Book description
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.
"With this title, Wasson fulfills the goal of the 'Wesleyan Film'
series, which aims to produce books that are 'rigorous, critical, and
accessible both to academics and to lay readers with a serious interest
in film.' The study is a pleasure to read, primarily because the author
is a fan and intimate with the details of the thematic content and style
of Edwards's films. ... Recommended (for) lower-division undergraduates
through faculty; general readers."--S. Vander Closter, Choice SAM
WASSON is currently working on a book about Breakfast at Tiffany's. He
lives in Los Angeles.
