The Church of Baseball

Shelton, Ron. The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit. New York: Knopf. 2022. Print

First Sentences:
 

Bible stories were a big part of my growing up. The dramatic tales of Moses parting the Red Sea and coming down from the mountain and Jesus routing the money changers in the temple and the whole fantastic narrative still live loudly in my DNA.

Description:

If you have never seen the minor league baseball movie, Bull Durham, stop reading this right now and find that film somewhere ... NOW!  And don't come back until you have watched this cinematic gem, certainly one of the best sports movie of all time.

Ron Shelton, the screenwriter and first-time director of Bull Durham, walks us through the process of making his film in his delightfully entertaining The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit.

The book is divided into four parts: "Development" where Shelton discusses his personal history playing professional baseball and his experiences as the seeds to create the original script; "Preproduction" that details the interviewing and hiring of actors, identifying shooting locations, etc.; "Production" with the ups and downs of the actually filming, along with the challenges of costumes, lighting, and weather; and "Postproduction" when the movie actually hits the public screens and the response by reviewers (lukewarm) and public (wildly enthusiastic). 

Each stage has its unique nerve-wracking pitfalls, missteps, and obstacles which threaten to stop production. The ballpark had to be re-painted to a preferred color, the frosty breath of actors during the Durham cold weather had to camouflaged, and hundreds of extras had to be found (without pay) to fill the stands. But each trial has its own humorous moments (taken in hindsight by Shelton who probably did not find them funny at the time). He walks us through scene by scene, decision by decision, to really help us understand the entire film-making process. I only have room to present a few interesting items to whet your interest.

• "Crash" Davis, the film's main character, was actually a real person whom Shelton read about while looking through minor league records. Davis had hit the most doubles (50) in a minor league season. Ebby Calvin LaRoosh was a bright-eyed waiter who served Shelton at a restaurant with the introductory words, "Call me Nuke" (but he didn't know how to spell it when asked by Shelton). "Annie" is a generic name given by players to female groupies. "Savoy," Annie's last name, was on a matchbook that Shelton found in his pocket from a dive bar in Los Angeles.

• Costner wanted to audition for the part by demonstrating his throwing and hitting. Both he and Shelton found that they each "kept a glove and ball in the trunk of our car for reasons neither of us questioned.' Turned out Cosner was a switch-hitter with a beautiful swing;

• Throughout the shooting, the studio heads did not like Tim Robbins as Nuke and repeatedly tried to replace him. One unnamed head felt Susan Sarandon was completely wrong as well. About half way through shooting, Shelton received a phone call from the studio saying they were unhappy with Cosner's performance and they were immediately sending Kurt Russell down to replace Cosner and re-shoot everything fresh. (Turned out to be Russell on the phone making a prank call.)

• Studio producers tried, right up to the film's release, to remove the pitcher's mound scene where the players discuss the curse on a player's glove, what to get Millie and Jimmy for a wedding present, and how to align Nuke's chakras. (Preview audiences, however, on comment cards consistently rated that scene as their favorite);

• When they needed to fill the stands with extras, a production assistant contacted a friend working with the Pink Floyd concert nearby at the University of North Carolina. The band then announced to their fans that there would be a great after-concert party at the ball park, so concert-goers all trooped over to sit in the stands, waiting for Pink Floyd to show up (which they never did), and were unknowingly briefly filmed as background;

• Paula Abdul did the choreography for Nuke's bar dancing scene in exchange for a promised speaking role, a deal which Shelton did not know about and was not added to the film;

• After the film was public, Shelton met the pitcher Milt Pappas, who held a grudge for being included in Annie's speech about the worst trade ever in baseball ("Who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, for God's sake?");

• [Shelton recalled]: When I signed off on the final cost of the movie, I believe we were ten cents under budget.

•  When Bull Durham opened, it faced competition from current movies including Big, Die Hard, Coming to America, Cocktail, Midnight Run, Rambo III, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It grossed $5 million the opening weekend, then shockingly grossed more the next weekend and the third as well. After 28 weeks that summer, the film grossed the equivalent of $120 million in today's dollars.
  

