Reviews for The Other Side of the Moon

The average rating for The Other Side of the Moon based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-11-30 00:00:00 Anthony Sideli 'David Niven The Other Side Of The Moon' a biography by Sheridan Morley In general, books have to be read according to their contemporary style or timeless poetics. Irrespective of the writing, sometimes just the content of a book justifies the hours frittered away in a self world, ignoring the bleats of mobile phone to be charged or dishwasher to be emptied. When a book announces it will tell 'the other side' of a famous life story, filling in the bits left out by the author of no less than two autobiographies (both read and enjoyed), then there is a book screaming out to be read. But woe betide such a book that lets you down! David Niven was a Hollywood actor, a British star; very well known during his five decades of picture-making and still remembered to this day, though he died thirty years back. He wasn't the most remarkable of actors and some of the ninety films he made were not what they promised to be ('Bonnie Prince Charlie', 1948), commercial flops ('Oh Men! Oh Women!' 1957) or just plain bizarre ('Casino Royale', 1967). The list of his blockbusters, though, tells of a career without parallel. Check out the movies you've either seen or heard of: 'The Charge of the Light Brigade', 1936; 'The Prisoner of Zenda', 1937; 'The Dawn Patrol', 1938; 'Wuthering Heights', 'Raffles', 1939; 'The First of the Few', 1942; 'Stairway To Heaven' 1945; 'Around The World In Eighty Days' 1956; 'Separate Tables', 1958 (for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor); 'The Guns of Navarone', 1961; 'The Pink Panther', 1964; 'Death On The Nile', 1978, and 'The Curse Of The Pink Panther', 1982. He was also one of the pioneers of live television drama in the US, both as actor and producer. He served his country on active service in the British Army throughout World War Two, only taking time off to make propaganda films (some good 'uns at that). Plus, he found time to write a couple of novels, and two highly successful volumes of autobiographical reminiscences: 'The Moon's A Balloon', 1971; and 'Bring On The Empty Horses', 1975. I well remember us tuning in to the episode of 'Parkinson' (Britain's equivalent of the 'Dick Cavett Show') when he was promoting his first autobiography in 1971. I was fourteen at the time and by rights would have seen the old bean as another old square. The fact he dared to talk about his schoolboy sex life made him human to me. My father dismissed the man (he thought all actors were, “pimps, puffs or prostitutes”), but as a family we always watched 'Parkinson' together; and I then recalled how Dad had taken us to see Niven with Shirley MacLaine at the Odeon Cinema when 'Around The World In Eighty Days' was re-released (around 1965). In our wholes lives together, the only other film Dad took us to see was 'Lawrence of Arabia' (another Sixties re-release.) Many, many years later, when I began researching for the second volume of my 'Leaves of the Poets', I picked up both of Niven's autobiographies and read them with amusement. These vols are light reads, not what is called 'literature', but flipping heck, books can be simple fun, can't they? Without reading between the lines, it wasn't hard to guess what Niven had done to become a writer. In fact, whenever the film career took a dip, he'd turn his hand to another medium to supplement his income. Before becoming a movie actor, for instance, he'd been a solider, sold liquor and promoted horse racing. Ensconced in Hollywood, whenever he was laid off, he would do some radio, television or even live theatre. So what would he write about, besides himself? He'd always been known as a raconteur. In the long hours movie actors have to stand about waiting for their turn to perform, he would keep everyone on the set amused by prattling about all the famous people he'd hung out with. These included legendary names such as Errol Flynn, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Gary Cooper, Merle Oberon, Olivia de Havilland, Laurence Olivier, Cary Grant, Shirley Temple... the list is quite without limit. On the set, he would hone the telling of these stories, embellishing them and taking liberties with the truth, as far as decorum and friendship would allow. Therefore his stories should not be seen as true in themselves, but rather as gossipy commentaries on great cinema celebrities and the times in which they lived. Reading his books, you soon twig the vein in which the stories are told and glimpse the real world which they gloss over. For example, opening 'The Moon's a Balloon' at a random page, I find a typical anecdote. It is 1938, Niven is under contract to the producer Sam Goldwyn but has been suspended for turning down a script. With nothing else to do, he makes a couple of lucrative radio broadcasts; only to be informed by Goldwyn's lawyer that under the terms of his contract – despite suspension - he is not allowed to do any acting work at all. But Sam Goldwyn knows a good thing when he sees one, and instead of being sued, Niven has to cough up fifty per cent of his fees. Next off, he does a radio show with Bing Crosby, sponsored by the food corporation Kraft. In due course, along with his cheque, Niven is sent a hamper full of food. So the star writes out Sam Goldwyn a cheque for half this amount; then cuts every item of food in the hamper in half, too – including the contents of tinned sardines – and sends them off with the money. What Niven doesn't stoop to tell us is that the odds of a half hamper of spoiled food landing on Sam Goldwyn's actual desk were far less than even. The most that could be achieved by the prank would be to give the man's front office staff the headache of disposing of it. However, he does admit, “It was ridiculous and childish and I was behaving like a small boy attacking a heavy tank with a water pistol but rather enjoying it.” ...then he quickly segues into the intervention of Fred and Phyllis Astaire on his behalf, leading to a new seven-year contract, huge salary increase and promise of the game-changing 'Raffles' role. That, of course, is Niven-on-Niven, a man with enough material to achieve such clever use of juxtaposition. I'm coming to Morley-on-Niven in a jiffy. Rex Harrison was perhaps the only influential person in the movie world who admitted never caring for our subject. Another Englishman in Los Angles, Harrison (star of “Dr Dolittle” and “My Fair Lady”) was present when Primmie, Niven's first wife, was fatally injured in a bizarre house party accident. He didn't give a reason for not liking the star