Don't let the bastards grind you down!

In his book Hollywood England, Alexander Walker quotes Joe Losey - “the film industry constantly rejects what it is crying out to have repeated the next year.” Walker also uses the famous quote, “In this business, nobody knows anything for sure.” For instance, you probably think you know who said that, don’t you? It was, of course Bond Producer Harry Saltzman, from an interview with Walker from 1972, over ten years before Adventures in the Screen Trade was published. (He was talking about the reaction to Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, the source of lines like “All the rest is proganda.” “What ever people say I am, that‘s what I‘m not.” and “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” Hence the title.

Walker’s British Film Trilogy is very good (and the most recent volume Icons in The Fire is required reading.) Probably the best - certainly the most entertaining - book I’ve ever read about the British Film Industry is Shepperton Babylon by Matthew Sweet (The Whole Equation by David Thompson is the most fun about Hollywood)

Anyone else got any film book recommendations? In fact, let’s make that a meme! We haven’t had one for a while! Chip, Lianne, Lucy, Danny, and the Potdoll - I meme thee!