Wednesday, March 21, 2018

New & Upcoming Classic Film Books (10)


My Summer Reading Challenge starts in just a couple of months! You have plenty of time to work on your to-be-read-list and maybe to check out some new books to include in your challenge. You'll want to stock up now so you'll have plenty to read on vacation! Need some suggestions? I’ve got you covered with a brand new list of upcoming classic film books. Publication dates range from March to July.

Are you new to my list? Here are the details. Books include biographies, memoirs, scholary texts, coffee table books and more from a variety of publishers. All publication dates are subject to change.

Links lead to Goodreads and three different shopping sites: Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Powell's. If no link is included it means that book is not available at that particular shop. Using my buy links helps support this site! Thanks!

This is a MONSTER of a list. Hope you find your next new read. Enjoy!



Modernisms, Hollywood, and the Cinema of Nicholas Ray
by Will Scheibel
SUNY Press
258 pages – Available Now



Women and Comedy in American Silent Film
by Kristen Anderson Wagner
Wayne State University
314 pages – Available Now



Romancing Performance in Classical Hollywood
by Steven Rybin
SUNY Press
282 pages – Available now



The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic
by Glenn Frankel
Bloomsbury USA
400 pages – Available now



edited by R. Barton Palmer, Homer B. Pettey and Steven M. Sanders
SUNY Press
342 pages – Available now



edited by Douglas McFarland and Wesley King
SUNY Press
326 pages – Available now



Bob Fosse and Dance in the American Musical
by Kevin Winkler
Oxford University Press
368 pages – March 2018



The Making of a Classic with Steve McQueen and Sam Peckinpah in the Summer of 1971
By Jeb Rosebrook with Stuart Rosebrook
BearManor Media
252 pages – March 2018



Seriality and the Outlaw Biker Film Cycle, 1966-1972
by Peter Stanfield
Rutgers University Press
236 pages – March 2018



by Mark Weinberg
Simon & Schuster
288 pages – Available now


A City’s Independence and the Birth of Celebrity Politics
by Nancie Clare
St. Martin's Press
288 pages – March 2018



The Outrageous History of Film Buffs, Collectors, Scholars, and Fanatics
by Anthony Slide
University Press of Mississippi
248 pages – March 2018



by Elizabeth Winder
Flatiron Books
304 pages – March 2018



by Frederic Claquin and Jack Woodhams
Schiffer
240 pages – March 2018




by Maggie Hennefeld
Columbia University Press
320 pages – March 2018



The Young Streisand from New York to Paris
by Bill Eppridge
Rizzoli
144 pages – April 2018



What the Responses of 1920s Critics Reveal
by Wes D. Gehring
McFarland
242 pages – April 2018




by David Clayton
The History Press
224 pages - April 2018



REISSUE
by Elsa Lanchester, foreword by Mara Wilson
Chicago Review Press
336 pages – April 2018



Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Edna Ferber, 
and the Making of a Legendary American Film
by Don Graham
St. Martin’s Press
336 pages – April 2018



by James Chapman
I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd
304 pages – April 2018



 Sea Sirens, Sun Goddesses, and Summer Style 1930-1970
by David Wills
Dey Street Books
224 pages – April 2018


by Sylvia D. Lynch
McFarland
277 pages – April 2018



by Paul R. Laird
Reaktion Books
216 pages – April 2018



All That’s Left to Know About the Outrageous Genius of Comedy
by Dale Sherman
Applause Theatre and Cinema Books
400 pages – April 2018



The Women Who Ran Hollywood
by J.E. Smyth
Oxford University Press
328 pages – April 2018



by Barry Keith Grant
Rutgers University Press
160 pages – April 2018



The Life of Sophie Tucker
by Lauren Rebecca Sklaroff
University of Texas Press
300 pages – April 2018



Hollywood, HUAC, and the Birth of the Blacklist
by Thomas Doherty
Columbia University Press
400 pages – April 2018



The Making of America’s Favorite Movie
Revised Edition
by Julia Antopol Hirsch
Chicago Review Press
224 pages – April 2018



Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece
by Michael Benson
Simon & Schuster
512 pages – April 2018



New York Jewish Intellectual
by Nathan Abrams
Rutgers University Press
340 pages – April 2018



A Photographic Celebration
by Suzanne Lander
Skyhorse Publishing
544 pages – May 2018



