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HOLLYWOOD REMEMBERED

Name: HOLLYWOOD REMEMBERED
Author: Paul Zollo
ISBN: 0-8154-1239-8

AN ORAL HISTORY OF ITS GOLDEN AGE

by Paul Zollo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2002

A human sunrise.

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Pure gold, as Zollo does a Studs Terkel on Old Hollywood.

To show his seriousness, Zollo opens with a lengthy history of Hollywood that goes from its geological beginnings up to William Mulholland’s colossal waterway and dam. His tour of many famed places includes the Alto Nido Apartments, where screenwriter Joe Gillis lived in Sunset Boulevard, adding wealth to his poignant sheaf of oral histories. The histories are arranged by age, starting with Frederica Sagor Maas, a screenwriter for silent (Garbo and Gilbert’s Flesh and the Devil) and sound films, a chipper 101 years old at the time of the interview. As a writer, Maas is not terribly impressed by film actors—if they were intellectuals they wouldn’t be able to act. Lothrop Worth, only 100, was a cameraman for D.W. Griffith and later shot the first commercial 3-D film. Naturally, folks like these remember houses, backyards, and empty lots long gone, not to mention fabled restaurants like Musso and Franks (still there). David Raskin, a child of 90, Chaplin’s arranger and unacknowledged co-composer on Modern Times, helped write “Smile (while your heart is breaking),” and over a four-month period of daily meetings with Chaplin helped write the film’s 90-minute score. Ex-steelworker Karl Malden, also 90, proves a charmer, telling about his early Broadway career in the ’30s and about working later with Marlon Brando on Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire, then making that film with him, then On the Waterfront, and working for Brando in One-Eyed Jacks. Malden found Brando a genius who never sounded as if he were reading a line, even after two years of Streetcar. Jonathan Winters gives a marathon monologue that includes affecting memories of filming Stanley Kramer’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, with very kind words for Kramer.

A human sunrise.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2002

ISBN: 0-8154-1239-8

Page Count: 382

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2002

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.