Showing posts with label The Name Above The Title. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Name Above The Title. Show all posts

Saturday, September 25, 2010

The Name Above The Title

I have just been to see my grandmother in a very Jewish play (I am descended from a long line of showbiz people :D), and she was very fantabiedoobie indeed. The theatre was called "The Palace Theatre" and as we walked in, my mum started singing "I was born in a trunk, at The Palace Theatre," from A Star Is Born. That is how classic-movie orientated my family is. After the performance, we went backstage to congratulate my grandmother, and I feel very honored to have been passed down a very special book. That book is The Name Above The Title by Frank Capra. It was given to her and my grandpa by a professor of film at a college somewhere, and it has that fantastic smell that old books have when they have been loved.
the book

It is a complete autobiography from the very beginning of his life. I am not sure if it is still in print, but it is very interesting. I have only started the first chapter (titled "It's About Time, You Bum!"), but it definitely looks very promising. There are lots of fantastic pictures in it, and I might have to scan them or something soon. It has a quote at the beginning that I really like.

"There are no rules in film making, only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness."

Frank Capra directed films such as It's A Wonderful Life, It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, and The Philadelphia Story (which is one of those films that I should have seen but haven't). 

Expect a review soonish the book is some 500 pages and the book is almost A4 paper sized, so it may take a while to finish considering I still have to finish Wuthering Heights.

~Bette