to academic film libraries, and is a "must-have" acquisition for admirers of the movie celebrating one of the twentieth-century's most remarkable female artists.

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Refreshingly Honest
Direct Hit! Outstanding resource for writers.
Get this book
Great screenwriting career primer!
A must-read for aspiring screenwriters

The Screenwriting Life
Rich Whiteside
Manufacturer: Berkley Trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need

ASIN: 0425164969

Customer Reviews:

Refreshingly Honest.......2005-05-19

I met Rich Whiteside (and Paul Castro and Lew Hunder) when I was in the Screenwriting program at UCLA. Since I knew Rich, I bought the book as soon as it hit the shelves. Then life got hectic, I put it on my bookshelf and forgot about it. I recently took it down and started reading it and it's completely blown me away! It's the most honest book about the industry I have ever read. I wish I had read this book when I first bought it, as it would have made my life as a screenwriter a heck of a lot easier! It's brilliant and I highly recommend you not only buy a copy, but READ it from cover to cover. And keep it around to re-read later. Rich, this is brilliant work, my friend. Kudos to you!

Direct Hit! Outstanding resource for writers........2003-06-12

Rich Whiteside is a fellow UCLA family member so I do hold some bais. He is a rare talent and a quiet professional who focuses on results rather than ego. He is a man of character. "The Screenwriting Life" is an unflinching look into the reality of what it is like to trade daydreams for dollars. Being a working screenwriter in Hollywood I thought I had a little bit of insight. This book cleared up the fog and sharpened my approach. If you ever get a chance to meet the author, first thank him for serving our fine United States in his former career as one of our country's elite. Secondly, thank him for making you a better screenwriter through awarness and truth. I surely will.

Get this book.......1999-11-01

I haven't had a chance to read it, but I met the guy when he did a presentation at our school. I want to be a screenwriter, so I found him very interesting. I can't wait to read this book.

Great screenwriting career primer!.......1999-04-10

This book doesn't get bogged down in the authors own ideas about careers. Instead, he offers insightful interviews with many people in the different screenwriting fields. Sitcoms, longform, and feature writing interviews convey the life and experiences of their respective areas and helps the reader decide if that is truly an area they want to enter. All the interviews suggests what avenues may give new writers the best start into that area.

A must-read for aspiring screenwriters.......1998-07-19

"The Screenwriting Life" is an excellent, well-organized primer that dispels many romantic notions of what it takes to achieve success as a screenwriter in Hollywood today. Rich's insightful interviews with some of the leading creative forces in the entertainment industry reinforce the point that good writing alone is not enough. "The Screenwriting Life" is an indispensable guide to the political realities of Hollywood.

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WELEASE BWIAN !!!
If you've seen the movie....

Life of Brian Screenplay (Monty Python)
Graham Chapman
Manufacturer: Methuen Publishing, Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0413741303

Book Description

The classic piece of cinematic blasphemy from 1979.

Customer Reviews:

WELEASE BWIAN !!!.......2003-08-25

Here it is MP fans, the screenplay from The Life Of Brian. Being out of print since 1979, I'm glad that Methuen Publishing has stepped up to get this screenplay back in circulation by putting it out in 2001. Illustrated with 19 b&w photos from the film, all your favorite lines from the movie are here to enjoy all over again. A solid effort by Methuen that they followed up a year later with the screenplay to Monty Python And The Holy Grail. And there was much rejoicing. Yea!!!

If you've seen the movie...........2002-12-19

The format is a mass-market paperback, but this isn't a novelization but rather the screenplay as the movie was made. You'll notice that last has a subtle distinction. Oftentimes screenplays differ notably from the movies as you see them--scenes are cut because they didn't work, cost too much to do, or just because of the limits of time. The screenplays of Brazil and Monty Python and the Holy Grail are full of wonderful little tidbits that didn't make it to the screen. Unfortunately, for Life of Brian, there's only the parts that did get made, which are funny indeed, but you've already seen them.

