LOS ANGELES:

                        

HOLLYWOOD AND BEYOND…

THE LITERATURE OF A CITY IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Fisher, Carrie. Postcards from the edge, New York : Simon and Schuster, 1987.

When Carrie Fisher wrote this comic and profound debut novel, she had known fame as an actress (through the Star Wars movie franchise) and as the child of Hollywood royalty: Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. Postcards from the Edge is the prism through which she interprets her personal life, family and the movie industry, all realised with striking candour, pathos and wit.  Fisher chronicles her alter ego Suzanne Vale (in career and emotional meltdown) as she struggles with the fame game, drug addiction, relationship crises as well as deep-rooted family conflict, mostly involving her mother Norma, a thinly disguised Debbie Reynolds.

She delivers a late-Eighties portrait of Los Angeles that is no less revelatory of life lived in the fast lane, than that of the milieu of Jane Austen's Bath, a slower but no less problematic time.  Fisher's prose style is dialogue-driven and explores different formats: the first quarter of the book composed in diary form before switching to conventional third-person narrative. It hardly surprises that Hollywood promptly filmed this book (in 1990) or that Fisher wrote the screenplay; nor that she has penned a further five successful novels.  She continues to act in film and television.  As does her mother.

Waugh, Evelyn. The loved one: an Anglo-American tragedy, London : Methuen, 1979.

In this short novel the master English satirist Evelyn Waugh turns his gaze on Los Angeles, the studio system and the funeral industry.  As an outsider, he had explored these subjects in a visit to Hollywood made shortly after WW2. Waugh subsequently became fascinated by Forest Lawn cemetery and its bizarre practices; the attitude towards death in general, in a city he viewed as practically a pagan place. 

The satire is mostly directed at the excesses of Whispering Glades (a fictional Forest Lawn), the euphemistic protocols, and philosophy of that institution, where death is given the “Hollywood” treatment.  As a Catholic writer, Waugh sublimates his sense of outrage at the degradation of the body (and presumably, soul) into mild but annihilating humour.

There is a sense that at 128 pages, The Loved One, is a minor work from this author, and while it was well received in 1951, the satire may seem somewhat tame by the standards of today.  The novel was published with a Preface by the author, the entire work having appeared in a single issue of the English literary magazine, Horizon.  The novel had a further incarnation when it was filmed, to a lukewarm critical reception, in 1965.

VIDEO: Excerpt from The Love One (1965)

West, Nathanael. The day of the locust, London : Secker and Warburg, 1957.

This short somewhat bitter novel provides an intense experience for the reader of serious fiction.  Its appeal lies in the exploration of what might be described as the "underbelly"of Los Angeles, on the cusp of WW11.  The Day of the Locust was West's last work and his most famous. It is a world of an unglamorous Hollywood and the unsuccessful small-time players who parlay an existence on the fringes of the big movie studios.

What impresses most is a tangible sense of place.  The author's precise use of language conjures the climate, topography, streets, buildings and vegetation of Los Angeles - from Sunset Boulevard to the San Barndino Mountains.  West uses unflinching naturalistic dialogue as we follow the characters from dingy apartments to brothels, staged cock-fighting, to a big Hollywood premiere. The novel explodes in an almost surreal climax as though the author finds no chance of human redemption in mid-century America.

Nathanael West died in a car crash at the age of 40, soon after completing this work.  He received posthumous recognition and is far from forgotten. Today he is viewed as a writer who was ahead of his time and a forerunner of novelists such as William Rice Burroughs.  The book was adapted for the cinema in 1973 but was a box-office disappointment.

1940's Hollywood: Movie and Radio Studios and Landmarks

VIDEO:

Cain, James M. Mildred Pierce, London : Orion, 2002.

James M. Cain's best-selling novels were embraced by Hollywood in the post-war era.  His oeuvre is firmly rooted in social realism and was welcome fodder for studio scriptwriters who turned his books into melodramatic epics, censorship issues notwithstanding.

Mildred Pierce is a tale of sex and murder, set against the backdrop of suburban Los Angeles. Cain's characters are average people who find themselves drawn into hazardous situations. the plot is a page-turner of twisted relationships; the ambitious Mildred; her spineless husband; a louche lover; and a venal daughter, Veda. It is Mildred's wise-cracking assistant, Ida, who utters the famous line: "Crocodiles have the right idea - they eat their young."

