Who the Devil Made It

The title comes from an exchange between filmmakers Howard Hawks and Peter Bogdanovich. Asked which directors he preferred, Hawks replied, "I liked almost anybody that made you realize who in the devil was making the picture." Hawks is talking about distinctive directorial personality, about movies that bear the stamp of a filmmaker's character. This book collects 16 interviews Bogdanovich conducted with some of the best directors working in the golden age of Hollywood. All of them, from the famous--Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, Chuck Jones, and Hawks himself--to the lesser known but equally wonderful Leo McCarey, George Cukor, Josef von Sternberg, and Edgar G. Ulmer--had a remarkable and inimitable style. In their interviews, they provide insight into their craft and a view of Hollywood's golden age that is informative, anecdotal, and often hysterically funny.

Noted film director (The Last Picture Show, 1971) and author (This Is Orson Welles,

LJ 11/15/92) Bogdanovich here consolidates 16 interviews with a very representative selection of significant cinema pioneers. Bogdanovich begins with a lengthy introduction in which he lays out his credentials, provides an overview of cinema history, and discusses the pervading influence of Ernst Lubitsch (d. 1947). Each director receives a career analysis followed by the interview and concluding with vital statistics and a complete filmography. As a film historian, Bogdanovich knew which questions to ask. Except for the previously unpublished Robert Aldrich and George Cukor interviews, these pieces originally appeared in periodicals, monographs, and books dating as far back as 1960. The books are out of print, and some of the periodicals are hard to find, making this compendium very valuable, even essential, for film collections.?Kim R. Holston, American Inst. for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters Lib., Malvern, Pa.

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