Janet
New Member
Posts: 27
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Post by Janet on Dec 2, 2022 11:23:52 GMT
I ordered it too. It's great! Took me long enough. Much going on. Anyway, I enjoyed the book very much, although a lot of the time, I was thinking of the film. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. And even though Clifton Webb doesn't fit the physical characteristics of Waldo Lydecker in the book, he certainly was right for the role in the film. Perfect casting, I would say. I like how the book is written in the perspectives of the three main characters. That came as a welcome surprise. But in all honesty, I like the film much better. (Don't shoot me!) |
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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 2, 2022 11:48:39 GMT
Wonderful, I'm glad you are enjoying it. When you're done or whenever you feel like it, I'd love to hear any thoughts you care to share with us. Took me long enough. Much going on. Anyway, I enjoyed the book very much, although a lot of the time, I was thinking of the film. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. And even though Clifton Webb doesn't fit the physical characteristics of Waldo Lydecker in the book, he certainly was right for the role in the film. Perfect casting, I would say. I like how the book is written in the perspectives of the three main characters. That came as a welcome surprise. But in all honesty, I like the film much better. (Don't shoot me!) |
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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 16, 2022 13:01:50 GMT
I Lost My Girlish Laughter by Jane Allen published in 1938
Written by a former personal secretary to famed producer David O. Selznick, Ms. Allen's breezy novel I Lost My Girlish Laughter is a scathingly enjoyable roman a clef of Hollywood's studio system in its early heydays of the 1930s.
Jane Allen is the pen name of author Sylvia Shulman Lardner who worked for David O. Selznick at the time he produced Gone With the Wind, which put her right at the center of the creation of one of the studio system's most famous and successful movies.
Shulman used her insider's access to create an only slightly fictionalized version of Hollywood in her novel; a novel whose publication had many in 1930s Tinseltown nervous that they would be parodied. The rest of the community, though, was atwitter over the scandals, foibles and insecures the book indirectly exposed.
Told mainly through letters that Shulman's doppelganger in the book, Madge Lawrence, exchanges with her friends and relatives, plus interoffice memos and wires, I Lost My Girlish Laughter is a page-turning fun reveal of the backstabbing, egotism, insecurity and sexual peccadilloes of Hollywood.
The world Lawrence limns - a studio headed up by a demanding, self-centered boss, Sidney Brand (Selznick's fictional stand-in), producing a "prestige" picture with a new foreign female star who has looks, a difficult personality and limited talent - is consistent with many tales of the "Golden Age" of Hollywood.
We meet insecure actors and actresses who become, maybe less insecure, but definitely more selfish as their star rises, assistant producers who seem to produce not much more than ego-soothing bromides for their bosses and studio publicity men who work hard to mask their studio's behind-the-scenes chaos from the Hollywood press.
The full venality of Hollywood is on display as we see Brand try to use the threat of blackballing to get out of honoring a no-longer-wanted actor's contract or when we see studio heads negotiate over "lending out" stars with bad faith and deceit that would make embezzlers and fraudsters blush.
We also get a window into the sausage-making process of writing, casting, filming and promoting a movie itself as we see how not-advertised-to-the-press out-of-town previews can, literally, cause the entire story to be reworked.
With the feedback gained from those previews as a guide, entire scenes are reshot as actors or actresses are demoted or promoted in the movie. The "genius" producer and "brilliant" director bow to the will of the preview audience.
It's fun, too, seeing notables of the era such as Clarke Gable, Marlene Dietrich, Louis B. Meyer, William Faulkner, Victor Fleming, Louella Parsons and other big Hollywood names make appearances as themselves or in easy-to-see-through fictionalized surrogates.
There's also a bit of a love story woven into the novel, which also echoes author Shulman's real-life love affair and marriage to publicist Ring Lardner Jr. (yes "that" Ring Lardner's son).
Yet you don't read I Lost My Girlish Laughter for its literary value or its romantic threads, you read it for its contemporaneous takedown of Golden Era Hollywood from someone with a front-row seat.
To that end, I Lost My Girlish Laughter doesn't disappoint, but it also shouldn't be a reader's introduction to 1930s Hollywood.
There are too-many inside-Hollywood references and La-La-Land tales and characters being exposed and parodied for the novel to be enjoyable to someone without, at least, a surface knowledge of Tinseltown at that time.