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One can't blame James Frey for making stuff up...
well written & tender
A tribute to a troubled man
One man's searching and fearless moral inventory of himself
Oddly Detached and Devoid of Emotion

Blue Days, Black Nights: A Memoir
Ron Nyswaner
Manufacturer: Advocate Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1555838898

Book Description

"A brilliant and inspirational vision of love, death and spiritual redemption in 20th Century America. Ron Nyswaner's account of his struggle with real life demons great and small is gripping, harrowing and sometimes shockingly intimate. It is heartbreaking and yes-it is also very, very funny indeed. It delivers an emotional intensity that fiction, by comparison, can only hope to achieve."-Jonathan Demme

"Ron Nyswaner's courageous and exquisitely written memoir speaks to us all on the mysteries of whom we love and why. The book reminds me most of Somerset Maugham's classic, Of Human Bondage-for true passion has an involuntary nature, so well depicted here. Ron Nyswaner is a poet of the secret self, and his first book marks a stellar debut."-Laura Shaine Cunningham, author of Sleeping Arrangements, Beautiful Bodies, A Place In the Country, and Dreams of Rescue

A wrong turn down a one-way street in the shadow of the Sunset Strip's Chateau Marmont leads Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Ron Nyswaner (Philadelphia, Soldier's Girl) on a journey that will nearly drown him in the intoxicating, impulsive, maddening, tragic, and transformative nature of love. Despite the success of his latest film, Ron has been fighting depression and contemplating self-destruction. "I don't want a mediocre, empty life," he tells his psychiatrist-acupuncturist-herbalist after halfheartedly attempting to hang himself with a belt. Then, on a trip from his home in upstate New York to Los Angeles, Ron meets and falls for world-weary Johann, a Latin-quoting, leather-clad hustler with a vague, European accent. In the next year Johann will teach him many things: how to make a crack pipe out of a soda can, how to come down from a crystal meth binge, how to walk down a city street as if he owns it, how to beg for "more" in Hungarian, and how to lose oneself utterly in reckless passion. If he can survive it, loving Johann might be Ron's salvation.

Ron Nyswaner wrote the screenplays for Mrs. Soffel, Swing Shift, Philadelphia, (for which he received an Academy Award nomination,) and Soldier's Girl. He lives in Woodstock, N.Y.

Customer Reviews:

One can't blame James Frey for making stuff up..........2006-02-05

...because addiction is basically boring to all but the addict, and all addictions are pretty much the same. So are all hustlers, at least when they're hustling. Which doesn't leave Ron Nyswaner much to work with. So we get the FEELINGS OF INADEQUACY!!! (The guy's an Oscar nominee; excuse me if I don't weep too much for him.) And the LONELINESS!!! And the SELF-MUTILATION!!! And the SHADY CHARACTERS!!! and the BOASTING DISGUISED AS CONFESSING!!! (He didn't just insult his agent's top client while under the influence; we must know that it was BETTE MIDLER, and that LIBERACE was there, too.) And all of it smothered with SELF-IMPORTANCE like so much schlag. Meanwhile, Johann, the hustler, remains such a caricature of macho detachment that we have a hard time feeling for him, or believing that Nyswaner feels for him -- especially as, until it's too late, Nyswaner misses that the kid is an addict who could use some real, here-and-now help from an older, well-to-do, well-connected American. (Johann is an undocumented immigrant; Nyswaner seems not to want to know any of the difficulties attendant on this.) In the end, the greatest amount of caring and savvy that Nyswaner shows is in planning Johann's funeral. But, having discharged my impatience with the same old self-centered story, I must say that Nyswaner writes extremely well, with a screenwriter's gift for keeping things clear and keeping things moving. One is certainly caught up, but one is also disappointed with the shallow interactions and the self-dramatizing leading to no great revelations. No wonder James Frey decided to spice up his memoir. On the evidence of "Blue Days, Black Nights," I would pretty much say one has to.

well written & tender.......2006-01-03

it's too bad that this book has gone largely unnoticed, as I am the first person to write a review in 3 months, while a book like A Million Little Pieces (a lie fron page 1 onward) flies off the shelves.
Nyswaner is a talented writer, and I look forward to his future work. Although my experiences with addiction do not mirror the authors, I did relate alot to his insecurities, and certain othger things. He could have elaborated on somethings, but in all, it was a worthwhile, entertaining, and thought provoking read.--just what a book is suppossed to do.

A tribute to a troubled man.......2005-10-13

Nyswaner's memoir purports to be the tale of his depressed (blue) days, from which he seeks escape with alcohol and drugs, culminating in rock-bottom blackout (black) nights. It's an intriguing hook because Nyswaner has been highly successful as the screenwriter for Philadelpia and other award-winning movies, so of course we'd love to read about his rock-bottom days, right? The book isn't really about Nyswaner's self-destruction, though--it is a tribute to the teetotaling larger-than-life male prostitute who comes into Nyswaner's life for less than a year. This book is the tale of Nyswaner's friendship with a man he pays for sex, sex which he can only have when he is strung out on drugs. The book's prologue opens with the hustler's death, so from the minute we enter Nyswaner's life, we know their time is limited.

