FILM FLAM: ESSAYS ON HOLLYWOOD
Larry McMurtry
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987
159 pp., $16.95
Larry McMurtry is a man singularly well qualified to write about Hollywood and its inner workings. His first novel, back in the late fifties, was made - to his astonishment - into the motion picture, Hud, the Martin Ritt film starring Paul Newman. His third was The Last Picture Show, which by now is practically an American film classic. His sixth novel became Terms of Endearment, winning its share of Academy Awards.
McMurtry is doubly blessed as his novels have become in time successful in their own right. His most recent work, Texasville, is sitting high on the fiction best-seller list, while the preceding book, Lonesome Dove, is a best-selling paperback. The critics look on him with favor. He is taken seriously, is not considered a writer of schlock. And success and the very considerably monetary return on his work have made him neither pompous nor arrogant.
Comfortable with Hollywood
McMurtry's introduction to this collection of essays, seventeen of which originally appeared in American Film, is disarmingly engaging. Even the title, Film Flam, is an unassuming play on "flim flam," a gentle notice to the reader not to think he is being too serious about his subject. Calling novels "the marriages and great loves of one's imagination," McMurtry views these essays as literary "quick tricks and one-night stands, the offspring of opportunity rather than passion." Yet he finds to his surprise - and the reader will find to his delight - that these essays share, as he nicely phrases it, the "comfortable perspective of a screenwriter who has not caught any of the fevers that rage through the Hollywood flats and the Hollywood hills."
McMurtry, unlike a number of Hollywood writers before him - William Faulkner, Nathanael West, F. Scott Fitzgerald - is not embittered or cynical or self-loathing about his West Coast experiences. He is grateful to the good fortune Hollywood has brought him, and philosophical about its less congenial side. This set of mind infuses the book. The reader is grateful for his sanguine spirit. It's refreshing to have someone who made money in Hollywood not moaning or whimpering about selling out.
What is singularly attractive about the book is McMurtry's voice. He manages to be informed and informative, while recounting his experiences in the high-powered reaches of tinseltown in an utterly unaffected way. He gives a behind-the-scenes account of what it's like working in Hollywood, dealing with big-name directors and power actors. He projects in these pages the image of a good friend who is telling you honestly and entertainingly about some pretty unusual experiences in that mythic enclave in West L.A., but who never tries to score points about his fancy friends and high times when you've never left the old hometown. Take, for example, McMurtry's description of his first encounter with that magic world:
When Hollywood entered my life; I was sitting in a tiny room in Fort Worth eating meat loaf. The phone rang, and I was informed that some people I had never heard of had just
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