Goldwyn
A Biography
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Goldwyn
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Narrated by:
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Roddy McDowall
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By:
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A. Scott Berg
About this listen
In 1895, teenager Schmuel Goldfisz left the Warsaw ghetto to become Samuel Goldwyn, one of the most acclaimed producers in Hollywood history. Among Goldwyn' s films are such classics as The Pride of the Yankees, Wuthering Heights, and The Bishop' s Wife— all famous for conveying the "Goldwyn Touch."
In this detailed biography, acclaimed author A. Scott Berg recounts the fascinating life of one of the most colorful personalities of Hollywood' s Golden Age. From his escape to the United States at the turn of the century to his Academy Award-winning triumph with The Best Years of Our Lives, Goldwyn' s story would have played well in one of his own films. Here is a very special look at Hollywood and one of its leading figures— as read by Hollywood icon Roddy McDowell.
©1989 A. Scott Berg (P)1989 Phoenix Books, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
"A. Scott Berg's big, rich, graceful biography of Sam Goldwyn brings the 'movie book' to a new rarified plateau.... The book proves worthy of what would be, in context, the highest praise of all: It has the Goldwyn Touch." (The Washington Post Book World)
We don’t even learn what the Producer really does.
There’s a short allusion to the fact that he (Sam) made thousands of key decisions about all his movies, but this is undermined by a more concerted attempt to afdiem him as uncultured and uncreative.
Roddy McDowell reads well enough but chooses to impersonate what I suspect is a reasonable approximation of Goldwyn actual voice (because Rodsy would probably have know it and there seems no other reason to fashion such a curious timbre) but it’s very distracting and feels like the action of playground bullies (to exaggerate an aspect of a persons speech to ridicule them).
There are few if any stories about the genesis of his movies, and with the exception of Stella Dallas and Best Years of Our Lives, no insight into the process of movie making at all, much less the specific contributions of The Producer.
An interesting question is posed about ‘what is the signature of a Sam Goldwyn movie’, but the apparent absence of an obvious trope or stylistic quirk, is then used to suggest he brought nothing to his own films and perhaps they are just a collection of other peoples successes (Directors).
I say this, see his very long list of wonderful films and make your own mind up about him from those, what’s in here is rather petty and small. Imagine hearing all the kids who knew Churchill as a ten year old complaining about his personality traits and being asked to judge the man, knowing he led Britain through WW2 to victory, but being given no clue as to how he did it.
I’m still watching and enjoying many his films, as are many millions of people, and I say that’s enough.
Empty bio of a man whose legacy is his work
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