Since moving to New York City over a decade ago, Quentin Crisp has brought his love of the cinema and his notorious wit together in a series of essays on films and film stars. A veteran film-goer of seventy years who has kept a vigilant eye on changing Hollywood styles and the public tastes that follow, Mr. Crisp discusses both films and stars with his typical panache and dexterity and leads his readers with polite madness to a clear, straightforward moral, proving himself to be an unexpected champion of good sense. Along the way Mr. Crisp shares his personal encounters with the likes of Lillian Gish, John Hurt, David Hockney, Divine, Sting, and Geraldine Page. Prefaced by longer essays on the essence of stardom, the nature of Hollywood, and the deplorable state of that town today, Mr. Crisp's book is a delight to read.
In this collection of film reviews from Christopher Street magazine, Crisp ( The Naked Civil Servant ) declares that "the way to go to movies is incessantly . . . reverently . . . critically," yet he follows only two of his dicta. His almost compulsive movie-going is the basis for highly entertaining reviews that reveal a shameless appreciation for stars--the bigger the name, the better--as well as a fairly simplistic critical approach. But what sets Crisp's work apart from most film reviews is humor ( My Dinner with Andre is "as boring as being alive"); his eye for style (actor Richard Gere looks like Errol Flynn "with the edges beveled"); and a store of off-the-wall remarks ("Mr. Proust was a weirdo"). Unfortunately, the repetition of certain pet peeves (especially the evils of television) underscores a lack of judicious editing, and Crisp's star-worship reveals a fairly reactionary view of the sexes, as in his lamentation that women's liberation "was the final nail hammered into the coffin of stardom."
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
British-born Crisp, one-time flamboyant advocate for gay rights and author of The Naked Civil Servant (LJ 10/15/87) and How To Become a Virgin (LJ 1/1/82), has, for the past ten years or so, written on film and reviewed films for Christopher Street magazine. This work is a compilation of some of those reviews, together with brief essays on topics such as the nature of film stardom, the "new" Hollywood, and prominent film actresses of the 1930s. Now over 80, Crisp has lost little of his quirky wit (he not only reviews the films but their audiences and the movie theaters as well), and many of his comments are both provocative and insightful. Because of the numerous New York allusions and the many gay-themed films reviewed, this is probably most suitable for larger cinema collections.
-Roy Liebman, California State Univ. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