As a reader, I was touched by Nyswaner's addiction, his search for himself, his continual attempts to find happiness through chemicals, and his devotion to the hustler Johann. There's a beautiful story in here, even if Nyswaner's relationship with Johann was mostly one-sided. Highly recommended.

One man's searching and fearless moral inventory of himself.......2005-03-25

These memoirs by a talented screenwriter sometimes read like an implausible and unsellable film script. Nyswaner is so honest about his personal tragedies, disappointments, and shortcomings, it is hard to believe this self-awareness was so hard-won. He has the humble wisdom of someone who has managed to find grace in some of life's most graceless circumstances. His success as a film writer is back-story. How he as a small-town boy from a working class western Pennsylvania family achieved this success is not really explained. This is really the story of his descent into a personal hell of alcoholism, drug addiction, depression, self-loathing, and suicidal despair...and of his eventual recovery. If his recovery is not exactly phoenix-like, it will strike readers who have been through similar experiences as authentic. Nyswaner is, after all, an accomplished writer. He is no sloganeer or New Age spiritual salesman. His story ends not with blissful optimism, but on a note of cautious but grounded hope.

At the heart of his life's story is his journey toward love. And key to what he learns about this powerful human experience is his relationship with a prostitute he knew as Johann. BLUE DAYS, BLACK NIGHTS begins with Nyswaner's account of Johann's funeral, so it is not "spoiling the plot" to say Johann dies tragically and prematurely and that his death is a pivotal moment in Nyswaner's journey. Nyswaner does not glamorize or vilify Johann's life as a prostitute, nor does he describe it in patronizing terms. It may be hard for some readers to believe that what Nyswaner felt for Johann could accurately be described as love. And it's clear that Nyswaner himself shares in such incredulousness. The biggest question Nyswaner seems to ask (and I believe successfully answers) is, Can love exist in relationships that are not completely honest? Nyswaner seems to be saying that imperfect love perfectly accessed opens a person's heart to deeper and more authentic levels of love. It is through facing the death and loss of Johann that Nyswaner is able to find the love he needs to care for his aging and dying parents and rebuild his damaged life.

All this is to say, BLUE DAYS, BLACK NIGHTS has much to teach not just people who've been damaged by drugs and sex addiction, but also anyone who has ever failed to be completely honest with himself. It's a profoundly moving story, one I'm sure I'll read again and continue to learn from.

Oddly Detached and Devoid of Emotion.......2005-02-25

Ron Nyswaner does a great job with imagery in his autobiography -you can almost see the sunset on a crisp Fall day in Upstate New York or feel the chill of Hungary. Unfortunately, this attention to detail does not always translate to his life experiences. After perfunctory descriptions of the seedy world of male prostitutes and West Hollywood Drug Dealers, Mr. Nyswaner continues to be victimized by Johann (real name Tomas) and sinks into a world of indulgent self-pity. Mr. Nyswaner mentions being "tortured" by failing to sell a screenplay but he is so high on methamphetamine most of the time that I'm surprised he could sit still and write. We also get nary a detail of Mr. Nyswaner's recovery. But I do give him points for his honesty and guts in writing freely about his life as a gay man. It's too bad that even after reading this book, I know next to nothing about this man.

A Grand Guy: The Art and Life of Terry Southern

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A very long losing streak
The Definitive Biography of Terry Southern
An impossible way of life
Good spadework in a first-ever bio
A BIOGRAPHY OF A HIPSTER NOBODY KNOWS ?

A Grand Guy: The Art and Life of Terry Southern
Lee Hill
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0380977869
Release Date: 2001-02-19

Book Description

"When they're no longer surprised or astonished or engaged by what you say, the ball game is over. If they find it repulsive, or outlandish, or disgusting, that's all right, or if they love it, that's all right, but if they just shrug it off, it's time to retire."