 

What's not to love about a well-written memoir full if eobderful stories about likeable people, while gently walking us through the steps and decisions around constructing a delightful movie? I loved it and gobbled it up in only a few reading session. Can't wait to see the movie again and remember the process, choices, fights, and joy behind each portion.  

[Writer/Director Shelton]: My interest in baseball isn't analytical, romantic, or even patriotic. I like the game -- it's nuanced and difficult and physical-- but it has a appealing vulgarity, an earthiness...

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Elwes, Cary. As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of the Princess Bride

Recollections from the star of the wonderful adventure comedy, The Princess Bride, about the making of the movie, from ad-libbed comments by Billy Crystal that made Mandy Patinkin laugh so hard he broke a rib, to the weeks of sword fighting instruction, to Andre the Giant plowing around the landscape on a motorcycle, breaking Elwes toe in the process. Delightful.

Hollywood: The Oral History

Bassinger, Jeanine and Sam Wasson. Hollywood: The Oral History. New York: HarperCollins 2022. Print.

First Sentences:

In 1969, the American Film Institute held the first of what would be an ongoing series of intimate conversations between Hollywood professionals and AFT conservatory students. These became the Harold Lloyd Master Seminars, named in honor of their very first guest....All are experts in their fields. They are the artists, the craftspeople, the producers, the salesmen. Some are famous, others obscure. They speak with the attitudes of their own time, but they speak with authority.


Description:

After books, movies are one of my favorite entertainments. From the black and white Silents to the latest Indy film, watching them with my wife is one of the highlights of any day (or night). So what could be better than reading a book about films as told by the people intimately involved with all aspects of the creation of that medium?

 

So along comes the the American Film Institute with a desire and the means to preserve the history of cinema as told by the people who lived it in all eras. From stars to directors, screenwriters, stunt people, and representatives from other film production, the AFI sat them down and recorded over 3,000 interviews starting in 1969.

 

Authors Jeanine Bassinger and Sam Wasson were given complete access to the transcripts of these seminars and assembled the discussions into their wonderful book of the origins of film, Hollywood: The Oral History

 

And who contributes opinions and memories to this history? Well, everyone who was/is anyone in the film industry. Over 300 seminar participants contributed. Starting with the hugest of starts, Harold Lloyd (silent comedian), and Hoot Gibson (silent film cowboy), Hollywood: The Oral History records the conversations between (among many others):

• Directors: Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, Peter Bogdanovich, Orson Welles, George Cukor, King Vidor, Roger Corman, Ron Howard, George Lucas, Jordan Peele, Spike Lee, Francois Truffaut, and Billy Wilder; 

• Actors: Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Charleton Heston, Lillian Gish, Fay Wray (remember King Kong?), Henry Fonda,  Shirley MacLaine, and Natalie Wood; 

• Production members: Harry Warren (songwriter for "At Last" and 800+ other songs), Edith Head (costumer), Howard Strickline (publicist), and Fritz Lang (producer); 

• Writers: Richard Schickel (film historian), Arthur Knight (critic), Adele Rogers St. Johns, and Paul Mazursky. And so many, many more.

Seminars were organized in the book include topic such as, "The Silents," "Comedy," "Silent Directors," "Studio Workforce," "Packaging," "Monstors," and "The End of the System."

 

You can certainly read this book from page 1 to page 739, but you might prefer to just dip into section where you see a name or topic you know and immerse yourself in hearing experts casually talk about their memories, hopes, and frustrations of their film experiences. Kind of like eavesdropping on interesting conversations at a crowded party, drifting from group to group, only moving on when another conversation pulls you over. 

Here's some tidbits from the "Silent" section that I "overheard" to give an idea of the language, memories, and commentaries these professionals displayed:

[Harold Lloyd]:  We never had a script until we made a talking picture....I think we were one of the very first, even back in the old one-reel days, to start previews

[Gene Kelly]: Buster Keaton had a great influence on me. I certainly intuitively copied a lot of his moves...He was a complete genius, and there was a lot of dance inherently in his movements. They were balletic.

[Rouben Mamoulian, director]: First you had these cheap little nickelodeons that were nothing--amusement--you put a nickel in, and you see a ballerina dancing. Then a giant, D.W. Grittith, walks in, and with one film, Birth of a Nation, which could also be called 'birth of the art,' created a new fine art of film.

