Memo from Darryl F. Zanuck: The Golden Years at Twentieth Century-Fox

New York: Grover Press. Fine in Near Fine dj. 1993. First Edition. Hardcover. [nice tight clean book, with no discernible wear; the jacket shows only some extremely light wear along the top edge (effectively concealed inside a new mylar protector)]. (B&W photographs) In this brilliantly-edited and annotated selection of Hollywood studio memos, film historian Rudy Behlmer does for 20th Century-Fox chief Darryl F. Zanuck what he had done for the equally legendary producer David O. Selznick more than twenty years earlier. Zanuck, although not as prodigiously wordy as Selznick had been, was also a helluva memo-writer, and among all the studio heads of Hollywood's Golden Age was probably the most perspicacious and insightful when it came to matters of story and structure -- no doubt due, at least in part, to the fact that he had started out as a writer himself. His memos and letters, which span the years 1936-1955, provide the reader with a "front-the-top, at-the-moment, insider's look at the myriad elements that went into the production of a feature film during the colorful days of the old studio system." The introduction is by screenwriter/producer Philip Dunne, who had worked for Zanuck on many pictures and remembered him as a boss who "treated his writers with the same respect as all other professionals -- perhaps even more so because, unlike star-rich M-G-M, Zanuck's new and relatively star-poor studio depended upon good screenplays." (xx) .