Summer Reading Challenge - Final Round-Up and Winners

The 2019 Summer Reading Challenge is officially over! Congratulations to all the participants whether you read and reviewed 1 book or all 6, I'm very proud of your work. It was great to see the breadth and depth of books selected and to read all your thoughts. Below is the last batch of reviews. I encourage you to read them all. There is a great variety here.

Photo Source: Sarah on Twitter

Andy of AndyWolverton.com
Of All the Gin Joints by Mark Bailey and Edward Hemingway

Erin of Always Classic
Julie Christie by Melanie Bell
Julie Christie by Michael Feeney Callan
To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway

Gabriel on Goodreads
William Cameron Menzies: The Shape of Films to Come by James Curtis

Karen of Shadows and Satin
Golden Boy: The Untold Story of William Holden by Bob Thomas
The Hollywood Scandal Almanac by Jerry Roberts
Margaret Sullavan: Child of Fate by Lawrence J. Quirk
Red-Headed Woman by Katherine Brush
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Kate Gabrielle of The Films in My Life
Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir by Victoria Riskin

Le of Critica Retro
Miss D & Me by Kathryn Sermak and Danelle Morton

Raquel of Out of the Past
Finding Zsa Zsa: The Gabors Behind the Legend by Sam Staggs

Robby on Instagram
He Ran All the Way: The Life of John Garfield by Robert Nott

Sarah of Goodreads
Forbidden Hollywood: The Pre-Code Era (1930-1934): When Sin Rules the Movies by Mark A. Vieira
The Million Dollar Mermaid by Esther Williams and Digby Diehl

Steven of Goodreads
The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era by Tom Schatz
The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett
High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic by Glenn Frankel
Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut

*** FINALISTS! ***

Seven participants successfully completed the challenge of reading and reviewing 6 books within the given time frame. To qualify you have to have submitted all the reviews through the book review link form. The finalists are:

Andy of AndyWolverton.com 

Erin of Always Classic 

Karen of Shadows and Satin 

Robby on Instagram 

Sarah on Goodreads 

Steven on Goodreads 

Vanessa of Super Veebs

*** WINNERS! ***

Using Random.org I chose three winners for the prize of one single disc DVD-MOD from the Warner Archive Collection. Please note that this is not sponsored by WAC and the prizes are purchased by yours truly. The winners are:

Andy of AndyWolverton.com 

Erin of Always Classic 

Steven on Goodreads

Thanks again to everyone who participated!

Finding Zsa Zsa: The Gabors Behind the Legend by Sam Staggs

Finding Zsa Zsa
The Gabors Behind the Legend
by Sam Staggs
Kensington Books
July 2019
448 pages
Hardcover ISBN: 9781496719591
Amazon — Barnes and Noble — Powells

Before the Kardashians there were the Gabors. Zsa Zsa, Eva, Magda and the queen of the tribe Jolie, the Gabors were a force to be reckoned with. Between the four of them they had over 20 husbands. Their family name was synonymous with glamour, wealth, jewels and fame. When they came over from Hungary, they took America by storm.

Jolie was the strong-willed matriarch who commanded her daughters' respect and taught them to crave the good life. She ran a well-known jewelry store in New York. Magda was the serious, quiet one. She saw the horrors of WWII and helped smuggle soldiers, civilians and goods in and out of Hungary. By way of Portugal she was able to get herself and her parents out of Europe and away from the Nazis. Eva Gabor was the youngest of the brood and between Zsa Zsa and herself she took acting the most seriously. She worked in films and television throughout her life but always felt her thick Hungarian accent held her back. Then there was Zsa Zsa. The most famous of them all. Between her movie career, nine husbands, arrests and public scandals, she became a tabloid regular and a living legend. She suffered from bipolar disorder and her notoriety fascinated the public. She domineered the story of the Gabors and still does to this day.

Finding Zsa Zsa: The Gabors Behind the Legend by Sam Staggs is the cradle to grave story of the four Gabors. But like in real life, Zsa Zsa dominates the book because frankly she was the most interesting. However, Staggs gives all four ladies their chance in the spotlight. Staggs breaks down misconceptions of the Gabors as being famous for being famous. All four ladies were hard working and ambitious. The least ambitious was Zsa Zsa who was more preoccupied with glamour, parties and husbands than she was a career.

This story blends the four biographies together in a fairly seamless way. It's for the most part chronological but dips back in time occasionally depend on the subject. The book can be a bit salacious especially when it came to the romantic lives of the Gabors (both Zsa Zsa and Magda were married to actor George Sanders). There are a lot of juicy details there but I never felt like the author went too far or was trying to be hurtful. The author does interject with various quips and opinions about various matters which I took with a grain of salt. Overall the book reads like a novel which makes the 400+ pages fly by.