But if you are even just a bit familiar with Hollywood in the 1930s, I Lost My Girlish Laughter is a fun and scathing book that will disabuse one of the romanticized view history often affords this amazingly creative and successful period of movie making. |
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Post by topbilled on Dec 16, 2022 14:37:00 GMT
I Lost My Girlish Laughter by Jane Allen published in 1938
Written by a former personal secretary to famed producer David O. Selznick, Ms. Allen's breezy novel I Lost My Girlish Laughter is a scathingly enjoyable roman a clef of Hollywood's studio system in its early heydays of the 1930s.
Jane Allen is the pen name of author Sylvia Shulman Lardner who worked for David O. Selznick at the time he produced Gone With the Wind, which put her right at the center of the creation of one of the studio system's most famous and successful movies.
Shulman used her insider's access to create an only slightly fictionalized version of Hollywood in her novel; a novel whose publication had many in 1930s Tinseltown nervous that they would be parodied. The rest of the community, though, was atwitter over the scandals, foibles and insecures the book indirectly exposed.
Told mainly through letters that Shulman's doppelganger in the book, Madge Lawrence, exchanges with her friends and relatives, plus interoffice memos and wires, I Lost My Girlish Laughter is a page-turning fun reveal of the backstabbing, egotism, insecurity and sexual peccadilloes of Hollywood.
The world Lawrence limns - a studio headed up by a demanding, self-centered boss, Sidney Brand (Selznick's fictional stand-in), producing a "prestige" picture with a new foreign female star who has looks, a difficult personality and limited talent - is consistent with many tales of the "Golden Age" of Hollywood.
We meet insecure actors and actresses who become, maybe less insecure, but definitely more selfish as their star rises, assistant producers who seem to produce not much more than ego-soothing bromides for their bosses and studio publicity men who work hard to mask their studio's behind-the-scenes chaos from the Hollywood press.
The full venality of Hollywood is on display as we see Brand try to use the threat of blackballing to get out of honoring a no-longer-wanted actor's contract or when we see studio heads negotiate over "lending out" stars with bad faith and deceit that would make embezzlers and fraudsters blush.
We also get a window into the sausage-making process of writing, casting, filming and promoting a movie itself as we see how not-advertised-to-the-press out-of-town previews can, literally, cause the entire story to be reworked.
With the feedback gained from those previews as a guide, entire scenes are reshot as actors or actresses are demoted or promoted in the movie. The "genius" producer and "brilliant" director bow to the will of the preview audience.
It's fun, too, seeing notables of the era such as Clarke Gable, Marlene Dietrich, Louis B. Meyer, William Faulkner, Victor Fleming, Louella Parsons and other big Hollywood names make appearances as themselves or in easy-to-see-through fictionalized surrogates.
There's also a bit of a love story woven into the novel, which also echoes author Shulman's real-life love affair and marriage to publicist Ring Lardner Jr. (yes "that" Ring Lardner's son).
Yet you don't read I Lost My Girlish Laughter for its literary value or its romantic threads, you read it for its contemporaneous takedown of Golden Era Hollywood from someone with a front-row seat.
To that end, I Lost My Girlish Laughter doesn't disappoint, but it also shouldn't be a reader's introduction to 1930s Hollywood.
There are too-many inside-Hollywood references and La-La-Land tales and characters being exposed and parodied for the novel to be enjoyable to someone without, at least, a surface knowledge of Tinseltown at that time.
But if you are even just a bit familiar with Hollywood in the 1930s, I Lost My Girlish Laughter is a fun and scathing book that will disabuse one of the romanticized view history often affords this amazingly creative and successful period of movie making. |
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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 16, 2022 16:17:16 GMT
I Lost My Girlish Laughter by Jane Allen published in 1938
Written by a former personal secretary to famed producer David O. Selznick, Ms. Allen's breezy novel I Lost My Girlish Laughter is a scathingly enjoyable roman a clef of Hollywood's studio system in its early heydays of the 1930s.
Jane Allen is the pen name of author Sylvia Shulman Lardner who worked for David O. Selznick at the time he produced Gone With the Wind, which put her right at the center of the creation of one of the studio system's most famous and successful movies.
Shulman used her insider's access to create an only slightly fictionalized version of Hollywood in her novel; a novel whose publication had many in 1930s Tinseltown nervous that they would be parodied. The rest of the community, though, was atwitter over the scandals, foibles and insecures the book indirectly exposed.
