Memo from David O. Selznick

New York: The Modern Library. Near Fine. 2000 (c.1972). 1st Modern Library paperback edition. Softcover. [a bit of wear at base of spine, very slight wrinkle at top right corner of front cover, light age-toning to edges of text block]. (Modern Library: The Movies) Series Trade PB (B&W photographs) An endlessly fascinating read-through of the correspondence files of the legendary producer of GONE WITH THE WIND and other classics (and an occasional non-classic) -- albeit, as editor Behlmer explains in his foreword, presenting "a rather one-sided case, with no opportunity for the several victims of Selznick's unhappiness or, in some instances, wrath, to offer rebuttals or countercharges." The selection of memos -- from among two thousand file boxes of Selznick's papers -- was a monumental task, and although it was by necessity a highly selective process, at the end you feel like you've gotten a pretty comprehensive picture of DOS -- "at times pontificating and overly fussy," as the editor allows, but "also brilliant, knowledgeable, tasteful, painstaking, and possessed by what he was doing." The book itself was something of a landmark of cinema scholarship: never before had a book of film history (or biography) been presented as an assemblage of primary documents, and it's not saying too much to state that it raised the bar for future film historians' excavation of such archives. Quite fittingly included in the important bibliography "100 Books on Hollywood & the Movies." This edition contains a new introduction by Roger Ebert, as well as a series introduction by Martin Scorsese. (Thankfully, the original edition's introduction by S.N. Behrman has been retained as well.) (xx) .