Wednesday, September 9, 2009

From the Shelves of the Paco Library



Combine the keen eye of the historian with an in-depth interest in movies and a fine sense of humor, and what do you get? George MacDonald Fraser’s The Hollywood History of the World, that’s what. In this loving tribute to movies that sought to bring history to the silver screen, Fraser employs the amazing research skills that he brought to bear in the Flashman novels, and shows how the films stack up against the historical record.

Fraser is not writing simply as a well-read film enthusiast; he authored the screenplays for the Three Musketeers movies that came out in the 1970’s, which featured an all-star cast (Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, Raquel Welch, Faye Dunaway and Charlton Heston, among others), and are easily the most entertaining film versions of the Dumas novels, as well as being among the most evocative cinematic representations of 17th-century France (Fraser describes his own ventures into scriptwriting thusly: “an exhilarating experience akin to being whirled into a multi-coloured maelstrom from which one emerges, damp and dazed, clutching a cheque”). His scriptwriting efforts may well have helped Fraser better understand and appreciate the plight of an earlier scriptwriter who had worked on one of the biblical epics:
Going through the script, it seemed to him [Alan Badel] that unjustifiable liberties had been taken with Holy Writ; the words of Christ, in fact, had been rewritten. Badel complained to the director, high words ensued, minions ran to and fro, the head of the studio (one of the celebrated Hollywood moguls) was summoned, and finally the scriptwriter was asked to explain himself. And according to Babel, the poor soul leafed nervously through the script, compared it with a Bible, coughed, shuffled, and finally said: “Well, you see, Alan, we thought Jesus sounded just a bit cocky in there.”

The book is helpfully divided into chapters that tackle specific sub-genres (e.g., “The Ancient World”, “Tudors and Sea Dogs”, “New World, Old West”), and is illustrated with hundreds of black-and-white photographs. As you would expect, Hollywood History is a wonderful mixture of facts, first-hand observations and lively impressions. Here is Fraser comparing and contrasting two towering pillars of the Western:
There are two Western hero types, the John Wayne and the Randolph Scott, and the difference is marked. Scott is the old-fashioned ideal, quiet, slightly grim, self-possessed, eyes on the horizon, unfailingly courteous, touching his hat-brim to ladies and calling them “ma’am” (he could even remove a note from Marlene Dietrich’s garter with perfect good breeding), meeting trouble with a poker face and a lightning draw. Was he ever heard to swear? I doubt it. Wayne was a harder article altogether, a rugged expansionist with a short fuse, given to strong language and physical violence; even when he was complimenting a school-marm on her cooking he did it with a deep-breathing deliberation which suggested that he was preparing to go out and wreck a saloon, preferably with Scott inside it…Of the two, I have no doubt that Wayne’s was a commoner type in the Old West, but both, being arch-types, had their originals.

If you like movies and George MacDonald Fraser, you can’t possibly go wrong with this book.

12 comments:

Boy on a bike said...

The only book I've read of his is "quartered safe out here", which was brilliant. Sounds like I will be looking for this one too.

Paco said...

B on a B: Quartered is, in my opinion, one of the best of the many WWII memoirs.

Anonymous said...

I remain firm in my belief that GMF was one of the half dozen best historial novelists of the twentieth century and of course concur with Paco's opinion about his military memoirs. It's a surprise then that his film writing was so dire. Courtesy of IMDB I find that he has the following screenwriting credits:
• The Return of the Musketeers (1989)
• Casanova (1987) (TV)
• Red Sonja (1985)
• Octopussy (1983)
• Crossed Swords (1977)
• Royal Flash (1975)
• The Four Musketeers (1974)
• The Three Musketeers


I think he also had an uncredited role in the appalling sequel to the Guns of Navarone. None of these would you bother renting even on the wettest afternoon. The best of a very bad lot is Octopussy but it has all the defects of the Roger Moore Bond mid 80s films - overlong and overblown.

cac said...

Anonymous was me - still trying to work this internet comment thingy out. For some reason my Personal Account Crediting Operation doesn't seem to work. The nice man in the fedora and the brown pinstripes assured me it would work perfectly or my money back, subject to one or two minor conditions of course.

Paco said...

I think the Musketeers movies were very good.

cac said...

I haven't seen the musketeer films for a while although I don't remember them as being cinematic masterpieces but will obviously need to have another look at them given Paco's endorsement.

I do though stand behind my assertion that Red Sonja, Force Ten from Naverone, Octopussy and Royal Flash (this last last one a constant disappointment - the only Flashman to be filmed, the book's author working on the screenplay and yet such a disappointment) are scurvy works that deserve to stand along side the later Police Academy sequels.

Paco said...

cac: I won't argue with you about the non-Musketeer movies. I, too, have always been disappointed that none of the Flashman novels were made into decent movies.

It would be interesting to do a roundup of screenplays that were written by famous authors. I know Faulkner, Fitzgerald and Waugh tried their hands at it (not with tremendous success, as I recall, but I could be wrong about that).

richard mcenroe said...

The Salkind Bros. Three Musketeers movies, scripted by George McDonald Frasier and directed by Richard Lester, are an unqualified gem and if you don't own or Netflix them you should do it immediately.

Aside from an absolutely stellar cast with not a casting misstep in the bunch (There IS no other Athos but Oliver Reed), I always loved them for the revelation that European fencing was a sophisticated, elegant and highly evolved martial art... usually practiced while drunk and wearing bucket-top cavalry boots in the mud.

But Charlton Heston as Richeliu? Christopher Lee as Rochefort? Faye Dunaway as Milady DeWinter? You have to see these movies.

Minicapt said...

John Masters, in "Bugles and a Tiger", has a passage where he describes how movies of the mysterious East played in the theatres of the East. Apparently, the costume people were not experienced with either Google or Wikipedia.

Cheers

richard mcenroe said...

BTW, Paco, if you like Frasier's historicals, you may like Arturo Perez-Reverte's Captain Alatriste novels.

Paco said...

Richard: I have fairly recently come across the Alatriste novels, and they are, indeed, very good.

richard mcenroe said...

There was a feature film of the Alatriste works made in Spain, but they went the Master and Commander route and cut and pasted from all the books.

But Vigo Mortenssen makes a great Alatriste.

I have a copy, if you speak Spanish or can read Swedish subtitles.