The Silver Screen Oasis

I'm currently reading Farley Granger's memoir Include Me Out. It's very interesting, and I guess you could call it politely frank.

A few weeks ago I read Stanley Kramer's autobio It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. I found it less than revealing. I wonder if Kramer simply didn't want to delve too deeply into his own life or into his opinions of others (although he didn't seem to be much of a fan of Kirk Douglas), or if he was simply not a very self-aware person. That isn't an unusual condition for the egotistical, but from this book I couldn't tell whether Kramer was particularly self-absorbed, or just not a very good writer. The world Kramer described was not a bit mad; it was rather dull.

My favorite Broadway/Hollywood memoirs continue to be those of John Houseman. A fascinating and analytical man, and a fascinating life.

Non-Fiction: I'm currently in the middle of two interesting books,
Volume I of Raymond E. Brown's massive The Death of the Messiah, which is a commentary on the Passion narratives in the four Gospels in the New Testament.

The other is Stephen W. Sears' To the Gates of Richmond, which is a study of the Peninsula campaign in the spring of 1862 during the Civil War.

Fiction: I'm about half way through Christopher Schildt's Night of Dracula, a re-telling/updating of the Universal movie that's actually quite interesting.

I just bought and will start reading next week Basil Lidell Hart's HISTORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR.

It'll be interesting to read a military analysis of the war from the man whose techniques were taken up by the Germans and who more or less was a guiding light to the leading generals and military leaders of the Allies during the war. Unfortunately Mr. Hart died before the book came out and the book is slightly dated as it was first published in 1970.

I was sorry to hear today that Madeleine L'Engle passed away. When I was a kid, her book A Wrinkle in Time really captured my imagination. I understand it was made into a TV movie, but I never saw it, nor can imagine how it could ever properly transfer to the screen. Here's her NY Times obituary.

I read Farley Granger's Include Me Out this summer, one trivia book ( The Book of Useless Information), and am starting on The Essential Wooden. Just finished The Girl Who Walked Home Alone.

Granger's book I thought interesting because I hadn't realized that he'd done so much theater, and it was so enlightening because I didn't know
anything of his background before starring in film.

The Bette Davis book was so entertaining. It seemed like one long conversation, which it pretty much was, and it was full of her witticisms. I'd been reading a leadership text just before, and some of the information about leadership ended up being philosophies that Davis espoused.

As for the "popcorn" of the mind, I am finding that the more "experienced" I find myself, the less trivia seems unrecognizable to me.

Sue Sue Applegate wrote:I read Farley Granger's Include Me Out this summer, one trivia book ( The Book of Useless Information), and am starting on The Essential Wooden. Just finished The Girl Who Walked Home Alone.

Granger's book I thought interesting because I hadn't realized that he'd done so much theater, and it was so enlightening because I didn't know
anything of his background before starring in film.

One unfortunate thing about Granger's book, Christy, was that it contained quite a few factual errors, and left many things unclarified. For example, he speaks about how he got in with the NYC musical theater crowd, and that friends like Adolph Greene called him "Farfel." But he never explains the significance of the nickname (it's a Yiddish word for a kind of chopped up noodle - the Italian pasta version is called "farfale" (butterflies)). I recall in my youth that Granger was always referred to by my NYC compatriots as "Farfel Granger," but who outside of NYC knows about that?

These points are minor, but really irk me. They aren't the fault of the writer, but of the editor. Most books I read these days are rife with such lapses, and I don't see why I should pay much too much money for a book that hasn't even been properly reviewed and finalized. It's bad enough in fiction, but it's really inexcusable in factual literature.

Dear Judith,
I completely agree. As a writer and English instructor (as well as Spanish), the last 20 or so books I've purchased new from a bookstore have frustrated me immensely in this arena. I've found many errors in books published by otherwise reputable establishments and wonder if publishers can charge almost $30 or $40 for a tempting tome, why the heck can't they hire someone who has internalized good grammar skills, spelling habits, and a sense of a right and a wrong way to explain researched information that is supposed to support the professionalism and credentials of the author and the publishing house?

The Girl Who Walked Home Alone had at least 4 such errors that whacked me like an anvil. I guess it's time to move to NY and hang out my Profeshunul Eddytor Shangle....YAAAAAAwullllll.....

I just had to ride the high horse this mornin'....