Mildred Pierce was a wildly successful film for MGM in 1945.  It proved a huge money-spinner, won Joan Crawford a Best Actress Oscar and revitalised a career that had been in decline. Guy Pearce starred in a prestigious version for television in 2011.  Other Cain novels have been filmed:  including Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice. 

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The last tycoon, London : Penguin, 2010.

One of the 20th century's greatest unfinished novels, The Last Tycoon, is heartbreaking in its unrealised potential.  The book presents a portrait of Hollywood studio czar Monroe Stahr and is based on Fitzgerald's experience of working as a screenwriter for producer Irving Thalberg at MGM, the premier Hollywood studio.  The esteemed critic and editor, Edmund Wilson writes in the Foreword, "Scott Fitzgerald died suddenly of a heart attack (21 December 1940) the day after he had written the first episode of Chapter 6 of his novel."

What Wilson did publish is roughly a third of the novel, which Fitzgerald had revised to certain extent, before his untimely death.  Aside from its elegant prose style, the book's appeal lies in the nascent romance between Stahr and the young screenwriter Kathleen. The glamour of Hollywood is given its due, as well as an  insider's "take" of the movie industry; and the machinations peculiar to a studio conglomerate.

Eventually, The Last Tycoon was adapted for the movies, in 1973 with Robert de Niro as Stahr, amongst an illustrious cast.  However, the film proved to be a box-office flop.  

VIDEO: the glamour of Hollywood at night

Crawford, Christina. Mommie dearest: a true story, New York : William Morrow, 1978.

This torrid autobiography set the gold standard for Hollywood "tell-all" memoirs in the late 1970s, and opened the floodgates for baser forms of biography. On publication, Mommie Dearest was judged as a scandalous demolition job by a daughter (albeit adopted); one who was intent on fracturing the public image of her mother, the legendary star Joan Crawford. 

With considerable relish, Christina demolishes Joan as "Mommie" - and human being to boot.  A frightening portrait emerges of  Crawford as abusive, sadistic, alcoholic...an all-round head case.

The book became a movie (in 1981) with Faye Dunaway as Joan, and was an instant cult hit. Ironically, the film stopped Dunaway's career in its tracks, the over-the-top performance being deemed to have forever damaged her credibility.  

       VIDEO: Joan Crawford with Christina: rare archive footage





   VIDEO: Faye Dunaway as Mommie Dearest...

Tolkin, Michael. The player, New York : Atlantic Monthly, 1988.

This satiric novel is essentially an exploration into a man's skewered psyche.  Along the way author Michael Tolkin enjoys taking Hollywood apart...folly by folly.  A portrait of Tinseltown emerges and one that is very dark.  Griffin Mills, a top studio executive - a player indeed - finds himself stalked by a disgruntled screenwriter and is soon caught in a web that results in murder.

The noir aspect of The Player is defined by interior monologues, a staple of Hollywood B-movies.  But this book is all class with an intriguing plot and well drawn characters. 

As so often happens, Tolkin was invited to adapt The Player for the screen.  Robert Altman directed and a who's-who's cast of stars ensured a world-wide hit in 1992.

Tolkin continues to write.  A sequel, Return of the Player, was published in 2006.  It has yet to be filmed.

Didion, Joan. Play it as it lays, New York : Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1970.

This gripping novel from the prolific Joan Didion shot straight to the the bestseller lists in 1970.  At the time it was groundbreaking in its depiction of sexuality, psychiatry - from a women's point of view.  The themes and characters can be seen as emblematic of the sixties and the groundswell movements of feminism and sexual freedom.

But unlike Valley of the Dolls, Didion is at pains to point out truths and avoids so-called Hollywood glamour and titillating her readers.

Schulberg, Budd. What makes Sammy run?, New York : Random House, 1952.

This novel written in 1941 is generally considered to be the Novel about Hollywood, and by extension Los Angeles.  After all Hollywood is a factory town and its product...cinema and television.

Schulberg was born into the movie business.  His father was a film producer.  It has been suggested that the Sammy of the novel (Sammy Glick) is a portrait of Schulberg's father.  Either way, there is a deeply felt tone to the writing of this very serious novel. 

The reason for its enduring fame rests on gripping story elements and a no-holds approach to revealing the pitfalls of the studio system.  The book has had a number of television adaptations, and was turned into a musical.

VIDEO: Bette Davis refers to the the best book ever written about Hollywood...amongst other things..

Isherwood, Christopher. Bucknell, Katherine (ed.) Liberation Dairies volume three: 1970 - 1983, London : Chatto and Windus, 2012.

