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Reviewed by C.R. Hurst for Readers' Favorite
The Picture Business: Stories About the People Who Make the Movies is an insider’s look at Hollywood. In it, best-selling author Elaine Kagan, who is also a film and television actress, uses her firsthand experience in show business as the template for her fictional (though real names are dropped frequently) stories and characters. From screen legends, stuntmen, directors, writers, actresses, and actors to key grips, we meet them all through stories that offer snapshots of their lives, their heartbreaks, their quirks, their ambitions, and most of all, their embrace of the all-consuming business of making movies. After all, “Come rain, come shine, come snow, come sleet, the show MUST go on!"
Elaine Kagan’s enthusiasm for her subjects is infectious, and even though some of them have questionable morals and values, we love them all the same. Take, for instance, the central character of the novella, Below the Line: Nicholas James Messina, an Academy Award-winning actor, writer, and director whose womanizing is shrugged off because of his talent, charm, and, most notably, his surprising loyalty to friends. The book is about more than screen legends; it is about the relationships between old chums and the warmth that can be found in friendships that last through the years – for instance, the short story, Cinco Chichos Malos, about five stunt buddies who hid their affection for each other under gruff exteriors. The book is also wonderfully written. Kagan captures the back and forth of smart, witty Hollywood with snappy dialogue that Cosmo Brown would surely be proud of. The Picture Business is a highly recommended read for all film lovers.