One book I've been reading off and on this summer -- and probably into the fall, too -- is Stephanie Harrison's anthology Adaptations: From Short Story to Big Screen. From Tod Robbins' story "Spurs" (the basis for FREAKS) to Philip K. Dick's "Minority Report" (which became the Stephen Spielberg movie of the same name), this book collects 35 short stories that became classic movies.

For instance, Hagar Wilde's "Bringing Up Baby" is very different from the movie that resulted from it. The main characters David Huxley and Susan Vance are engaged at the beginning of the story, and they are wondering what to do with "Baby," a panther sent to her aunt. It's only the bare bones of the story as we know it from the movie, and shows how a movie can improve on its source material.

The stories are grouped into sections with very informative introductions about the stories and authors themselves, with some fascinating trivia (two of the stories in this collection, "Bringing Up Baby" and Ernest Haycox's "Stage to Lordsburg" -- the basis for STAGECOACH -- appeared in the same issue of Collier's!).

This is a great book for browsing and looking up your favorites, or just to see how well stories translate to the screen and the problems they sometimes present (see John Cheever's "The Swimmer" and Julio Cortazar's "Blow-Up"). There's truly something for everybody in this collection.

Sounds like great reading. I knew about some of those and have taught several Cortazar stories, but I didn't know about this great anthology.
Thanks, CoffeeDan!

Finished the Harry Potter series and started on Next by Michael Crichton. Saving the previously mentioned Zelazney books for when I'm finished with it.

I just finished another Janet Evanovich mystery, "Motor Mouth." I am new to the Evanovich franchise, and I'm really enjoying her work. The plots are good and the characters are very colorful - the books are very funny, and she is a very smart writer. The leading characters (all women who solve mysteries of one kind or another) are capable and credible, and the supporting casts are wonderful. These characters remind me a lot of the wacky denizens of "A Confederacy of Dunces."

Tangentially, why oh why can't anyone complete this film project (making "Confederacy" into a film). The last I heard, about 2 or 3 years ago, the film was in the works with Will Ferrell as Ignatius and Lily Tomlin as his slightly cracked mother. I like Lily in the part, but I don't see Ferrell as the overweight, dramatic, schizophrenic but scholarly Ignatius. In any event, this one fell through, as did the other one or two I've read about in the past (I think Steve Soderberg was behind this last one). This is one of American literature's great novels, and it would make a wonderful movie.

I thought about this when I looked at Evanovich's website. She mentions that there was talk of (but no action) making one of her books, featuring female bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, into a film, and that she sees Sandra Bullock as Stephanie. Sounds good to me -- Evanovich's books are very visual, but not egregiously so, as are so many others, which seem to be screen treatments rather than novels

I've just taken up Dr. Samuel Shellabargers' Prince of Foxes, which the Tyrone Power movie is based upon. So far, so good.

I finished Next today. Am starting on Zelazney's The Changeling tomorrow.

Moraldo Rubini wrote:I was sorry to hear today that Madeleine L'Engle passed away. When I was a kid, her book A Wrinkle in Time really captured my imagination. I understand it was made into a TV movie, but I never saw it, nor can imagine how it could ever properly transfer to the screen. Here's her NY Times obituary.

Oh no. I'm sorry too. I didn't read the "Time" quartet (A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swftly Tilting Planet and Many Waters) until I was an adult, but they were wonderful. Very deep ideas for children's books--there should be more like them.

Sue Sue Applegate wrote:I read Farley Granger's Include Me Out this summer, one trivia book ( The Book of Useless Information), and am starting on The Essential Wooden. Just finished The Girl Who Walked Home Alone.

Granger's book I thought interesting because I hadn't realized that he'd done so much theater, and it was so enlightening because I didn't know
anything of his background before starring in film.

The Bette Davis book was so entertaining. It seemed like one long conversation, which it pretty much was, and it was full of her witticisms. I'd been reading a leadership text just before, and some of the information about leadership ended up being philosophies that Davis espoused.

As for the "popcorn" of the mind, I am finding that the more "experienced" I find myself, the less trivia seems unrecognizable to me.

I'll have to find the Bette Davis book. I loved "I'd Love to Kiss You," which was basically a series of conversations over the course of about 20 years between Davis and Whitney Stine. He also wrote "Mother Goddamn," which is about Davis' career, with her comments and annotations printed in red (she joked it was in the same color as the words of Jesus...lol)

Tracey