Moving Pictures: Memories Of A Hollywood Prince (2003) - Plot & Excerpts
Budd Schulberg tells us what it was like to grow up along with the movie business. Born in 1914, just as his father's career was beginning to blossom, Budd experiences the ups and downs of life among the "elite;" the fluid marriage contracts, the trysts and the toll these take on the families is described from his perspective as a teenager watching his parents' marriage through the filter of youth. There are sequences in Moving Pictures that detract from the story at hand - one full chapter is devoted to Budd's love for racing pigeons and for boxing and, frankly, it's dull reading. I spent that time wanting him to get back to Paramount, Gary Cooper, and "that Sidney woman." Only if you do other reading about Schulberg do you know that he was a boxing correspondent later in life, so the passages devoted to this sport seem incongruous and unnecessary to those of us who know little about him. Speaking of "that Sidney woman," it's amazing to me that this book was released while she was still around. Schulberg pulls no punches in his animosity toward the woman he blamed for his parents' problems, and though the book comes out about 50 years after the events it depicts, you can still feel the anger seeping through the pages.
What do You think about Moving Pictures: Memories Of A Hollywood Prince (2003)?