Lillian Gish (actress): When [D.W. Griffith] started taking close-ups, up in the office they said, "We pay for the whole actor."

[Melvin LeRoy, director and one-time silent film cameraman]: Cecil B. DeMille always said that I was the first one who invented soft focus...because I got everything out of focus.

I have so many more quotes, sections, and seminar participants I wanted to mention, but realized if anyone wasn't fascinated by the contents of this book by now, adding more details would probably not convince them.

 

But if you are a film buff or just enjoy learning great stories about the movies, or if you just delight in hearing the industry's phraseology, slang, and insightful references from the people who participated in or heard first-hand from colleagues about these events, then Hollywood: An Oral History is definitely for you. It is the best you will ever find in revealing the inside stories of the people, events, and machinations of all aspects of film-making.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

About The First Sentence Reader blog

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Vance, Jeffrey and Suzanne Lloyd. Harold Lloyd: Master Comedian

Highly detailed biography of Harold Lloyd, his films, photographs, and the early silent era of movie-making. A must for anyone interested in oral and well-researched histories of the cinema  (previously reviewed here)

  

Awake in the Dark

Ebert, Roger. Awake in the Dark: Forty Years of Reviews, Essays, and Interviews. New York: University of Chicago 2006. Print

First Sentences:

I began my work as a film critic in 1967, although one of the pieces in this book goes back to my days on the Daily Illini at the University of Illinois. 

I had not thought to be a film critic, and indeed had few firm career plans apart from vague notions that I might someday be a political columnist of a professor of English. 


Description:

As a lover of films, finding a go-to reviewer is vital to deciding whether a specific movie will be interesting enough to actually spend time and money to see it. For me, such a reviewer needs to have insight, humor, quality writing, and no fear to tell it like the movie is, whether good or bad. Of course, my personal go-to reviewer for many years has been Roger Ebert. 

The task of every movie is to try to change how you feel and think during its running time. That it is not important to have a "good time" but very important not to have your time wasted....A movie is not good because it arrives at conclusions you share, or bad because it does not. A movie is .... about the way it considers its subject matter, 

The best of his writing for the Chicago Sun Times (and a few other outlets) are gathered in

Awake in the Dark. There are 91 reviews here (yes, I counted them), divided into categories of "Interviews and Profiles," "The Best," "Foreign Films," "Documentaries,"  and "Overlooked and Underrated." Ebert includes introductions for each category, along with extra essays on "Think Pieces," writing about film criticism, and even his piece "On the Meaning of Life ...and Movies." 

There is also some autobiographical information on his youth growing up in Champaign-Urbana, sneaking into the only movie theater in town, and his first reviews for the University of Chicago student newspaper. Ebert even throws in some history of moving pictures from the Lumiere brothers and George Melies, to the first film of a train arriving in a Paris station which caused audiences "to dive out of the way." 

To see three movies during a routine workday or thirty movies a week at a film festival is a good job to have.

Artists whom Ebert interviewed range from Warren Beatty to Ingmar Bergman to Meryl Streep to Spike Lee. Awake in the Dark provides Ebert's list of his top ten movies from every year from 1967 - 2005, then offers his review of the Number One movie from his list for each year. These reviews start with Bonnie and Clyde (1967) through Sophie's Choice (1982), to Do the Right Thing (1989), to Crash (2005). 

What makes these insightful reviews so interesting to me is that they were published as the movie was first released. His observations are the first look offered to potential audiences for such films as Five Easy Pieces, Amadeus, Fargo, Being John Malkovich, and Cries and Whispers. It's easy to see a movie years after its release and judge it to be a classic. Ebert is able to recognize a golden film as soon as he views it in the screening room, and shares why he knows it will be a classic for future movie-goers.

If the magical elements in a movie -- story, director, actors -- are assembled for magical reasons -- to delight, to move, to astound -- then something good often results. But when they are assembled simply as a "package," as a formula to suck in the customers, they are good only if a miracle happens.