Told mainly through letters that Shulman's doppelganger in the book, Madge Lawrence, exchanges with her friends and relatives, plus interoffice memos and wires, I Lost My Girlish Laughter is a page-turning fun reveal of the backstabbing, egotism, insecurity and sexual peccadilloes of Hollywood.
The world Lawrence limns - a studio headed up by a demanding, self-centered boss, Sidney Brand (Selznick's fictional stand-in), producing a "prestige" picture with a new foreign female star who has looks, a difficult personality and limited talent - is consistent with many tales of the "Golden Age" of Hollywood.
We meet insecure actors and actresses who become, maybe less insecure, but definitely more selfish as their star rises, assistant producers who seem to produce not much more than ego-soothing bromides for their bosses and studio publicity men who work hard to mask their studio's behind-the-scenes chaos from the Hollywood press.
The full venality of Hollywood is on display as we see Brand try to use the threat of blackballing to get out of honoring a no-longer-wanted actor's contract or when we see studio heads negotiate over "lending out" stars with bad faith and deceit that would make embezzlers and fraudsters blush.
We also get a window into the sausage-making process of writing, casting, filming and promoting a movie itself as we see how not-advertised-to-the-press out-of-town previews can, literally, cause the entire story to be reworked.
With the feedback gained from those previews as a guide, entire scenes are reshot as actors or actresses are demoted or promoted in the movie. The "genius" producer and "brilliant" director bow to the will of the preview audience.
It's fun, too, seeing notables of the era such as Clarke Gable, Marlene Dietrich, Louis B. Meyer, William Faulkner, Victor Fleming, Louella Parsons and other big Hollywood names make appearances as themselves or in easy-to-see-through fictionalized surrogates.
There's also a bit of a love story woven into the novel, which also echoes author Shulman's real-life love affair and marriage to publicist Ring Lardner Jr. (yes "that" Ring Lardner's son).
Yet you don't read I Lost My Girlish Laughter for its literary value or its romantic threads, you read it for its contemporaneous takedown of Golden Era Hollywood from someone with a front-row seat.
To that end, I Lost My Girlish Laughter doesn't disappoint, but it also shouldn't be a reader's introduction to 1930s Hollywood.
There are too-many inside-Hollywood references and La-La-Land tales and characters being exposed and parodied for the novel to be enjoyable to someone without, at least, a surface knowledge of Tinseltown at that time.
But if you are even just a bit familiar with Hollywood in the 1930s, I Lost My Girlish Laughter is a fun and scathing book that will disabuse one of the romanticized view history often affords this amazingly creative and successful period of movie making. |
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Post by starliteyes on Dec 17, 2022 5:29:55 GMT
I never heard of I Lost My Girlish Laughter either. However, your review really made me want to read it, Fading Fast, and I just ordered it from Amazon.
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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 17, 2022 11:23:58 GMT
I never heard of I Lost My Girlish Laughter either. However, your review really made me want to read it, Fading Fast, and I just ordered it from Amazon. |
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Post by starliteyes on Dec 24, 2022 4:18:37 GMT
I never heard of I Lost My Girlish Laughter either. However, your review really made me want to read it, Fading Fast, and I just ordered it from Amazon. |
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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 24, 2022 9:16:00 GMT
That's great - I really hope it doesn't disappoint you. Good or bad, I look forward to your post-read comments.
I'm a bit nervous because it was my recommendation, but I'm really hoping you enjoy "I Lost My Girlish Laughter." |
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Post by starliteyes on Dec 24, 2022 20:14:27 GMT
The book just arrived today, but I don't plan on starting it until New Year's Day. I like having a new book to start on the first day of the year. Last January I started the year off with The Purple Diaries, which was about Mary Astor's custody battle and which I found very interesting.
I'm a bit nervous because it was my recommendation, but I'm really hoping you enjoy "I Lost My Girlish Laughter." |
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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 24, 2022 20:16:56 GMT
I like that, you have a neat custom. I read "The Purple Diaries" back when it came out and enjoyed it very much other than that the author inserted his own life a bit too much into the book. But the information on Mary Astor's life and challenges was very engaging.
I'm a bit nervous because it was my recommendation, but I'm really hoping you enjoy "I Lost My Girlish Laughter."  . |
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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 27, 2022 11:23:52 GMT
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens originally published in 1843
I first read A Christmas Carol many, many years ago and have seen so many movie versions of the story since, it's hard to read the book in a fresh way, but a few things jumped out at me in this go through.
