Leamer excels at dissecting Hitchcock’s filmic genius and odd proclivities.
The author of Capote’s Women digs into Hitchcock territory.
Donald Spoto covered this territory in Spellbound by Beauty, but Leamer puts his own distinctive spin on it—breezy, juicy and eminently readable. Ever since the devoutly Catholic Hitchcock was young, “blond women were the epitome of female beauty, and he fixated on them.” He was always trying to mold his heroines “into the heroine of my imagination.” The eight actors Leamer profiles “knew the truths of his art as well as anyone.” His silent film The Lodger, starring June Howard-Tripp, a beloved musical star, “revealed his passion for blondes and his pleasure in making them suffer.” Madeleine Carroll was his wife’s choice for The 39 Steps. He quickly agreed, calling her a “real Hitchcock type,” but he would soon turn on her in “measures both deliberately cruel and casually thoughtless.” During the filming of Secret Agent, her co-star John Gielgud said Hitchcock was “beastly to her.” Hitchcock’s move to Hollywood led to Spellbound with Ingrid Bergman, his “ultimate woman.” He was totally smitten with her. With Under Capricorn, he gave her a “film expressly conceived to allow her to soar.” Dial M for Murder brought Grace Kelly into Hitchcock’s world, and he treated her with “deference that he had shown with none of his other actresses.” She would return for the brilliant Rear Window, “considered by critics one of the best thrillers of all time,” and the playful To Catch a Thief. With Kelly married to a prince, Hitchcock emotionally wore down the underrated Kim Novak until she was ready for Vertigo. For North by Northwest, Hitchcock “transformed” the demure Eva Marie Saint into a “svelte, sexually provocative woman of his imagination.” In Psycho, Janet Leigh dies early but hovers over the entire film. The attack of poor Tippi Hedren in The Birds, notes the author, was the “most controversial scene Hitchcock ever filmed.”
Leamer excels at dissecting Hitchcock’s filmic genius and odd proclivities.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9780593542972
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2023
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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