If you can't find something here you are curious to read Ebert's opinions on, you can't possibly call yourself a film enthusiast. Personally, I loved every review/essay/commentary Ebert included in this fine collection. He introduced me to movies I had never heard of, helped me understand films I didn't get or like the first time I viewed them, and reinforced the good impressions I had for several of my favorite movies.

Pick it up, flip through it to a favorite (or hated) movie and get his insight on what makes that film worthwhile. You won't be sorry.

And by the way, if you are looking for the reviews of movies he didn't like, be sure to read, I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie. Here he again demonstrates his command of words and films to describe the worst of this field in extremely clever, deflating ways. You cannot help but smile at such reviews as:

Dear God is the kind of movie where you walk out repeating the title, but not with a smile.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Kael, Pauline. I Lost It at the Movies.   

One of the definitive voices among film reviewers, Kael wrote for the New Yorker for years. This book compiles some of her best work and captures her discerning, often caustic voice that still reflect her overall love of movies.

The Electric Hotel

Smith, Dominic. The Electric Hotel. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2019. Print

First Sentences:

Each morning, for more than thirty years, Claude Ballard returned to the hotel lobby with two cameras strapped across his chest and a tote bag full of foraged mushrooms and herbs.

His long walking circuit took in Little Armenia, where he photographed rug sellers, smoking cigarettes in the dawning light or, more recently, the homeless college dropouts and beatniks along Sunset Boulevard, striplings, the doorman called them, the ambassadors of Hollywood ruin. 

Description:

Here is a fascinating novel. Dominic Smith'sThe Electric Hotel follows the fictional life of narrator Claude Ballard, an ancient cinematographer from the earliest days of movies. Ballard, now an old man, has a chance encounter with a graduate film student in the seedy Knickerbocker hotel in Hollywood where Ballard has lived for decades.

Celebrities once sat in easy chairs smoking cigars or reading Variety, but now an unemployed screenwriter was taking his pet iguana for a morning stroll and Susan Berg, an actress of the silent era, stood in her robe whispering a monologue to an empty chaise lounge.

The student and Ballard talk about Ballard's life in the first days of films working in Paris with the Lumiere brothers and their astonishing moving pictures. Ballard traveled the world as a projectionist for the Lumieres to bring their new medium to growing audiences. Soon he is not only cranking the projector but making and showing his own short, experimental film clips.

Ballard dreams of creating an epic, ground-breaking movie, a unique story starring the beautiful Sabine Montrose, an acclaimed stage actress who was once Ballard's lover. His shocking film centers around a mysterious widow who oversees a hotel outfitted with new electric lights, a place where gentlemen lodgers check in but soon disappear. Ballard's ambitious story is complete with a daredevil stunt man capable of lighting himself on fire, a dirigible, and scenes shot for the first time completely at night under lights, His struggles to finance and complete this movie, keep his relationship with Sabine alive, and develop new filming techniques.

World War I brings on new challenges and opportunities for Ballard. He is captured by Germans and forced to make a documentary to prove that the German takeover of Belgium was peaceful and welcomed by the native people. Of course, Ballard has his own plans.

Historically researched by Smith, The Electric Hotel has it all: part history, part love story, part human drama. He carefully describes the development and evolution of snippets of film showing non-related actions growing into longer stories with stage actors and assigned lines and actions. Smith shows the battle with Thomas Edison over the use of patented motion picture equipment techniques, outcomes that bankrupted many production companies.

Readers will be absorbed into this fascinating early days of movies and the origins of production companies, actors, stories, and techniques to bring movies to a hungry audience. Dreamers and achievers like Ballard lead the way, slowly developing the techniques and plots, then melding them with the actors into a unique movie and experience. Wonderful reading.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Vance, Jeffery. Harold Lloyd: Master Comedian.   

Wonderful book about the famous silent comedian, Harold Lloyd, full of photos of sets, actors, and Lloyd's personal collection, as well as plot summaries and insider stories for each of his films. Wonderful! (previously reviewed here)

Brooks, Lulu. Lulu in Hollywood.   

