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CITY BOYS

Name: CITY BOYS
Author: Robert Sklar
ISBN: 0-691-04795-2

CAGNEY, BOGART, GARFIELD

by Robert Sklar ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1992

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Solid cultural and political history of film icons James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, and John Garfield—and how, through their performances, they achieved their images as explosive, larger-than- life Manhattan city boys. This time out, Sklar has narrowed his focus to three brilliant actors and proves himself a livelier writer than in his good, clear, thoughtful earlier books (Prime-Time America, 1980, etc.). The liveliness doesn't come so much from the Warner Brothers studio history that fills many pages here—since Warner's was the studio for big-city social dramas in the 30's—or from the actors' battles with the studio for fairer wages and stronger scripts. It's more from Sklar's eye for the telling detail in the actors' styles and in variations of style throughout their careers. He takes smoldering Method-actor Garfield's later roles in Force of Evil and We Were Strangers and finds them wanting in ``psychological dimension—the sense that what was being communicated through repression was a complex inner life,'' which at that time was forcefully communicated by up-and-coming Method actors Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando. Following Bogart's acting style from juvenile to heavy to his restrained humors as romantic hero, then to comic actor (The African Queen) and to later tries at widening his image, Sklar skillfully contrasts the star's two portraits of paranoid characters, Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny, and finds the much- praised Queeg far less complex or convincing than Dobbs, and in fact excruciating. And Cagney ``does not merely inhabit or present [the figure of Tom Bowers in The Public Enemy]...he creates it...His short, quick movements, his clipped diction, his mobile eyes and mouth, are counterpointed with...an almost sultry languor.'' Very rare—a movie book really about acting. Worthwhile and serious. (Forty b&w illustrations—not seen.)

Pub Date: May 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-691-04795-2

Page Count: 344

Publisher: Princeton Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1992

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.