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Hollywood’s
Finest
Oh, the sad .young writers who trooped out
to Hollywood to milk the movie gold and
stayed to watch their dreams of glory shrivel
like so many raisins in the decadent sun.
The stories that surround these often bril-.
liant wordsmiths have become the stuff on
which legends are made: it’s all Paradise lost
and F. Scott Fitzgerald drunk...again.
Mank, the Wit, World and Life of Herman Man
kiewicz, written by former Life magazine staf
fer Richard Meryman, is pa/t of that litera
ture of doom; it’s a fascinating biography
which reminds us once again just how far
the mighty can fall.
Mankiewicz, as every good fllm student
knows, co-wrote Citizen Kane with Orson
Welles. A few years ago, Pauline Kael spent
thousands of words proving it was Mank
and not Orson who was responsible for tHe
Ampersand of the Month
Edward Hobin of Knoxville, Tennessee created this scaly Ampersand of the
Month; he says he’s not in college, but studies mechanical drawing and machine
design.
If you are itching to devise an original Ampersand, do so —neatly, in black ink on
white paper, and send it to Ampersand of the Month, 1680 N. Vine Street #2Ol,
brilliance of Kane, and other critics then
spent an equal number of words trying to
prove otherwise. The debate will probably,
never be settled and Mank does little to sol
idify the opposing sides. However, it does
offer a major* contribution to that con
troversy; the biography proves without
question that Mankiewicz, the man, pos
sessed one of the most brilliant minds ever to
toil for the movies.
Oscar Wilde, that master of the aphorism,
once wrote, “I only put-my talent into my
writing, my genius I reserve for my life,” and
certainly that statement sums up everything
we ultimately need to know about Mank as
well. The book is one incredible story after
another, all testimony to the writer’s wit,
cunning, and perception. He was, without
doubt, his own best creation. Meryman, like
other writers, again brings the famed Al
gonquin Round Table to life, but this time
those clever souls aren’t revered —
Meryman exposes them for the pain and
cruelty that they inflicted, often on them
selves. He also makes it very clear that cer-
int