Louise Brooks was picked out of the chorus line of the Ziegfeld Follies in 1925, placed in silent films, and became a huge sex star of the screen. This, her autobiographical work, is the compilation of many of her articles she wrote, diaries, and personal musings. A great look at the early days of film. (previously reviewed here)

Harold Lloyd (two books)

Vance, Jeffrey and Suzanne Lloyd. Harold Lloyd: Master Comedian. New York: Abrams. 2002. Print

Dardis, Tom. Harold Lloyd: The Man on the Clock. New York: Viking. 1983. Print

First Sentences:

In the Golden Age of silent comedy there were many clowns, but only three great artists -- Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.

However, Harold made more films than Chaplin or Keaton, and his films often rivaled Chaplin's and always surpassed Keaton's at the box office.

First Sentences:

Considerable more than half of the silent films produced in America before 1928 no longer exist. 

Entire studio outputs have vanished without a trace....In the early 1930s, millions of feet of film were systematically destroyed by their makers, who believed that there would be no further interest in silent pictures.

Description:

A few months ago Turner Classic Movies TV station ran a day of silent films starring comedian Harold Lloyd. So I recorded them and watched a bunch at my leisure over the next few days. I was slightly familiar with Lloyd's comedies (he was my father's favorite silent star for his everyman persona), and had seen his famous photo of him hanging from a clock face high above the city streets. But I didn't really know the man, his process, his film-making skills, or his reputation to others beyond my father.

Enter two outstanding biographies and cinematic reviews of Harold Lloyd: Jeffrey Vance and Suzanne Lloyd's Harold Lloyd: Master Comedian and Tom Dardis' Harold Lloyd: The Man on the Clock. While both cover the same man, his films, and the earliest days of motion pictures, they are significantly different, each one valuable for gaining perspective and insider information about this comedian.

Lloyd was a comedic film actor in the earliest days of film with brief roles in one-reelers and westerns starting around 1915. Later, he usually played a mousy, bespeckled, boyish-faced man with seemingly unobtainable goals of popularity (Speedy), financial success (A Sailor-Made Man), physical prowess (Safety Last), and always True Love (Girl Shy). In these roles he scaled the outside of tall buildings, walked a pet lion, wildly drove cars, scampered on top of trains and street cars, fought a giant, and became a human tackling dummy along with anything else he and his crew could dream up for a laugh.

The book by Vance and Lloyd (Lloyd's granddaughter), Master Comedian, is an oversized volume chock-a-block with huge, clear photos from sets, films, and Lloyd's personal life. Master Comedian carefully describes each of his films from plot to problems to profits. It is fascinating to read about the early days where everything, including "indoor" scenes was filmed outdoors using natural light (hence the attraction to sunny Southern California and Hollywood) up through the complicated logistics and expense making talking pictures. 

Initially, Lloyd used no scripts, starting with just an idea or two, a setting, a few actors with a camera, and the patience to see what they could catch on film. Lloyd recounted that in the early days they started with one gag, shot it, and then figured out some sort of plot that would make the characters arrive at the scene so they could insert that gag. 

Lloyd was one of the first filmmakers to preview footage on test audiences prior to distribution. Sitting in the back of theaters, he charted where the laughs were and what failed, then edited, re-shot, and added scenes until the film met his (and audiences') expectations.

Throughout Master Comedian there are lovely posed and candid shots of Lloyd, his film crew and actors, as well as his family life. There are stills from his earliest films before he created the "Glass Character" who wore the round tortoise-shell frames who overcame the challenges of love, machines, heights, and bad people. Freed from the costumes of Charlie Chaplin or the Keystone Kops, Lloyd found the glasses were enough to elicit a laugh from audiences.

I liked the glass character because it allowed you to be a human being. It allowed to to be the boy next door or anyone. - Harold Lloyd

Dardis' Man on the Clock, while covering the same man's era and films, focuses more on the details of Lloyd's personal life. Using diaries, conversations, articles, and other primary source records, Dardis offers a very close look at the decisions made by Lloyd, his drive for perfection, his early success and relative failure in the "Talkies," and his relationship with his wife, leading actresses, and other women. Readers even re-live the early publicity shot where Lloyd lit a cigarette with a fake bomb, only to have it actually explode and blow off his thumb and index fingers, narrowing missing blinding or even killing him.

