Gaily Gaily

by Ben Hecht

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

Mass Market Paperback

First published August 16, 1963

About the author

Ben Hecht, an American, wrote short stories, novels, such as Erik Dorn in 1921, dramas, including The Front Page in 1928 with Charles MacArthur, and screenplays, such as Gunga Din in 1938.

Ben Hecht, a journalist, directed and produced movies. A journalist in his youth, he went to 35 books and entertained most people. He received credits alone or in collaboration for seventy films.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Hecht

Reviews

[Mabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never read a book by Ben Hecht that I didn't enjoy and this one is no exception. It covers his early years as a newspaperman in Chicago, and exciting years they were. Newspapermen were definitely a different breed of cat in those days---more creative and a lot more fun. You realize that all those madcap reporters from The Front Page by MacArthur and Hecht and many other Hollywood films of the 1930s were taken from reality. They were tough, and absolutely in love with their chosen profession. So many talented playwrights, novelists, poets, biographers, screenwriters, motion picture directors and producers, and very successful ones at that, came from their ranks: Hecht himself, and his playwriting and screenwriting parter Charlie MacArthur; Herman Mankiewicz; the great Damon Runyon, Gene Fowler, Nunnally Johnson, Carl Sandberg, and many more. They were an unruly, adventurous lot and very entertaining. Most of them became part of the Algonquin set. They tended to be heavy drinkers, so a lot of them died before their time. A delightful movie was made of this in the 60s starring Melina Mercouri and Beau Bridges.

[Dayva · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this back in high school in the 70's.
Hecht ability to pull you into the stories he lived, is amazing. It's such a good read I'm going to pick it up again.

[Aaron]

Mentioned in a Maureen Dowd column 10/21/09

[Kathleen Wierzbicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think he was my ancestor

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hecht was a giant of the popular arts, penning a plethora of plays, movies & books in the course of his long life. This book, written near the end of that life, looks back at his days as a teenager in Chicago, to which he ran away from home to become a newspaperman in the early years of the 20th century. A lot of entertaining rough & tumble stories here (with the occasional walk-on by some universally famous character), that bristle with the energy & verve that can only come with that exciting & exploratory time in life. A far distant & dangerous time for the city as well, with all manner of violence, & a bit of a shock to me was the centrality of the gallows to many of the tales, & to the urban existence in general I suppose; a (literal) fixture in the mechanics of "justice" back then. Some valuable insight here into the man who took those experiences & forged them into perhaps his most famous work, The Front Page. The best of these pieces are the ones that were published originally in Playboy; others written later, perhaps to fill out the book, veer into grumpy old man territory, giving those pages an unwelcome bitter tinge. On the whole a sidesplitting, surprising, sad & sensitive series of vignettes.

[Ronald Schulz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was enthralled by the movie version that depicted a ribald Chicago of the prior century, having just been arrested in Chicago during the radical unrest of 1969. It warmed my heart and encouraged me during my seventeenth year as I tried to buck the system and spent a few months in a mental hospital. Years later I finally read the book, which is, of course, quite different from the movie. That's Hollywood, like almost all books made into movies, they become different creations. The book probes a bit deeper into events and characters, which are portrayed very differently in the movie. I loved them both for their separate merits.
For the love of Chicago please read the book and watch the movie too. Don't overthink it, just enjoy and savor the flavor of each.