Product Description

Casablanca Man is the first comprehensive critical exploration of Curtiz' entire career and, linking his European work with subsequent American work into a coherent whole, Robertson re-establishes Curtiz' standing in cinema history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #602138 in Books
• Published on: 1994-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

From the Back Cover
Michael Curtiz (1888-1962) was without doubt one of the most important directors in film history, yet he has never been granted his deserved recognition and no full-scale work on him has ever previously been published. The Casablanca Man surveys Curtiz's unequalled mastery over a variety of genres which included biography, comedy, horror, melodrama, musical, swashbuckler and western, and looks at his relationship with the Hollywood studio moguls on the basis of unprecedented archive research at Warner Brothers. Concentrating on Curtiz's best-known films - Casablanca, Angels With Dirty Faces, Mildred Pearce and Captain Blood among them - Robertson explores his practical creative struggles, his friendships and rivalries with other film celebrities including Errol Flynn, Bette Davis and James Cagney, and his discovery of future stars. The Casablanca Man is the first comprehensive critical exploration of Curtiz's entire career and, treating his European work and his subsequent American work as a coherent whole, Robertson finally establishes Curtiz's true standing in the history of cinema.

Customer Reviews

A career review
It is clear from the title that this is strictly a review of Curtiz's film career.Essentially it relies upon the Warner Brothers archives from the period when he was contracted to them.Outside that period information is pretty thin on the ground.Whilst i appreciate that this is not a biography it would have been helpful if the author had actually interviewed his co workers who were still alive at the time the book was written.Instead in his last chapter he assess Curtiz's career based on what has been written in other biographies and draws his own conclusions.I find that this is a bit frustrating.For example he cites the brawls between Curtiz and Flynn as being due to the physical danger that Flynn would be placed in by Curtiz.He claims that other times they had a good working relationship.He bases this on the set reports in the Warners archives.Far better to have interviewed Olivia De havilland for instance.Whilst the book is interesting nevertheless it does not for me flesh out one of the most colourful characters in Hollywood history.Given the years that have elapsed since his death we will clearly have to accept this book as the final word.