We visit Lloyd's sprawling Beverly Hills estate with tennis and handball courts, Olympic pool, and golf course. Lloyd was a fine athlete who could win at any of these sports, and his skills of running, climbing, falling, and balancing were an integral part his films. Dardis gives attention to Lloyd's family life, from his own father who flipped a coin to determine whether the family would move to the West Coast or New York to Lloyd's long-standing marriage to Mildred, (one of his early leading ladies), and his sixty-five - yes, that's right 65! - Great Dane dogs he bred and raised. Dardis documents Lloyd's huge salaries that reached $10,000 a week in the early 1920's, not counting his 75% of the profits from each film. He cleverly invested his money for when the day when he stopped making films, leaving his heirs a fortune in the millions when he died.

Hal Roach, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle, Douglas Fairbanks, and all the stars of that era make appearances or are used as a contrast for Lloyd's comedic style and film-making techniques. The early comedy era comes alive under Dardis's detailed eye and the accounts of first-hand experiences.

They are tearing the arms off the chairs and laughing so loudly the organist can't hear himself play - Theater manager, Portland, Oregon, regarding the current Lloyd film. 

Both books are solid reads, with Master Comedian a shorter, glossier look while Man on the Clock a much more in-depth account of Lloyd's life. I highly recommend both books and can't wait to get a few more Harold Lloyd films from the library and watch them with delight.

We embrace Lloyd because he is one of us. An ordinary fellow. dealing with ordinary struggles, losses, and embarrassments. Harold Lloyd with endure as long as we do. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Wilson, Victoria.  A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel True: 1907-1940.   

Everything you could possibly want to know about this renowned actress, early films, and juicy background stories of movies and the men and women who made them. Highly recommended (previously reviewed here) 

Space Odyssey

Benson, Michael. Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece New York: Simon & Schuster. 2018. Print.

First Sentences:

Things were not going well at the Ceylon Astronomical Association.

Description:

I'm sure every commercial film has an interesting backstory and anecdotes relating to its creation, people, filming, and eventual premier. But when the film is arguably the most thought-provoking, original, technically-innovative masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, then the stories about every aspect and person who helped create it have to be the most riveting imaginable. 

Michael Benson in his brilliant Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece, delivers a breathtaking history behind the making of this film. From the original vague idea hammered out by sci-fi superstar author Arthur C. Clarke and brilliant director Stanley Kubrick to the never-seen-before scenes of space, Space Odyssey covers each intriguing idea and ingenious method necessary (or discarded) to bring the concept to film, all without the aid of computers. 

In 1964, Kubrick sought out Arthur C. Clarke, the best sci-fi writer, to create a story and film that was something completely new, inspiring, and thought-provoking. Together they watched every sci-fi movie, read every space-related book and story, and collected voluminous amounts of photos, articles, interviews, technologies, and everything else that might inspire them.

[Kubrick's factors to consider for every film] - Was it interesting? Was it believable? And, was it beautiful or aesthetically superior?

Eventually Kubrick chose Clarke's story The Sentinal as the basis for 2001, a story which focused on an alien creation found on the moon that, once exposed to sunlight, sent a signal across the universe to alert another civilization... to do what? The 2001 plot, characters, and especially the ending were all loosely defined and constantly argued over during filming, to be re-conceived and even completely abandoned over the next years. But always, 2001 was defined by Kubrick's goals to create a work that was "accurate scientifically" and tied "to current research of all kinds." Psychedelia, technology, NASA, and many more areas were carefully studied, and every conceivable expert was interviewed for opinions and ideas.

The entire project was kept completely secret from the media, public, and even the studio who had recently green-lighted Kubrick for any new movie after his international success with Dr. Strangelove. Of course, there were plenty of snags with 2001 along with the triumphs and lessons learned, and author Benson carefully details them all: 

• 2001 was filmed using 70mm film, a huge medium meant to replicate the new, popular Cinerama technique without requiring multiple cameras.

• To find the right music for the score, Kubrick gave an assistant the equivalent of $5,000 to buy a wide selection of modern classical records (selling for about $2 each). The assistant returned with "his station wagon so jammed with vinyl it sagged visibly."

