October 2, 2002

While it's true that the viewing of movies represents the ultimate pleasure for the film aficionado, running a close second comes reading about the lives of the people who labor to create those on-screen visions. Over the years there have been thousands of tomes written detailing the lives associated with the making of films, and here we'll dig through that daunting pile and select a few gems worthy of perusal. So let's go to the library, then, and pull some cinema tales off the shelves just for the fun of it.

My Wicked, Wicked Ways - Errol Flynn

On-screen, the dashing Errol Flynn played a succession of swashbuckling rogues and heroes. Off-screen, he led the kind of wild Hollywood life that every red-blooded American male secretly wished was his. Bedding starlets, drinking madly and hobnobbing with the jet set, this story of the quintessential fast-living lifestyle is exuberant and brisk. By all accounts, however, the tales told here should be taken with a few pounds of salt; it seems Flynn's memory for detail by the time he wrote this was fairly well impaired, and some of the accounts given here may never have happened or perhaps involved other people. But who really cares about the details?

Ecstasy and Me - Hedy Lamarr

This autobiography is pretty spectacular, even if the author did eventually sue the ghostwriters years later, claiming that certain things within are untrue. What a life; nude scenes in 1933, escaping from a Nazi industrialist husband, an alleged lesbian experience or two, Hollywood stardom, and the creation of a patent with avant-garde composer George Antheil for a system of frequency hopping that is the basis for cell phone communications to this day. Now that's leaving your mark on the world.

Chuck Amuck - Chuck Jones

Here's the great autobiography of the man behind so many of the classic Warner Bros. cartoons that you can still watch even though you've seen them a thousand times. Tamer than our previous two autobios, this humorous and breezy book still delivers the goods, and it's accompanied by plenty of great drawings by the master himself. A fascinating look behind the scenes of the animation industry during one of the great periods in its history.

Each Man in His Time - Raoul Walsh

Here's an autobiography that is probably best described as a pack of lies, but that doesn't stop it from being a blast to read. The director of such tough-guy pictures as White Heat and The Naked and the Dead here spins yarns about his amazingly long life in Hollywood, from his days as an actor (he appears in D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation) through his 164 film-long directorial career, which lasted until the 1960s. Sure, all that Pancho Villa stuff is a fabrication, but it makes for a good story.

Step Right Up! I'm Gonna Scare the Pants Off America - William Castle

Since he was the great schlockmeister behind such brilliant gimmicks as Emergo, Percepto and The Coward's Corner, it should come as no surprise that the autobiography of William Castle is an entertaining romp. Thrill as you hear about Castle's brilliant showmanship! Laugh as he tells tales the likes of which you've never heard! Flee in terror as you realize that today's meretricious marketing pales in comparison to yesterday's fun-filled innocence!

Flying Through Hollywood by the Seat of My Pants - Sam Arkoff

Yet another life story of a B-movie maven, Arkoff was the producer behind cinematic classics like I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Invasion of the Saucer Men and High School Hellcats, among others. The genius that created American International Pictures tells here the story of his B-movie empire in all its shoddy glory. Full of great anecdotes about the movie biz, this book gives a great picture of the cheesier side of Hollywood from the '50s on.

How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime - Roger Corman

One of the aforementioned Arkoff's great assets was a cheapie film director by the name of Roger Corman, a low-budget wonder who would direct schlock like Attack of the Crab Monsters and It Conquered the World for the studio. Here he tells his own version of the AIP days as well as his later efforts, and the result is an amusing and informative glance at the heady Golden Age of monster moviemaking.

The Films in My Life - François Truffaut

This one has a slightly different approach to autobiography, for instead of telling the story of the great French director's life, it collects writings on film that he did over the years, and the result is a look at some of the cinema that had great influence on his own work. A wealth of insights on the films of many directors, including Hitchcock, John Ford, Orson Welles and Jules Dassin, the whole is an important examination of the medium by one of the cinema's finest technicians.

Who the Devil Made It - Peter Bogdanovich

This last book up for discussion consists of 16 lengthy interviews that Bogdanovich did with directors, including Fritz Lang, Howard Hawks, Edgar G. Ulmer and George Cukor. The result is extremely valuable, as these recollections from some of Hollywood's greatest artists offer many insights into their work as well as being interesting anecdotally. The 800+ page length of this one might be slightly daunting but don't let it scare you off; it's easily digested in smaller chunks and nearly every page of this one is worthwhile in some manner. A lasting tribute to film that stands today as one of the great testaments on some of Hollywood's most brilliant directors.

View other columns by Chris Hyde