Hollywood Talks Turkey: The Screen's Greatest Flops

by Doug McClelland

A selection of comments on film failures by those who made and starred in them. For example, Joan Crawford on "Reunion in France": "if there is an afterlife and I am to be punished for my sins, this is one of the pictures they'll make me see over and over again".

300 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1990

Reviews

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very entertaining bathroom read that could have been a valuable reference tool if the author had just compiled an index. As it is, each hap-hazardly assigned chapter contains several dozen quotes or interviews from film people, in alphabetical order. Each chapter may contain information about the same movie (I think Arch of Triumph shows up in every single chapter), but there's no easy way to compare and contrast the various takes on the film by the people involved. In addition to this, it has a well-selected group of film stills, just randomly placed throughout the book, but somehow *never* on the same page as a reminiscence about that film! Considering how often Arch of Triumph is mentioned, it's almost like they had to *plan* not to have the two stills from the page anywhere near an actual reference to the film.
These may seem like petty complaints, but considering that the about half the book is compiled from wonderful interviews the author did with people who were rarely (if ever) interviewed, the simple inclusion of an index would've changed this book's evaluation from "amusing" to "invaluable."
If this were from some fan press, it would be less startling, but it's from Faber & Faber who *always* have indexes! What could have happened?
I may just have to create an index for it and post it online.