• HAL's final song, "Daisy Bell," was chosen in homage to the first song ever sung by a computer, recorded in 1962 in the Bell Labs;

• Stars on an inky space background were created using a solution of military turpentine and specks of paint flicked into the mix. Fumes were overpowering. A team of "blobbers" was hired to paint over minute white stars on each frame of film to hide unwanted stars;

• The original 12' tall by 2' thick monolith was created of clear plastic, but didn't film well so the extremely expensive piece was discarded. The new, equally costly black monolith had a surface so highly polished that it constantly showed dusty hand prints during the Dawn of Man and moon scenes;

• The rotating gravity centrifuge wheel of Discovery was 35' high and needed a new, specially-reinforced floor in the studio to support it and the cameras;

• Space helmets, to maintain realism, had no holes to release the stuntman's exhaled carbon dioxide . Filming with helmets was limited to 15 minutes or when the actor passed out, whichever came first;

• Kubrick, a former photojournalist for Look magazine, took Polaroid photos continually throughout the filming to get an idea of what a 3-D scene would look like on the final flat movie screen;

• Vivian Kubrick, the director's four-year-old daughter, played a key on-screen role as Heywood Floyd's daughter who was called on video phone from the lunar transport;

• Gary Lockwood, one of the lead actors, gambled so much with the crew that one man stopped showing up for work because he owed Lockwood so much money;

• Moonwatcher, the man-ape who leads the cluster of apes to fight, was played by a famous mime, Don Richtner, who choreographed all the Dawn of Man scenes;

• Arthur C. Clarke wrote and continually edited a voice-over narration that would help explain some of the abstract scenes and plots, but at the very last minute of editing the film, Kubrick scrapped the idea, leaving just silence;

The book is jam-packed with similar stories, scenes, equipment, conversations, dreams, and frustrations presented chronologically by author Benson. Space Odyssey chronicles the talented engineers, cinematographers, animators, and actors who, without the use of computers, over the period of four years, created the film. Benson even recounts the disastrous New York premier for critics (many of whom walked out of the screening) as well as the subsequent triumph for public movie-goers (who lined up for hours to watch and re-watch the film). 

In short, I loved this and devoured it every chance I got to read it. It is the kind of book you make time for, guard your quiet and privacy while reading, and talk the ears off of anyone around you as you re-tell an anecdote or quote, and in general sing its praises.

Of course, it is most highly recommended. And since this is the fiftieth anniversary of the film's release, I get to see the movie next week in its original 70mm glory. Can't wait.

Two possibilities exist: either we're alone in the universe, or we're not. Both are equally terrifying. - Arthur C Clarke

It is extremely difficult to represent any alien on the screen without either scaring, or amusing, an audience. But unless you show something, people will feel cheated. - Stanley Kubrick

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Weir, Andy. The Martian  

One astronaut is accidentlly left behind as dead on Mars when his crew blasts off. Now he must use his wits to survive until someone realizes he is alive and can send a rescue mission months in the future. Excellent. (previously reviewed here)

Bradbury, Ray. The Martian Chronicles  

Series of chronological-set short stories about the populating, dominance, and eventual fall of Earth explorers on the planet Mars. (previously reviewed here)

Marilyn Monroe: The Biography

Spoto, Donald. Marilyn Monroe: The Biography. New York: HarperCollins 1993. Print

First Sentences:

Marilyn Monroe's maternal great-grandfather was Tilford Marion Hogan, born 1851 in Illinois to farmer George Hogan and his wife Sarah Owens, not long after their emigration from Kentucky. 

By the age of twelve, Tilford was six feet tall and reed-thin, but strong enough for rough farm labor.

Description:

After recently reading the brilliant novel, Blonde, the fictionalized biography of Marilyn Monroe by Joyce Carol Oates, I really wanted to find out the true story of Monroe's life. While Blonde is a highly-detailed, compelling and believable account of the actress' life, it does mix true incidents and people in Monroe's life with events and characters created entirely by Oates. I was curious to separate fact from fiction in the life of this fascinating actress.

