How to Succeed in Hollywood Without Really Trying P.S. - You Can't!

by Melville Shavelson

Mel Shavelson is one of Hollywood's triple-threat Writer-Director-Producers, and a two-time Academy Award Nominee for his original screenplays, which he also directed. He served three terms as President of the Writers Guild of America, West, and is the recipient of its highest honor, the Laurel Award for Screen Writing. He has written, alone or in collaboration, over thirty-five feature motion pictures, directed twelve of them, and created for television two Emmy Award-winning series. He is the author of two novels and four works of non-fiction, including the NY Times best-seller, Don't Shoot, It's Only Me, this last in collaboration with Bob Hope. Among the stars he has directed in feature films are - in alphabetical order, please! - Lucille Ball, Yul Brynner, James Cagney, Vittorio De Sica, Angie Dickinson, Kirk Douglas, Robert Duvall, Henry Fonda, Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Barbara Harris, Charlton Heston, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, Jack Lemmon, Sophia Loren, Paul Newman, Lee Remick, Frank Sinatra, John Wayne, and Joanne Woodward. Among the films he both wrote and directed are Houseboat, The Seven Little Foys, The Five Pennies, It Started in Naples, On the Double, A New Kind of Love, Cast a Giant Shadow, The War Between Men and Women, and Yours, Mine and Ours. Recently he served on the faculty of USC's Master of Professional Writing Program. He has often said, "There are a lot of good things about growing older - and I wish I could remember what they were."

237 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2007

Reviews

[Rob Smith, Jr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a funny book full of tales of wrestling with Hollywood. The latter is pretty typical for a Hollywood book. Difference is, as others try, this one is funny.

This book does have a trouble throughout the entire book of very rarely noting the date or even year any instance happened. The reader is stuck having to figure out just what decade instances are helping. Not helping is Shavelson often bringing up flashbacks and then continuing the linear history. That's when it's tough to tell what time period he is writing about. Thus, the overall planning of the book is a bit slipshod. Luckily Shavelson is a good writer to carry through the troubles.

Shavelson revels that he can write whatever he wants due to, basically, self-publishing this book. That begs the question as to why he skips past many of his accomplishments. I'd guess this was his way of avoiding whatever it was he wanted to avoid. Those of us that knows he skips books and movies he worked on will feel short changed. Per chance this is a problem I have with Shavelson films. His films tend to be drawn out too long and seem to miss scenes to keep the film together.

A real plus is a very good index.

Bottomline: I recommend this book. 6 out of 10 points.