The Real Los Angeles Noir
by Jim Heimann
Taschen
480 pages – May 2018



by Sara Street
BFI
150 pages – May 2018



by Stephen H. Ryan and Paul J. Ryan
Rowman and Littlefield Publishers
240 pages – May 2018



Origins of the Movement
edited by Alain Silver and James Ursini
Applause Theatre and Cinema Books
300 pages – May 2018



Marilyn Monroe, The Seven Year Itch, and the Birth of an Unlikely Feminist
by Michelle Morgan
Running Press
320 pages – May 2018



by Caroline Young
Insight Editions
192 pages – May 2018



75 Candid Interviews with Golden Age Legends
by David A. Fantle and Tom Johnson
McFarland
225 pages – May 2018



by Sloan De Forest
Turner Classic Movies & Running Press
264 pages – May 2018



Renegade Westerns
Movies That Shot Down Frontier Myths
by Kevin Grant and Clark Hodgkiss
FAB Press
400 pages – May 2018



The Secret Life of Hollywood in Rome
by Caroline Young
The History Press
256 pages – May 2018



Hollywood Films in the 1960s
by Rick Worland
Wiley-Blackwell
300 pages – May 2018




by Andrea J. Kelley
Rutgers University Press
178 pages – May 2018



Hollywood Legends Series
by Lee Mandel
University Press of Mississippi
368 pages – May 2018



Stella Adler and the Male Actor
by Scott Balcerzak
Wayne State University
288 pages – June 2018



by Matthew Polly
Simon & Schuster
672 pages – June 2018



Astaire, Balanchine, Kelly, and the American Film Musical
by Beth Genne
Oxford University Press
360 pages – June 2018



The Films, the Personell, the Company
by Howard Maxford
McFarland
375 pages – June 2018



by Joseph McBride
Columbia University Press
544 pages – June 2018



REISSUE
edited by Bengt Wanselius, Paul Duncan
contributed to by Erland Josephson
Taschen
452 pages – June 2018



Life Lessons from America’s Princess
by Mary Mallory
Lyons Press
208 pages – June 2018



Eight Unorthodox Filmmakers, 1940s-2000s
by Robert Curti
McFarland
250 pages – June 2018



by Todd Fisher
William Morrow
352 pages – June 2018



The Golden Age of the MGM Musical
by Bernard F. Dick
University Press of Mississippi
312 pages – June 2018




Essays on Female Screenwriters in the Early Film Industry
by Rosanne Welch
foreword by Cari Beauchamp
McFarland
225 pages – June 2018


Hollywood Memories of the Counterculture, Antiwar, and Black Power Movements
by Kristen Hoerl
University Press of Mississippi
192 pages – July 2018



Regulating America’s Screen
by Sheri Chinen Biesen
Wallflower Press
144 pages – July 2018


edited by R. Barton Palmer and Murray Pomerance
University of Texas Press
316 pages – July 2018


The Private Life of a Public Icon
by Charles Casillo
St. Martin’s Press
368 pages – August 2018


Which book are you interested in?

Previous round-ups :

New & Upcoming Classic Film Books (1)
New & Upcoming Classic Film Books (2)
New & Upcoming Classic Film Books (3)
New & Upcoming Classic Film Books (4)
New & Upcoming Classic Film Books (5)
New & Upcoming Classic Film Books (6)
New & Upcoming Classic Film Books (7)
New & Upcoming Classic Film Books (8)
New & Upcoming Classic Film Books (9)

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Monday, March 19, 2018

Cinema Shame: The Grass is Greener (1960)



Anyone who knows me knows I love Robert Mitchum. He's my favorite actor. Bar none. So why did it take me so long to watch him in The Grass is Greener (1960)? Well I was getting around to it. It's been on my to-be-watched list for years. There aren't many Mitchum comedies so maybe I was saving this for a rainy day. When I was working on my Cinema Shame list for 2018 I decided I was finally going to sit down and watch it. Perhaps I should have kept waiting.