-- Terry Southern

A Grand Guy

He was the hipster's hipster, the perfect icon of cool. A small-town Texan who disdained his "good ol' boy" roots, he bopped with the Beats, hobnobbed with Sartre and Camus, and called William Faulkner friend. He was considered one of the most creative and original players in the Paris Review Quality Lit Game, yet his greatest literary success was a semi pornographic pulp novel. For decades, the crowd he ran with was composed of the most famous creative artists of the day. He wrote Dr. Strangelove with Stanley Kubrick, Easy Rider with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, and worked on Saturday Night Live with a younger, louder breed of sacred cow torpedoers. He's a face in the crowd on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (the guy in the sunglasses). Wherever the cultural action was, he was there, the life of every party -- Paris in the '50s, London in the swinging '60s, Greenwich Village, and Big Bad Hollywood. Brilliant, dynamic, irrepressible, he enjoyed remarkable success and then squandered it with almost superhuman excess. There was, and ever will be, only one Terry Southern.

In a biography as vibrant and colorful as the life it celebrates, Lee Hill masterfully explores the high and low times of the unique, incomparable Terry Southern, one of the most genuine talents of this or any other age. Illuminating, exhilarating, and sobering, it is an intimate portrait of an unequaled satirist and satyrist whose appetite for life was enormous -- and whose aim was sure and true as he took shots at consumerism, America's repressive political culture, upper-class amorality, and middle-class banality.

But more than simply the story of one man, here is a wide-screen, Technicolor view of a century in the throes of profound cultural change -- frorn the first chilly blasts of the Cold War and McCarthyism to the Vietnam era and the Reagan years; from Miles and Kerouac to the Beatles, the Stones, and beyond. And always at the center of the whirlwind was Terry Southern -- outrageous, unpredictable, charming, erudite, and eternally cool; a brazen innovator and unappreciated genius; and most of all, A Grand Guy.

Customer Reviews:

A very long losing streak.......2006-09-18

I'd heard writer Terry Southern spoken of as an almost mythical character. Knowing nothing of what he'd actually done, I hoped to come away from this read with a deeper understanding of the writing craft. I have, but in a way that surprised me.
Either Terry Southern was a phenomenal talent whose value Lee Hill doesn't quite sell, or Terry Southern was an accomplished pretender and hanger-on whose total creative output amounted, in the end, to a puff of smoke.
After reading, I lean to the latter. Despite front-and-center visibility as a member of the beat generation, and friends who were the most famous creative artists of the day, Terry Southern never really did anything memorable himself - and for me doesn't warrant inclusion among the greats.
Yes, he did things with panache - I'll give him that. His semi-pornographic novel Candy sold well. He probably deserved more credit, too, than he ended up with for the creation of films like Easy Rider and Dr. Strangelove. He didn't get it. Kubrick did, and Fonda and Hopper, and that's the bottom line: Southern comes up short. In fact, A Grand Guy reads like a recap of a very long losing streak punctuated with a very emphatic period - fired from his job as writer on Saturday Night Live.
In truth, I liked Terry Southern more before I read this book, than now, but there is still a lesson to be learned here.
In Hollywood and New York, writers are lower than dirt. Necessary, yes, because the ideas and words needed to make good drama come from them, but the moment the creativity is sucked out - the movers and shakers have a story - the writer gets pushed out of the way and in the end is lucky to end up, like Terry Southern did on the cover of the Beatles album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, as little more than another face in the crowd.
Art Tirrell is also just a face in the crowd. His 2007 novel, "The Secret Ever Keeps", contains "...simply the best underwater scenes I've ever read..." but has also been described as "...the best adventure story nobody ever heard of". http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1601640048/

The Definitive Biography of Terry Southern.......2005-10-11

Unfortunately, it is not terribly well written.

What Lee Hill apparently did was compose a laundry list of everything that Terry Southern ever wrote, sort it chronologically, and then string it together with whatever biographical material was available. What is missing is any kind of objective analysis, fawning praise taking its place. Terry was a good guy, but that doesn't mean he was a great writer.

As Hill points out, it is difficult to assess Southern as a writer because so many of his collaborators claim credit for much of what he did (e.g., Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda on "Easy Rider"). Thus, his reputation has to rise or fall based upon a few major works -- "Flash and Filigree," "Candy" (coauthored with Mason Hoffenberg, a junky), "The Magic Christian," "Red Dirt Marijuana," and the screenplay for "Dr. Strangelove" (for which Stanley Kubrick also claimed credit). Lee Hill concludes that "The Magic Christian" is the best of these. I generally agree, although there is a story in "Red Dirt Marijuana," titled "Razor Fight," that is on a par with anything Hemingway wrote.

