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WILDER TIMES

Name: WILDER TIMES
Author: Kevin Lally
ISBN: 0-8050-3119-7

THE LIFE OF BILLY WILDER

by Kevin Lally ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 7, 1996

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Lally, managing editor of The Film Journal, offers the first Wilder biography in several years, covering the director's last films. Billy Wilder was a trailblazer: As Lally points out, he was one of the directors who dragged Hollywood kicking and screaming into the real world, pursuing subject matter that the industry generally wouldn't touch. Whether it was adultery (Double Indemnity), alcoholism (The Lost Weekend), the megalomania of fame (Sunset Boulevard), or media irresponsibility (Ace in the Hole), Wilder turned his often jaundiced eye on phenomena that made the Production Code office squirm. He was born in 1906 in Galicia, an area of Poland that was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father, a perpetual business failure, pulled the family all over that empire, but most of Wilder's youth was spent in Vienna. Streetwise and energetic, Wilder worked his way into journalism and moved to Berlin in the last heady days of the Weimar Republic. In 1929, after a long campaign, he landed work as a screenwriter, gaining experience and contacts that would prove crucial to his career in America. Wilder fled Germany when the Nazis rose to power, going first to Paris and then, in 1934, on to New York and Hollywood. (His mother, stepfather, and grandmother died in Auschwitz.) After a brief false start, Wilder's career began a meteoric rise: A great success as a screenwriter at Paramount, he swiftly moved into a director's chair, had a string of hits, and made several successful comebacks. Lally tells this story competently and thoroughly. He has talked to Wilder (a notoriously difficult man to interview) and has some fresh insights into the films, although he is often quick to reduce them to their themes. An intelligent if somewhat plodding biography that gets most of its occasional sparkle from the wit of Wilder himself. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen)

Pub Date: May 7, 1996

ISBN: 0-8050-3119-7

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.