I have a personal interest in the Gabors. My father lived in California during the early 1970s and once met Zsa Zsa Gabor when he was working on her pool. He was from Portugal so I was particularly fascinated by Magda's story of her connections with the Portuguese embassy and how she was able to get her family out of Hungary. On the flip side of this, my mother is Dominican and was born into dictator Trujillo's regime. Reading about Zsa Zsa Gabor's romance with Trujillo's son Ramfis and former son-in-law Porfirio Rubirosa left a bad taste in my mouth. Zsa Zsa benefited financially from these romances during a time when Trujillo was ordering the massacre of Haitians and killing Dominicans who opposed him.

The saddest figure in the book is Francesca Hilton, the only child of Zsa Zsa Gabor. Her paternity was never verified but Gabor's husband Conrad Hilton is known as the father. She was never fully embraced by the Hilton family and Gabor's last husband ostracized her. She died in poverty. The author was in contact with Francesca for several years while working on the book and she's a main source of information. One thing I appreciated about the book is how well-researched it is. Staggs references the Gabor's memoirs but fact checks or finds alternate sources to verify stories or at least offer various scenarios. The Gabors were very preoccupied with how they presented themselves to the world so their accounts were often fabricated or exaggerated.

There is some information about Eva and Zsa Zsa Gabor's Hollywood careers. I was particularly interested in Eva who seems fairly misunderstood. She wanted to hone her craft but her accent and family notoriety got in the way.

Finding Zsa Zsa: The Gabors Behind the Legend by Sam Staggs dives deep into the lives of one of the most glamorous families of the 20th century. It offers a compelling blend of storytelling, gossip and facts which will keep readers turning the page. The salaciousness might turn off some readers and if you're looking for an examination of the Gabors' Hollywood career, look elsewhere.

This is my fourth review for the Summer Reading Challenge.

TIFF: Seberg (2019)

We all recognize the iconic image of Jean Seberg in Jean Luc Godard's Breathless (1960) walking the streets of Paris and wearing her New York Herald Tribune shirt. For those with a richer knowledge of film history we know her film career started with a tortured performance as Joan of Arc in Saint Joan (1957) followed by a very different performance as Cecile, the bored rich kid in Bonjour Tristesse (1958), both directed by Otto Preminger. But what may not be as closely associated with Seberg is her involvement with Black Panther activist Hakim Jamal and the FBI investigation that ensued. They were relentless. Between the character assassination and the invasion of privacy, the FBI basically destroyed her. Jean Seberg called this time in her life a "nightmare" and she never fully recovered from it or the loss of her baby girl in 1970.

Written by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse and directed Benedict Andrews, Seberg follows the story of Jean Seberg during the most difficult time of her short life. She's back in Hollywood after working in France for some years and while she wants more significant acting roles she finds herself auditioning for parts in Paint Your Wagon (1969) and Airport (1970). While traveling first class with her agent, she meets Hakim Jamal (Anthony Mackie) who bursts into the cabin demanding a better seat for Malcolm X's widow. Seberg is taken by Jamal and when the fellow Black Panther members pose in front of press upon arrival, Seberg joins in. This puts her on the radar of FBI agents Carl Kowalski (Vince Vaughn) and Jack Solomon (Jack O'Connell). As Seberg becomes politically and romantically involved with Jamal, Jack and Carl become more and more intrusive as they gather intel on Seberg. When news breaks of Jamal and Seberg's affair, officially ending her marriage to Romain Gary (Yvan Attal), Seberg becomes increasingly paranoid that someone is out to get her.

Seberg is a mixed bag of a biopic. On the one hand it's an incredibly important story and a warning to the future. This abuse of power and invasion of privacy is frightening. We should always remember what happened to Jean Seberg. But on the other hand this film felt overly conventional and a bit cheesy. Critics have praised Kristen Stewart's portrayal of Seberg and while I like her as an actress I don't think she was a right fit for the role. For me it's all in the eyes and demeanor. Stewart has the weight of the world on her shoulders, a restless spirit and a brooding countenance. Seberg had these sad, soulful, glossy eyes and a lightness of being. Even Stewart herself said that Seberg had a "sprawling energy" and director Andrews would often remind Stewart of Seberg's natural effervescence in his direction. You can see Stewart trying to capture this but it felt forced. Before the die-hard Kristen Stewart fans come at me just note that I believe Stewart really did give her all for this part but there was just a disconnect that I couldn't quite get over.

The script writing team Joe Shrapnel (grandson of Deborah Kerr) and Anna Waterhouse put in a lot of research, poring over the FBI files and including many of real techniques used by the FBI even if the agents themselves are fictional. There are plenty of classic film references in the film. Otto Preminger, although not physically in the film, is mentioned throughout as a source of early trauma for Seberg. Also Stewart recreates scenes from Breathless and Saint Joan and we see her prepare for Paint Your Wagon.


I attended a press conference for the film which you can watch on TIFF's YouTube channel. See below.

Left to right: Writers Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, actress Kristen Stewart and director Benedict Andrews

Seberg had its North American premiere at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival.