The only name that doesn't belong above is that of Orson Welles', for if Citizen Kane was not only his greatest movie but is still as fresh as the day that it opened, he had nothing to do with "The Shooting Script" which, along with takes from it, and notes by Gary Carey, constitute three quarters of this book. The first quarter (which appeared in The New Yorker as "Raising Kane") is Pauline Kael's interpretive essay on the movies of the '30's, as honestly antiarty as she is, and on this 'shallow' but great masterpiece which appeared before this country began to "hate itself." Mankiewicz, one of those fabulous originals long since forgotten, scripted it in plaster casts (he drank as well as gambled compulsively) and Miss Kael's piece if nothing else is restitutive and also recalls an era when leonine figures like Hearst and Welles (Mankiewicz on Welles: "There but for the grace of God goes God") towered above a simpler landscape. Miss Kael's piece is, expectably, spankingly entertaining as well as informative and the dual project will have its new-old appeal.
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1971
ISBN: 0413582906
Page Count: 314
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1971
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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