Hello!

This announcement of a new book is about a writer I know as a film critic, although the man in question has worn so many hats that pinning him down to one vocation doesn’t do him justice. We’re reviewed Joseph McBride’s books on Billy Wilder and Ernst Lubitsch as well as his handsome collection of film writing; he’s now written an account of his own career,  I Loved Movies, But . . .. It arrives on November 21.

We first knew of McBride through a book he co-authored on John Ford back in the 1970s, when he was already pursuing a career as a film writer. It was years later that I found that Joe had a credit on Allan Arkush’s Rock ‘n’ Roll High School. Back in 1970 Orson Welles enlisted him to play a role in his feature The Other Side of the Wind, a project only completed in 2018 long after Welles passed away. McBride discusses his four overlapping careers, as a journalist, book author, screenwriter, and teacher. He’s written for a daily newspaper and been a key reviewer for Daily Variety. He’s written multiple books on John Ford and Orson Welles, and been the main writer behind many AFI career celebrations.

In the foreward to I Loved Movies, But . . ., author Jonathan Lethem describes McBride as a tenacious pursuer of his obsessions, as shown in books on the Kennedy Assassination and two fascinating books on Frank Capra, exposing the director’s misrepresentations of his career accomplishments, and his hidden life as a stealth informer during the McCarthy era. A  second book chronicled McBride’s legal battle to get the first book published. McBride cheefully describes himself as a stubborn Irishman, proudly explaining that his surname helped him get a crucial interview with John Ford, who gave few if any interviews.

McBride’s career autobiography is in the form of an extended interview — his story comes out “in a candid, wide-ranging conversation with a longtime friend, the film historian and baseball biographer Danny Peary,” and it covers “formative childhood traumas, Hollywood adventures, investigative reporting, landmark biographies and decades of teaching.”  It comes a year after his retirement from 22 years of teaching at San Francisco State University. We have always liked Joseph McBride’s argumentatitve voice … when he latches onto an important point, he doesn’t let go. We’re looking forward to reading his new book.

←  Steve Nielson challenged me with a movie quiz … except he doesn’t have the answer, and we have no real expectation of finding one. So this is just for fun.

In his old papers Steve found this 4×5 transparency, a BTS still from some feature film. It’s completely faded, so the color you see is just a one-click correction on GIMP. It is a much larger image, which can be made bigger by zooming or opening in a new window.

Anyone have an idea who the actress is, or what film or TV show it comes from?  It would seem a 1960s picture for sure, and the woman looks generally like Elke Sommer … although it could be a an Elke Sommer stunt double or any of 1,000 similar actresses of the day.

Anyway, we just thought we’d put this ‘out there’ for fun. Please write in if you happen to know, or have a good guess.  (Note, 11 12 25: two readers found the answer. I’ll post it on Saturday.)

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson