Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superbly written insight into a wonderful director, 3 Mar 2005
I have been a fan of Billy Wilder films ever since I saw 'Some Like It Hot' when I was 17. Since then I have watched many of his films. Some are wonderful ('The Apartment', 'The Seven Year Itch') and some not so great. I was thrilled to receive 'Nobody's Perfect - a Personal Biography' for Christmas, and couldn't wait to learn more about the life of director/writer Billy Wilder.I do not usually enjoy biographys - I find they can get weighed down in petty details without exploring the character of the person who is being written about. This book, however, has completely changed my mind about biographys. It is written with real passion and flaire, giving us a great insight into how Billy worked. I found this book impossible to put down. It is written in a very fast-paced way and it is mainly written in Billy Wilder, and his friends and collegues, own words. The first few chapters are about his background, where he grew up etc. Once Billy Wilder is in the movie industry, every movie he worked on has a chapter dedicated to it. There is also a synopsis of the plots of all his movies, which I find very useful. This book generally focuses Billy Wilder's work, as opposed to his private life. However, Billy Wilder loved making movies so much that his work WAS his life in many respects. It has interviews with many of the actors, writers and producers Billy worked with over the course of his career, including Jack Lemmon, I A L Diamond, Christopher Lee and Shirley McClaine. These interviews are incredibly interesting, but even more so are the interviews with Billy himself. I would really recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the movie industry. It is a highly informed, well written piece of work which once you start reading you really can't put the book down!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Star-struck biographer, 26 Dec 2002
I was utterly charmed, and illuminated, by Cameron Crowe's recent 'Conversations with Wilder'. And quite disappointed by Chandler's new biography. To be sure, it is a star-studded extravaganza, counting cameos by Ginger Rogers, Jack Lemmon, Gloria Swanson, Fred Zinnemann, Claudette Colbert, Barbara Stanwyck, Olivia de Havilland and others, but Ms Chandler loses her sense of direction and focus every time she sits opposite an old-time star, and all of a sudden Billy Wilder is all but forgotten. Some anecdotes are touching, others completely irrelevant, and more often than not Ms Chandler reveals herself to be of the wide-eyed, star-struck variety. What lingers on in my mind are the many testimonies by female stars, some of them divas, professing to be very hurt that Billy Wilder apparently did not care very much for them as people. Those parts are actually heart-wrenching, but ultimately the book does not deliver what it promises.
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