While the Victorians were no strangers to Christmas ghost stories, they all but invented the genre, A Christmas Carol must have seemed incredibly fresh and daring when it came out.
You can't swing a dead cat and not hit a ghost in A Christmas Carol. And these are not amorphous apparitions skulking around in the background; no, these are confident ghosts with purpose.
Be it Scrooge's former partner, Marley, from the counting house, sentenced to an afterlife in purgatory dragging the chains of his greed around for eternity or the well-fed ghost of Christmas present, they are all clearly formed spirits delivering a Christian message to Scrooge, and all of us, in a four-team ghost relay race.
After the ghost of Marley comes to show Scrooge what the afterlife will be like for him if he doesn't mend his ways, the ghost of Christmas past arrives to remind Scrooge of his earlier life when Scrooge had youthful hopes, aspirations, kindness and joy still in his heart.
Next up is the aforementioned ghost of Christmas present whose purpose is to show Scrooge both the misery and joy around him that he ignores in his insular mental and physical world of obsessively counting money and economizing on everything to no logical end.
Finally, we get the ghost of Christmas yet to come, who shows Scrooge how his own death will be a bleak and lonely one met with only derision and indifference as he made no real friends and had pushed all his family away.
After the ghosts, it's the big transformation scene where Scrooge, with the bejesus now scared out of him, becomes generous of heart and pocketbook as he pledges to "keep Christmas" all year round. His infectious joy is the emotional, spiritual and Christian payoff Dickens has been building to from page one.
A Christmas Carol is wonderful. It's also propaganda whose characters are cartoons rather than flesh and blood humans. Yet exaggeration has its place in making points as Dickens did to great effect in his classic tale of greed and charity.
The other thing that struck me on this read is how incredibly faithful to the book many of the movie versions - especially, two of the classic earlier ones (from 1938 and 1951) - have been.
A Christmas Carol has also been riffed on countless times (check out 1961's Cash on Demand for a fun and understated British take, comments on the movie here: "Cash on Demand" ), but as a compliment to the strength of Dickens' story, many movie makers scrupulously adhere to the plot, descriptions and dialogue in the book.
With "original source material" from Charles Dickens, why wouldn't a smart director just take what's there and put it on screen? It's the same reason reading it today is still rewarding. Despite having saturated our culture and being almost two-hundred-years old, A Christmas Carol is a relatable, relevant, fun and fast Christmas-time read to this day. |
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Post by topbilled on Dec 30, 2022 4:27:03 GMT
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens originally published in 1843
I first read A Christmas Carol many, many years ago and have seen so many movie versions of the story since, it's hard to read the book in a fresh way, but a few things jumped out at me in this go through.
While the Victorians were no strangers to Christmas ghost stories, they all but invented the genre, A Christmas Carol must have seemed incredibly fresh and daring when it came out.
You can't swing a dead cat and not hit a ghost in A Christmas Carol. And these are not amorphous apparitions skulking around in the background; no, these are confident ghosts with purpose.
Be it Scrooge's former partner, Marley, from the counting house, sentenced to an afterlife in purgatory dragging the chains of his greed around for eternity or the well-fed ghost of Christmas present, they are all clearly formed spirits delivering a Christian message to Scrooge, and all of us, in a four-team ghost relay race.
After the ghost of Marley comes to show Scrooge what the afterlife will be like for him if he doesn't mend his ways, the ghost of Christmas past arrives to remind Scrooge of his earlier life when Scrooge had youthful hopes, aspirations, kindness and joy still in his heart.
Next up is the aforementioned ghost of Christmas present whose purpose is to show Scrooge both the misery and joy around him that he ignores in his insular mental and physical world of obsessively counting money and economizing on everything to no logical end.
Finally, we get the ghost of Christmas yet to come, who shows Scrooge how his own death will be a bleak and lonely one met with only derision and indifference as he made no real friends and had pushed all his family away.
After the ghosts, it's the big transformation scene where Scrooge, with the bejesus now scared out of him, becomes generous of heart and pocketbook as he pledges to "keep Christmas" all year round. His infectious joy is the emotional, spiritual and Christian payoff Dickens has been building to from page one.
A Christmas Carol is wonderful. It's also propaganda whose characters are cartoons rather than flesh and blood humans. Yet exaggeration has its place in making points as Dickens did to great effect in his classic tale of greed and charity.
The other thing that struck me on this read is how incredibly faithful to the book many of the movie versions - especially, two of the classic earlier ones (from 1938 and 1951) - have been.
A Christmas Carol has also been riffed on countless times (check out 1961's Cash on Demand for a fun and understated British take, comments on the movie here: "Cash on Demand" ), but as a compliment to the strength of Dickens' story, many movie makers scrupulously adhere to the plot, descriptions and dialogue in the book.
With "original source material" from Charles Dickens, why wouldn't a smart director just take what's there and put it on screen? It's the same reason reading it today is still rewarding. Despite having saturated our culture and being almost two-hundred-years old, A Christmas Carol is a relatable, relevant, fun and fast Christmas-time read to this day. |
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Post by Fading Fast on Dec 30, 2022 10:23:50 GMT
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens originally published in 1843
I first read A Christmas Carol many, many years ago and have seen so many movie versions of the story since, it's hard to read the book in a fresh way, but a few things jumped out at me in this go through.
While the Victorians were no strangers to Christmas ghost stories, they all but invented the genre, A Christmas Carol must have seemed incredibly fresh and daring when it came out.
You can't swing a dead cat and not hit a ghost in A Christmas Carol. And these are not amorphous apparitions skulking around in the background; no, these are confident ghosts with purpose.
Be it Scrooge's former partner, Marley, from the counting house, sentenced to an afterlife in purgatory dragging the chains of his greed around for eternity or the well-fed ghost of Christmas present, they are all clearly formed spirits delivering a Christian message to Scrooge, and all of us, in a four-team ghost relay race.
After the ghost of Marley comes to show Scrooge what the afterlife will be like for him if he doesn't mend his ways, the ghost of Christmas past arrives to remind Scrooge of his earlier life when Scrooge had youthful hopes, aspirations, kindness and joy still in his heart.
Next up is the aforementioned ghost of Christmas present whose purpose is to show Scrooge both the misery and joy around him that he ignores in his insular mental and physical world of obsessively counting money and economizing on everything to no logical end.
Finally, we get the ghost of Christmas yet to come, who shows Scrooge how his own death will be a bleak and lonely one met with only derision and indifference as he made no real friends and had pushed all his family away.
After the ghosts, it's the big transformation scene where Scrooge, with the bejesus now scared out of him, becomes generous of heart and pocketbook as he pledges to "keep Christmas" all year round. His infectious joy is the emotional, spiritual and Christian payoff Dickens has been building to from page one.
A Christmas Carol is wonderful. It's also propaganda whose characters are cartoons rather than flesh and blood humans. Yet exaggeration has its place in making points as Dickens did to great effect in his classic tale of greed and charity.
The other thing that struck me on this read is how incredibly faithful to the book many of the movie versions - especially, two of the classic earlier ones (from 1938 and 1951) - have been.
A Christmas Carol has also been riffed on countless times (check out 1961's Cash on Demand for a fun and understated British take, comments on the movie here: "Cash on Demand" ), but as a compliment to the strength of Dickens' story, many movie makers scrupulously adhere to the plot, descriptions and dialogue in the book.
With "original source material" from Charles Dickens, why wouldn't a smart director just take what's there and put it on screen? It's the same reason reading it today is still rewarding. Despite having saturated our culture and being almost two-hundred-years old, A Christmas Carol is a relatable, relevant, fun and fast Christmas-time read to this day.
Scrooge, the character, is not an objective representation of the average businessman, nor are the wonderfully loving Cratchits, with cheery homily spouting and handicapped Tiny Tim, an objective look at needy families. Even mirthful cousin Fred is more of a symbol of the ideal of "turn the other cheek," than a complex, emotional and real human.
So, yes, I believe "A Christmas Carol" is propaganda (until the Nazis got hold of the concept and used it for their evil ends, "propaganda's" connotation wasn't negative) in service to the Christian ideals of charity, forgiveness and love of fellow man. Those are all wonderful things in my opinion, but I do see that "A Christmas Carol" is trying to sway one to those ideas through a tendentious appeal to emotion and not an impartial analysis of all sides of the argument. |
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Post by topbilled on Dec 30, 2022 15:23:41 GMT
Yes, I agree...propaganda can be 'positive' and not something of Hitlerian proportions.
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