The final instalment in the trilogy that is the Isherwood dairies.

The three volumes in toto add up to roughly 2,500 pages. 

The triumph of these fascinating memoirs, aside from their emotional honesty, wit and historical interest, lies as much with Katherine Bucknell - as with the author himself.  For Bucknell proves to be an empathetic editor as well as a painstaking one.  Her introductions to each volume are a joy to read.

We follow Isherwood through the years, and become intimate eavesdroppers into his life as a screenwriter.  We are also witness to his enduring relationship with Don Bachardy and his many Hollywood friends.  Isherwood realised that the Diaries would be published after his death.  Indeed they do tell-all.  Yet some identities remain censored, thirty years on. 

VIDEO: Christoper and Don (trailer)

Mamet, David. Speed-the-plow, London : Methuen, 2002.

It is a pleasure to include a play in this blog.  Speed-the-Plow is usually described as a black comedy, a genre of dramatic literature that Mamet has made his own.  It's interesting to see how one of America's leading playwrights interprets Hollywood; and here he explores the art of the movie deal, the crass shenanigans of movie executives and the eternal dilemma of art versus commerce.  Speed-the-Plow, which has only three characters, premiered in 1988 on Broadway.  The production gained immense publicity because one of the characters - Karen - was performed by pop singer, Madonna.

This is a play of snappy one-liners yet the dialogue reveals a sub text of angst and corruption of the soul.

In truth, the play did not set the world alight but nor did the play diminish its author's  reputation. Mamet (born 1947) is regarded as one of America's elite playwrights: his output has been prolific and he writes for both stage and screen.  One of his most famous plays is Glengarry Glen Ross, which was awarded the Pulitzer prize for Drama in 1984 and filmed in 1992  Speed-the-Plow has yet to be adapted for the screen.

Isherwood, Christopher. A single man, London : Methuen, 1965.

This is Christopher Isherwood's most autobiographical novel.  He casts himself as the protagonist, George, a university professor mourning the death of his male lover, Jim, and suffering much more than a mid-life crisis.

The appeal of the book lies in its emotional honesty and realism as George interacts with neighbours, students, friends and a possible new lover, a man nearly thirty years junior.  Isherwood has frozen a moment in time.  

Colin Firth won a Best Actor Oscar for his devastating performance as George in the movie version of 2010.

Collins, Jackie. Hollywood wives, New York : Simon and Schuster, 1983.

Jackie Collins broke into the big time with this unashamedly trashy novel.  To date it remains her biggest success...Hollywood Wives appeals to those readers who are interested in sex, fame and money, in other words just about everyone.

If the The Loved One is high literature then Collins's blockbuster is low literature.  Moreover, like Waugh, she knows her territory, makes her points and takes no prisoners.  This is a portrait of Reagan's America and a gallery of tacky charcters indulging in 1980s materialism, decadence and success-at-any price overkill in Tinseltown.

The prose style is uncomplicated which translates as anyone with a low reading ability can follow the story.  Expletives, drug references crime and lots of sex are the author's stock-in-trade.  It could be argued that Collins is the female Harold Robbins, who veered even more into the pornographic.

Hollywood Wives evolved into a mega mini series and was a ratings smash.  Collins has just published her 33rd novel.

Chandler, Raymond. The long good-bye, London : Hamish Hamilton, 1973.

For most of his adult life he fought alcohol addiction and ill-health, but Raymond Chandler also produced some of the finest short stories and novels of American life in the twentieth century.  Along with Dashiell Hammett, Chandler reinvented the crime novel as literature, far beyond the realm of the crime caper or who-dunnit

Six of the novels feature the wisecracking, cynical private detective Phillip Marlowe, who was to be so famously portrayed by Humphrey Bogart in films such as The Big Sleep.

The Long Good-bye is seen as his finest novel and it exemplifies the Chandler touch; remarkably observant characterisation combined with humourous dialogue, complicated plot lines and an overriding sense of locale - how and where people lived. 

VIDEO: Bogart as Phillip Marlowe in THE BIG SLEEP       


         

                                         

Vidal, Gore. Hollywood, New York : Random House, 1990.

Gore Vidal was (until recently) the Grand Old Man of American letters.  He died in 2012 at the age of 86.  From the 1940s through to the first decade of the 21 century his was the most prolific of literary careers.   He is generally considered to be the greatest essayist of his time.  In terms of the novel, he saw himself engaged in a two-horse race with that other great writer: Truman Capote.

