A detailed and hilarious look at the art and life of a legendary Hollywood filmmaker

With one of the longest and most controversial careers in Hollywood history, Blake Edwards is a phoenix of movie directors, full of hubris, ambition, and raving comic chutzpah. His rambunctious filmography remains an artistic force on par with Hollywood's greatest comic directors: Lubitsch, Sturges, Wilder. Like Wilder, Edwards's propensity for hilarity is double-helixed with pain, and in films like Breakfast at Tiffany's, Days of Wine and Roses, and even The Pink Panther, we can hear him off-screen, laughing in the dark. And yet, despite those enormous successes, he was at one time considered a Hollywood villain. After his marriage to Julie Andrews, Edwards's Darling Lili nearly sunk the both of them and brought Paramount Studios to its knees. Almost overnight, Blake became an industry pariah, which ironically fortified his sense of satire, as he simultaneously fought the Hollywood tide and rode it. Employing keen visual analysis, meticulous research, and troves of interviews and production files, Sam Wasson delivers the first complete account of one of the maddest figures Hollywood has ever known.

Author: Sam Wasson
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Published: 10/01/2009
Series: Wesleyan Film
Pages: 370
Weight: 1.56lbs
Size: 9.13h x 6.34w x 1.21d
ISBN: 9780819569158


Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 10/23/2009 pg. 19
Choice 03/01/2010

About the Author

SAM WASSON is currently working on a book about Breakfast at Tiffany's. He lives in Los Angeles.