So I turned to Marilyn Monroe: The Biography by Donald Spoto. Spoto is the respected author of biographies for Audrey Hepburn, Alfred Hitchcock, Joan of Arc, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, Joan Crawford, and Grace Kelly among others. In this 700-page Monroe biography, he has plenty of space to present data from 35,000 previously sealed files including Monroe's contracts, diaries, poems, and personal letters. Also Spoto digs into numerous interviews with Monroe's professional colleagues, friends, and family as well as explored news and publicity articles. He skilfully shows how each item and person affected her actions and decisions, giving me what I was looking for: the real Norma Jeane Baker/Marilyn Monroe story.

Monroe did have a difficult childhood. Her mother, Gladys, unable to both work and care for a baby, gave little Norma Jeane (the spelling was later changed to "Jean" in homage to Jean Harlow) to an orphanage and later to foster families and distant relatives. After eight years, Gladys reclaimed Norma Jeane, but due to her work hours, first-grade Norma Jeane was often sent alone to movie theaters to spend the day. There she was introduced to Hollywood actors and films, dreaming that someday she would become a star like Jean Harlow.

Monroe's mother was soon after placed in a "rest home" for her depression and schizophrenia where she would spend the rest of her life. Norma Jeane again was placed with foster families and distant relatives from first grade through her high school years. With this background, it isn't hard to understand her lifelong quest for family, security, and acceptance.

Monroe was first noticed in a wartime munitions plant where she worked while her first husband (who she had married at age 16 to escape returning to the orphanage) was at sea. David Conover, a photographer, shooting publicity shots of women in wartime factories, zeroed in on her raw beauty, shooting her and then circulating her image internationally in military magazines. She soon quit her factory job and took up modeling for Conover, shooting cheesecake photos for camera magazines, advertisements, catalogs, and calendars. Her brown hair was bleached blonde to show up better in photos. According to Conover after their first meeting:

There was a luminous quality to her face...a fragility combined with astonishing vibrancy.

From there, it was only a small step to her first screen test for Darryl Zanuck who gave her a small role. The cinematographer, Leon Shamroy, who shot her silent film test recalled:

This girl will be another Harlow! Her natural beauty plus her inferiority complex gave her a look of mystery....This girl had something I hadn't seen since silent pictures. She had a kind of fantastic beauty like Gloria Swanson...and she got sex on a piece of film like Jean Harlow. Every frame of the test radiate sex...she was creating effects visually. She was showing us she could sell emotions in pictures.

A standard contract was signed and her name changed by the studio to "Marilyn Monroe" since MM initials were considered interesting and lucky. And so a career began. 

Spoto carefully tells the details of what follows in her life with the film industry, with celebrities, and with prescription drugs. Her search for love and a child led her to marriages with powerful, confident men like Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller. Each failed when her needs or his expectations were not met or if they threatened her film career. Her drug life was started and supported by the studios who sent a special doctor to provide her sleeping pills or stimulants whenever something was needed to get her to the set. 

I was also fascinated to hear new insights into Monroe's mysterious death by drug overdose. What Spoto points out is that Monroe and DiMaggio had reconciled from their divorce, and were deep into planning a second marriage. To Spoto, it seems unusual that Monroe would take her own life at a time when friends felt she was happy in her life (after signing to do a new film) and with her future with Joe. Spoto gives no explanation behind her death, but offers several possible scenarios. Nothing was even hinted at regarding any John F. Kennedy connection as was presented by Oates in the fictional Blonde.

I feel both Oates' Blonde and Spoto's Marilyn Monroe are equally fascinating and compelling. The truth of one proves as interesting as the fiction from the other. Reading about the people of the film industry and the incidents behind the creation of movies is compelling, especially when revealing the life of such a complex, troubled, and brilliant star like Marilyn Monroe. Highest recommendation.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Oates, Joyce Carol. Blonde: A Novel  

Fictionalized, but nevertheless riveting account of Monroe's life. Although many of the characters a made up, the actions only imagined by the author, it is a highly engrossing, detailed, and believable re-telling of the people, films, emotions, and life of the famous actress. (previously reviewed here)

Wilson, Victoria. A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940  

Absolutely one of the best books to read for learning about Barbara Stanwyck and her rise to film stardom. Fantastic, details stories behind the movies, stars, and creators of these films as well. (previously reviewed here)