Synopsis
A definitive biography of the great English filmmaker details the private life and professional career of Carol Reed, documenting his childhood as the illegitimate son of an actor, his marriages, his working relationship with Graham Greene, and his films.
Reviews
Reed (1906-1976), one of the English cinema's best craftsmen (he directed The Third Man and won an Oscar for the musical Oliver! ), was also one of its more taciturn figures, a quality that hampers Wapshott, the editor of the London Times Magazine , in this workmanlike biography. Reed, the illegitimate son of the renowned stage actor and impressario, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, had considerable domestic entanglements of his own. (His first marriage, to actress Diana Wynyard, was compromised by Reed's lingering affections for another woman.) Distinguishing his career from that of such auteurs as Bunuel and Hitchcock, he considered himself a mere entertainer, not an artist. These elements could be the stuff of a psychologically intricate portrait, yet Wapshott's biography is more successful as a series of anecdotes about movie-making and unmaking--Reed's protracted wrangling with a headstrong Marlon Brando on the set of Mutiny on the Bounty lost him the director's job. Given that Reed's collaborators included Graham Greene, Ralph Richardson, James Mason and David O. Selznick, the stories recounted here are rarely dull. Yet a clear, unified portrait of a complex and private man never quite emerges. Photos.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
A meticulous but dry biography of the British director, himself a meticulous but dry filmmaker. Sir Carol Reed's reputation, once quite grand, has fallen considerably in recent years. As even London journalist Wapshott (Rex Harrison, 1992) reluctantly admits, with the exception of his very best films--The Stars Look Down, Odd Man Out, The Fallen Idol, and The Third Man--Reed's work is impersonal, commercial, and merely competent. The filmmaker was a highly private man, in large part because of his origins. As Wapshott copiously chronicles, Reed was one of several illegitimate children fathered by the great actor-producer Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree; although Tree lived intermittently with Reed's mother and was very supportive of his ``second'' family, as an adult Reed himself was very guarded in any discussions of his private life. Like his father, the director was a big man, gentle and outgoing. His career was boosted early on by a professional friendship with the popular novelist and playwright Edgar Wallace, who led him from theater into cinema. After he began directing in the mid-1930s, his career became a parade of ``one picture after another'' (as Reed himself put it), and so does Wapshott's book. The author is frank about Reed's disastrous first marriage to actress Diana Wynyard and his often childish behavior at home. He also writes well about the circumstances surrounding the director's major films, particularly the humiliating experience of grappling with Marlon Brando in Mutiny on the Bounty, which led to Reed's firing after a year of work that produced seven minutes of footage. However, Wapshott has little of interest to say about the films themselves, relying mainly on quotes from contemporary reviews. Proficiently written and well researched, this book begs a simple question: If Reed's work is for the most part undistinguished, why bother? -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
During his lifetime, Reed was thought to be equaled only by Alfred Hitchcock among British film directors. Now he is largely forgotten, due for the most part to his own secretive, intensely private nature. Wapshott (Rex Harrison, LJ 3/15/92) traces this back to Reed's childhood as one of the illegitimate sons of flamboyant stage actor/manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. His mother lived happily as mistress to the married Sir Herbert and gave him six children. (Ironically, Reed nearly re-created the same scenario in his first marriage.) Best known for his film The Third Man and other collaborations with author/screenwriter Graham Greene, Reed achieved fame as a director early. The author here elucidates the decline in Reed's later career. A fine, enjoyable, readable work. Since there is a dearth of Reed biographies, this one is especially welcome. Recommended for popular and academic collections.
Marianne Cawley, Enoch Pratt Free Lib., Baltimore
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Wapshott's biography of British film director Reed is most welcome. Spanning the so-called golden era (1930s-60s) of both American and British cinema, Reed's career is interesting not only on its own merits but also as a vehicle for studying film history. Although best remembered for his most atmospheric films (The Stars Look Down, Odd Man Out, The Third Man), Reed preferred more commercial and accessible films, like those of William Wyler and John Ford, and he scored his biggest commercial success with Oliver! An "apolitical and therefore . . . Conservative" but illegitimate son of the English gentry, Reed believed that the most successful movies were those that entertained the widest audience. Wapshott tells Reed's story briskly and succinctly, delving into but not wallowing in the scandals and controversies that swirled around the British and American film industries during Reed's career. Perhaps serving to reintroduce a too-little-known director and his work to a broader or a new audience, this important work of film biography and history is yet accessible to casual movie buffs. Mike Tribby
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