Terry's son, Nile, has published a collection of his shorter works, "Now Dig This: The unspeakable writings of Terry Southern" that provides additional indications of greatness and is well worth purchasing.

An impossible way of life.......2003-11-17

Students of American humor will recall the bitter end of Mark Twain's life: anti-war, atheistically critical of human beings, loosing all his money trying to protect his investment in a machine to automate the printing business. A GRAND GUY THE ART AND LIFE OF TERRY SOUTHERN does not have anything about Mark Twain or printing, but it reveals a lot about the entertainment business in the second half of the 20th century. I was interested in how Terry Southern put in some time in World War Two as a young man. He was so young, he didn't get into combat until the Battle of the Bulge, a winter offensive by the Germans after D-Day, June 6, 1944, when the guys in the 435 Quartermaster Platoon were so close to the action that a buddy standing beside Terry was killed. (p. 18). That might account for Terry's appreciation of William Burroughs, which might be a high point in the irony in this book:

"Then Chuck Barris, the mercurial producer of such TV shows as `The Dating Game,' took out an option on NAKED LUNCH and sent Southern and Burroughs first-class plane tickets to talk story at his Bel-Air mansion. The two literary outlaws were picked up by a chaffeur-driven Daimler at the airport and taken to their audience with Barris.

"Barris was just all-out insanity," says Burrough's longtime assistant, James Grauerholz. "The story is that he said, `I finally read the book last night. Can you take out the sex and drugs?' Terry and Bill looked at each other and said, `We'll try,' " (p. 201).

This is such a perfect reflection of the state of entertainment values; the people in this book kept betting their lives on being able to come up with something that will draw big at the box office. On the same page, Jerry Schatzberg remembers how much fun he had writing a script with Terry Southern of `A Cool Million' by Nathanael West: "He was brilliant with dialogue. And we had a lot of fun." (p. 201)

Good spadework in a first-ever bio.......2001-09-03

Lee Hill was disserved by his editors, who permitted him to compile a 'Terry Southern and his times' tome that is chock-a-block with cliches and party lists, and lacking in critical focus of the man. It tries to be both cultural history and biography, and fails on both counts. However, this is the first and badly needed biography of a man who brought fame and fortune to dozens of other people, and Hill deserves to be commended for his years of spade-work.

Hill has no feel for American culture. He is apparently a Canadian who spent some time in London and is primarily a film historian. His sense of cultural history in a broader scale is ludicrously third-hand, delivered in broad generalities on the order of, "America was in the grip of repressive McCarthyism in the early fifties," or "Many well-meaning people were concerned about the plight of the negro."

Paradoxically, Hill titles his book 'A Grand Guy,' although his lack of feel for modern American cultural history makes it impossible for him to tell us where Terry Southern's 'Grand Guy' persona came from. The 'Grand Guy' act, a compound of heartiness, mock-haughty superciliousness, and college-humor hyperbole, was a standard persona for those of Southern's generation. Many of Southern's contemporaries (from Gore Vidal to Bill Buckley and even Norman Mailer) played the same notes on their fiddles. This act was a continuation of the tongue-in-cheek snootiness you find in the early years of the Luce publications (where Time letter writers would be accorded a put-down caption on the order of, "Let Subscriber Brailsford Mend His Ways!") as well as The New Yorker (think of Peter Arno's captions or E.B. White's snotty captions for squibs pulled from local newspapers). This was the accepted "hip" idiom for the 20th Century Quality-Lit man, and it reached its full effulgence in the Esquire of the 1960s, when an unrelenting, over-the-top mockery of sacred cows became the mark of sophistication. Southern's tragedy, perhaps, is that he got stuck in what was essentially a passing style of ephemeral journalism, and he was unable to grow beyond it, and he had no friends to encourage him to grow beyond it. Thus, by the early 70s, his output was reduced to self-parodying letters to his friend and imitator at the National Lampoon, Michael O'Donoghue.

A BIOGRAPHY OF A HIPSTER NOBODY KNOWS ?.......2001-07-02

Why bother with a bio of hipster Terry Southern?Author tries a tongue in cheek run, but that does not work . Southern, by this account , was an alcoholic who made his living scribbling lines for B movies. Check that the author is a Canadian who does not have the slightest idea of what life was like in Terry Southern's haunts.Read this only if you wish to see what low grade stuff publishers are shoeveling onto the market these days .

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