of “Raffles”, but it seems strange of him to refuse to contribute anything to Sheridan Morley's biography - other than an off-the-record dislike for his compatriot. Morley reports Harrison's refusal, but offers no clue as to why. Which brings me to why this biography was such a size nine disappointment. Morley kicks off by informing us his book will not be a simple retelling of Niven's well-known stories. Moreover that he has dug deep to find “The Facts Behind The Façade” and, in-line with his main sub-title, will tell 'The Other Side Of...' the man who wrote 'The Moon's A Balloon'. Not only that, in one of the first anecdotes (actually another Niven-on-Niven yarn), he promises juicy revelations, “...Some of the best of the stories sadly never made it into print, though they have a kind of 'ageing Englishman abroad' quality of considerable and hilarious charm, like the night at a grand Malibu gathering when he was apparently asked by a glamorous hostess if he would like a blow. Unable to believe his luck, David whispered that he would and is told to follow his hostess into an upstairs bathroom. Finding her there with his back to the door and standing by the bathroom cupboard, David removes his trousers in delighted expectation, only to have her scream in horror and surprise at his nudity. In her hand is a glass phial containing an exotic powdered drug – and I know of no better generation gap story than that.” Morley's vapid deconstruction, “I know of no better...” does nothing to unmask the real Niven; who, though I am sure was the author of the reported gag, would never have behaved with such crass naivety: “Unable to believe his luck” & “delighted expectation” - what phooey! While crack cocaine only emerged on the scene in the 60s or 70s, the snorting of coke was rife in Hollywood in the 1930s when Niven would have been no stranger to it, if no user himself. Furthermore, the terms 'blow' and 'blow job' being close enough to confuse an uninitiated observer, would scarcely overlap in Malibu circles – even cross-generational ones. The truth is, Niven was given to the embellishment of such risqué stories, but the grain of truth embedded in this particular yarn was most likely as much aural as oral. Overhearing the words “blow” and “upstairs bathroom” at a party, Niven might have quipped that he was game, only to be informed he would have to keep his trousers on. To which, soberly snorting his Manhattan, he would have shrugged and said you couldn't blame a chap for wishing. I'm sad to say, this kind of one-click forwarding of Niven myths is really all Morley has to offer. Even the revelation that heart-throb Merle Oberon and David Niven spent much of the 30's shacked up together is useless to us without some sort of analysis of why he rejected her pleas to get married. Why, for example, he was reluctant to marry someone in the same profession, shouldn't the author ponder what held him back? Isn't that what a biographer is supposed to do? Isn't that was makes Roger Lewis' 'The Life and Death of Peter Sellers' such a monumental work? Morley's book, through some weird shift in the time/space consortium of publishing, manages to tell us less than nothing. Who was Niven's father, for gawdsake? Beyond a name and the suggestion of wealth squandered, we learn precisely nought with-the-rim-off. The news that he died at Gallipoli, but his death was not confirmed by the War Office for two years, goes without comment. Egad! Did he have no comrades in arms? Nor does Niven's own reticence on the subject of his father go challenged. Throughout the book, serious analysis is parried by reassuring depictions of the man's privacy, his stiff upper lip, his utter discretion, old chap. Instead of lifting the lid on his sexual relationships, all we are given are a few inconsistencies of date and place. For instance, in 'The Moon's a Balloon', Morley smartly points out, Niven puts first wife Primmie's age at death as twenty-five instead of twenty-seven. It's not as if she was a case of gaol-bait, is it? What I would like to know, just for the toss, is how did his early experiences with prostitutes colour his romantic relationships? But Morley, family friend and official biographer, hangs out the old linen with only the whitest of stains. Even the promise to refrain from repeating well-known Niven anecdotes is broken. He repeats stories broadcast on the 'Parkinson' show, and the above-quoted yarn of the Kraft food hamper, from “The Moon's A Balloon” is repeated almost word for word. What purpose does that serve? Is there any analysis? No. He even manages to purloin the actor's narrative style, so you can hear an echo of Niven's voice, almost smell the faint whiskied breath of him as though the book were a third, ghosted volume of reminiscences wafting up from the grave. “The Other Side Of The Moon” should have been like “The Far Side Of Paradise” - Arthur Mizener's well-researched biography of Scott Fitzgerald – the title a play on Fitz's first novel, “This Side of Paradise.” It is not. In fact, it hardly qualifies as the type of second-rate biography you expect of much lesser stars. Morley has simply chatted to a few of Niven's old chums (including his father, the actor Robert Morley), read the star's own books and consulted a few newspaper and magazine archives. True, from his childhood onwards, young Sheriden knew Niven personally, and you get the feeling the actor may have been somewhat of an uncle figure to him. So he recounts his life in chunks of five years or so, pausing frequently to remind us that “The Moon's A Balloon” and “Bring On The Empty Horses” will arrive in old age, as though his whole life had been leading up to them. Along the way Morley heavily criticises many of Niven's choice of parts and films and in so doing denigrates his career. His attitude reiterates the idea that the life of a jobbing actor is somehow demeaning to the gentleman he surely was. Which seems rather hypocritical since his father Robert Morley's career fared no better, you could say a lot worse. I saw Robert in a dull revival of the Ben Travers farce, “Banana Ridge” at the Savoy in 1977; but remember him principally as the first film actor to play Oscar Wilde - a role he revelled and excelled in. In my opinion, for all it's worth, Niven deserved better than this dishonest, rushed out semi-biography to accompany the reissue of his own witty confessions.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-03-19 00:00:00 Tyler Douglas This is about the life and career of the late actor David Niven from his birth , his career on the silver screen and his retirement after being diagnosed with ALS leading to his death in the eighties