The Grass is Always Greener is a genteel British comedy starring four Hollywood heavyweights: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons. Earl Victor Rhyall (Cary Grant), his wife Lady Hilary (Deborah Kerr) and their two children live in a sprawling British estate that the Rhyalls can't afford to keep. Even their butler Trevor (Moray Watson) has little to do and offers to take a pay cut, which they refuse. To make ends meet the couple harvest mushrooms and opened their estate, with all it's antique furniture and art, as a museum open the general public. One day, an oil rich Texas millionaire, Charles Delacro (Robert Mitchum), wanders into the private part of the estate and meets Hilary. He is enchanted by her and her by him. The two begin an affair. What Hilary doesn't know is that her husband Victor is on to her but let's her travel to London to see Delacro, under other pretenses of course, hoping she'll wise up and come back to him. Hattie Durant (Jean Simmons), Victor's old flame and Hilary's London friend, gleefully gets caught up in the love triangle. She's a glamour queen, with too much time on her hands, who hopes to steal Victor away from Hilary. Will Hilary go back to her old life of growing mushrooms in a museum with her first love or will living a life of plenty with the handsome new stranger win her over?

The Grass is Greener was directed and produced by Stanley Donen. This is one of many films in the 1960s Donen worked on in Europe including Once More, with Feeling (1960), Surprise Package (1960), Charade (1963), Arabesque (1966), Two for the Road (1967), Bedazzled (1967) and Staircase (1968). Donen and Cary Grant own the company Grandon Productions which produced Indiscreet (1958) and The Grass is Greener.  After their film Indiscreet, Donen and Grant bought the rights to
the British stage play by Hugh Williams and Margaret (Vyner) Williams which premiered in 1956 and had a successful run in the West End. Stage actor Moray Watson played the part of Trevor the butler in the production and was the only actor from the original cast to appear in the film adaptation.

Grant initially turned down the role of Victor. Actor Rex Harrison came on board. When Harrison's wife Kay Kendall became ill, she died soon after, he had to drop out and Grant stepped in. According to Grant biographer Marc Eliot, Grant insisted the movie be shot in London so he could spend time in his home country. Deborah Kerr had been avoiding the cool English lady roles but wanted to appear again with Grant, Mitchum and Simmons. Mitchum had been in London filming The Sundowners, along with Kerr, and stuck around to make this movie.

The cast members were quite familiar with each other. In addition to The Sundowners, Mitchum and Kerr appeared together in Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957). Simmons and Mitchum appeared in She Couldn't Say No (1952) and Angel Face (1953). Simmons and Kerr were in Black Narcissus (1947) and Young Bess (1953). Kerr and Grant were in Dream Wife (1953) and An Affair to Remember (1957). For Grant and Mitchum, however, this was their only film together. Off screen they were polar opposites which worked for their on screen personalities. But inevitably they clashed on set. Grant worried that Mitchum's coolness made him look uptight and Mitchum worried that Grant's dialogue heavy role made him look like a man of too few words. Which it did on both counts. Mitchum biographer Lee Server points out that Grant and Mitchum were served poorly by the material. The same could be said for Kerr and Simmons. In his interview with Stanley Donen, author Marc Eliot remarked "Donen remembers the film as a milestone of sorts, marking the end of a certain type of sophisticated British comedy, before the antic humor of Peter Sellers arrived and dominated the English cinematic 1960s.

The cast and crew were made up of some of the most talented names of the era. There was original music by Noel Coward. Simmons wardrobe was designed by Christian Dior (and Kerr's by Hardy Amies). Moray Watson struck me as familiar but I couldn't quite pinpoint him. When I looked him up I was pleased to see that he also played one of my favorite characters, the Brigadier, in the British mini-series The Darling Buds of May.





Unfortunately, The Grass is Greener was a bore. Not even the amazing cast, beautiful sets, a mid-century aesthetic I so adore and Simmons' gorgeous Dior wardrobe could have saved this for me. The allure of having not seen the movie all these years outweighed any pleasure I experienced actually watching it.  Perhaps for me the grass seemed greener on the other side when it really wasn't. The movie wasn't a complete loss though. Staring at Robert Mitchum didn't hurt (and yes I'd pick him over Cary Grant any day). Any scene with Simmons was a delight because she added much needed levity to the story. Also the duel scene was quite fun, even if it was because Grant, Mitchum and Watson wore thick-rimmed glasses, a style of the era I'm obsessed with.



The Grass is Greener (1960) is the second of eight films that I am watching for the 2018 Cinema Shame challenge. Check out my original list and stay tuned for more reviews! Special thanks to my good friend Frank who loaned me his Olive Films Blu-Ray copy of The Grass is Greener.
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