Mr. Skylark Book

I read this book because Schulberg wrote two of my all time favorite movies (on the Waterfront and A Face in the Crowd) and because I wanted to hear the story of his testimony to the HUAC from his own perspective, but Moving Pictures turned out to be much more than two great movies and a slice of American anti-communism. Schulberg begins his book with the story of his father, who was an important executive in the earliest days of moviemaking. Schulberg tells the dramatic tale of how a group of second generation Jewish immigrants rose from hard scrabble beginnings to invent the movie business. When he was still a child Schulberg met Hollywood legends like Clara Bow Louis B. Mayer and he has interesting stories to tell about them. He was a child of privilege who suffered from a brutal stutter and bullying at school while also enjoying wealth and the opportunity to hobnob with the likes of Frank Capra and Gary Cooper.

It’s a good thing, by the way, that I liked all this early Hollywood stuff, because the book ends long before Elia Kazan comes into the picture, and HUAC remains a nightmare reserved for the future.

As I write this the top review for this book is a tepid three star job where the reviewer complains about the sections of the book dealing with Schulberg raising pigeons and being a fan of boxing, but I was interested in those sections too. As I read them I thought, “Ah, this is why Brando raises pigeons in On the Waterfront” and “Oh, this is where he got the plot for The Harder they Fall.” Plus, I didn’t know anything about raising pigeons and found it to be surprisingly interesting. And boxing was one of the important connections between Schulberg and his father and I don’t know how he could leave boxing out of a book that is largely about that relationship. The father and son’s support for Jewish fighters gives insight into the way ethnic pride could still be manifested even by second and third generation immigrants who had lost their faith. Plus the image of the smoking hot Lupe Velez cheering on her blood-spattered countryman from his corner is good one.