A New Must-Read Book

[Damien]

A Splurch in the Kisser: The Movies of Blake Edwards
by Sam Wasson

Wesleyan University Press
distributed by
University Press of New England
2009 • 370 pp. 35 illus. 6 x 9" $30.00 Cloth

We are pleased to announce a new book on the art and life of a legendary Hollywood filmmaker, A Splurch in the Kisser: The Movies of Blake Edwards, by Sam Wasson.

With one of the longest and most controversial careers in Hollywood history, its about time for Blake Edwards, a director of raving chutzpah, to take his seat at the table of greats. His rambunctious filmography remains an artistic force on par with Hollywoods greatest comic directors: Chaplin, Lubitsch, Sturges, and Wilder. Like Wilder, Edwardss propensity for hilarity is double-helixed with pain, and in films like Breakfast at Tiffanys, The Pink Panther, and even Days of Wine and Roses, we can hear him off-screen, laughing in the dark. And yet, despite those enormous successes, he was at one time considered a Hollywood villain. After his marriage to Julie Andrews, Edwards’s Darling Lili nearly sunk both of them and brought Paramount Studios to its knees. Almost overnight, Blake became an industry pariah, which ironically fortified his sense of satire, and allowed him to simultaneously fight the Hollywood tide as he rode it. Employing keen visual analysis, meticulous research, and troves of interviews and production files, Sam Wasson delivers the first complete account of one of the maddest figures Hollywood has ever known.

SAM WASSON is currently working on a book about Breakfast at Tiffany’s. He lives in Los Angeles.

Endorsements:
“Sam Wasson has undertaken nothing less than the critical resurrection of Blake Edwards, whose 40-film career, by turns good, great, bad, but never indifferent, has been ridiculously underrated by the critical establishment. Wasson very readably displays the scholarly background, writing skills, historical sophistication and balanced judgment to succeed in his objective. One hopes this impressive work will inspire a splurge of revivals and retrospectives of this more than intermittently hilarious filmmaker.” —Andrew Sarris, film critic, The New York Observer

“Reading Wasson’s book is like having a couple of beers with your friend, the Blake freak. I was continually amazed at the exacting nature of the descriptions of shots and sequences and the intelligence of the analysis that grows out of them.” —Ed Sikov, author of Mr. Strangelove: A Biography of Peter Sellers


For more details, click http://www.upne.com/0-8195-6915-1.html

ORDERING DETAILS:

SAVE 30% if you order from the web site and use discount code W301. Use the link above. Or order through your favorite bookseller, or by calling University Press of New England at 1-800-421-1561 (or 603-448-1533, x255 or x256). US Shipping charges are $5.00 for the
first book and $1.25 for each additional. In CANADA, order through the University of British Columbia Press at (800) 565-9523 or email mailto:utpbooks@utpress.utoronto.ca.

In EUROPE, order through Eurospan at +44 (0) 207 240 0856 or email mailto:orders@edspubs.co.uk



Edited By Damien on 1252001615