In his novel Hollywood, Vidal lends an historical flourish which he also applied to novels such as Burr which dealt with the formation of the American Republic.  The characters are mostly drawn from real life, with celebrities such asWilliam Randolph Hearst and film stars like silent comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.

The prose is typical Vidal.  Satiric and elegant.  As as accomplished screenwriter (Ben Hur, Suddenly Last Summer) Vidal's dialogue is always apt.  As a Los Angeles resident he knew how the Hollywood studio system operated in its Golden Age, and this book he distills the core of his knowledge.

Bukowski, Charles. Come on in! : new poems, New York : HarperCollins, 2006.



Charles Bukowski the poet was an important figure in the counter-culture days of the 1960s. 

This collection of new poems was published posthumously for Bukowski died in 1994.  An alcoholic, a social outcast, often poverty-stricken, Bukowski's subject matter was Los Angeles itself and the so-called losers or marginalised people 

Come on in! : new poems covers familiar territory...sex and alcohol and relationships.  An excerpt from his poem "down and out on the boardwalk' summarises his rather special gift:

she described

her boyfriend

in detail

to me

then took out her

                                                    guitar

                                                    and started

                                                    singing.

                                                    later that night

                                                    I sodomised her

                                                    and told her

                                                    not to

                                                    come

                                                    around any

                                                    more.

                                                    I got lucky:

                                                    she

                                                    didn't.                       

Lambert, Gavin. The slide area: scenes of a Hollywood life, London : Serpent's Tail, 1997.

Gavin Lambert was ideally placed to delve into Hollywood's less public face, for he was a major force in the "dream factory",as a screen writer.  In his later years, Lambert moved into non-fiction and produced biographies such as Oh Cukor (a study of film director George Cukor) and film stars Norma Shearer and Natalie wood

He also wrote fiction - producing seven novels. The first of which was The Slide Area: Scenes of a Hollywood Life (1959), in fact more a collection of episodes than a novel.  It comprises 20 scenes of contemporary Los Angeles life in all manner of locations.  It is indeed a road map to fiction!

Lambert is unafraid of delving into the seedy side and his cast of characters feature the rejects of Hollywood, those who are in some way casualties of the fame game - or just life in general.  This work will to film students who seek inspiration in different forms of story-telling.  The language used is frank, original and often very funny.

Ellroy, James. L.A. confidential, London : Mysterious Press, 1990.

No doubt the screenwriters who adapted this novel for the screen (the smash 2001 film) were grateful for the raw material they were dealing with.

L.A. Confidential maintains Ellroy's reputation as a great writer.  His prose has an authentic ring of truth as he delves back into the corrupt Hollywood of so-called Golden Age.  

The language is profane, the characters hard-boiled, the plot gripping, and the whole novel is a page turner.

Ellroy is a master of the crime genre 

Rechy, John. City of night, New York : Grove Press, 1963.

City of Night belongs to the literary genre known as the "underground" novel.  The word underground usually denotes an activity that is forbidden, or an aspect of life which polite society chooses not to face in broad daylight.  And so it is here, as John Rechy depicts the world of male hustlers and their "tricks" in the big urban sprawl of America.

The novel has acquired a legendary status and it demands to be read, although no doubt the shock value has diminished over the decades.

City of Night is best described as one man's odyssey: an unnamed  male prostitute travels from the East Coast to the West Coast, picking up clients.  The Los Angeles portion of the novel emphasises the lives of transvestites.  The locales are seedy - the language equally so.  It has been suggested that the book inspired director Gus Van Sant to write and film My Own Private Idaho.

Dunne, John Gregory. True confessions, New York : Thunder's Mouth Press, 2006.

This gritty crime novel, set in the 1940s  is remembered as Dunne's finest achievement.  A prolific writer, journalist and screenwriter, he was the brother of Dominic Dunne novelist and social commentator (Vanity Fair columnist); and had an enduring marriage with Joan Didion whose novel Play It As It Lays also features in this blog.

First published in 1977, Dunne is able to indulge in a prose style which is expletive-laden.  In fact the book reads like a Tarrantino script - before Tarrantino had started making movies!  The core of the plot revolves around the famous still unsolved "Blue Dahlia" case and police corruption.  And two brothers, one a cop the other a priest.

True confessions  was adapted by Dunne for the movies.  With Robert de Niro and Robert Duvall in the leads, the film was a great success.