2024 the best actor of all time review

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On Sunset Boulevard, originally published in 1998, describes the life of acclaimed filmmaker Billy Wilder (1906-2002), director of such classics as Sunset Boulevard, The Lost Weekend, The Seven Year Itch, and Sabrina. This definitive biography takes the reader on a fast-paced journey from Billy Wilder's birth outside of Krakow in 1906 to Vienna, where he grew up, to Berlin, where he moved as a young man while establishing himself as a journalist and screenwriter, and triumphantly to Hollywood, where he became as successful a director as there ever was.

Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment"Wilder's cinematic legacy is unparalleled. Not only did he direct these classics and twenty-one other films, he co-wrote all of his own screenplays. Volatile, cynical, hilarious, and driven, Wilder arrived in Hollywood an all-but-penniless refugee who spoke no English. Ten years later he was calling his own shots, and he stayed on top of the game for the next three decades. Wilder battled with Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, Bing Crosby, and Peter Sellers; kept close friendships with William Holden, Audrey Hepburn, Jack Lemmon, and Walter Matthau; amassed a personal fortune by way of blockbuster films and shrewd investments in art (including Picassos, Klees, and Mir's); and won Oscars--yet Wilder, ever conscious of his thick accent, always felt the sting of being an outsider.

On Sunset Boulevard traces the course of a turbulent but fabulous life, both behind the scenes and on the scene, from Viennese cafes and Berlin dance halls in the twenties to the Hollywood soundstages of the forties and the on-location shoots of the fifties and sixties. Crammed with Wilder's own caustic wit, On Sunset Boulevard reels out the story of one of cinema's most brilliant and prolific talents.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B073XQY64J
Publisher ‏ : ‎ University Press of Mississippi; Reprint edition (June 14, 2017)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 14, 2017
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 5282 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 678 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0786885033
Reviewer: Kosmos
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Five stars to Ed Sikov
Review: This bio is very well-written and reads like a novel, as other reviews agree, and I would add that it is even better than most novels. Often one wonders whether a story in the book has really occurred and that helps to develop the fiction aspect of the book. At first I thought that a bio with more than 600 pages would be boring, but it turned out to be very engaging and informative about the golden age of Hollywood and one of the smartest and sophisticated directors ever. Although this bio has so much infomation, the author has such a fluid writing style and such a story-telling ability that makes it very interesting and entertaining. While reading this book my attention span never sagged and it made me keep reading for a longer period at a time. English being my third language, I really appreciated Mr. Sikov's wide range of vocabulary and slang that seemed to fit perfectly into his varied style of sentence construction.I agree with Mr. Sikov that screenplay writing is a vital part of a consumate and well rounded director, which other celebrated directors, such as Hitchcock, Ford, and Spielberg lacked. For this reason I consider that the two best directors of all times are Billy Wilder and Akira Kurosawa, who besides being great visual and cinematic artists, they had more input and control of their movies by also writing the scripts. Billy Wilder's use of cynicism, sarcasm and curse words in his movies, when allowed, and in his life never came across as vulgar and lewd, but rather as an effective and witty punch line or criticism about the human condition.

Reviewer: Delta D.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A bad start and egotistical ending, but the main body of this book is first rate.
Review: Having completed a Billy Wilder film marathon, I seem to be on a Billy Wilder book marathon. This is the second and I have three more backed up on Kindle.Just like Some Like It Wilder, this is a 5* account of Wilder's life and work. Similarly, it gets the balance right (at least for me!): heavy emphasis on Wilder's work and rather less emphasis on his life.I didn't like the start of the book. It contains an irritating number of contradictory accounts by Wilder of his early life and the author simply asks the reader to make his/her own choice.Once we get into Wilder's filmwriting and making career, the book is first rate. Detailed film-by-film accounts with the author's opinion (with which I didn't always agree) clearly separated from important facts and reliable anecdotes.The final years of Wilder's life are addressed in a very moving way.Alas, there is an ill-judged epilogue, added after the first print edition. The author presses home to the reader how impressed Wilder had been with the book and humblebrags about a meal with Wilder and his wife. This is not a huge flaw. I'm sure I'd have done the same in those circumstances.It's a coin toss as to my preference between this book and Some Like It Wilder. They cover very much the same territory, but I'm glad to have read them both. 5* in each case.

Reviewer: Tatiana
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Very Engaging for Movie Buffs
Review: Billy Wilder came to the US not knowing any English and was nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay for "Ninotchka" just four years later. If that doesn't speak to his drive and genius, what else would? Wilder was one of the first writers to become a director, having gotten there by just pestering Paramount executives until they gave him a small film to get him to shut up, expecting him to fail. This immigrant made some of the most American movies of the past 70 years: "The Lost Weekend", "Sunset Boulevard", "Some Like it Hot" and "The Apartment", just to name a few.I enjoyed this book: a lot of inside stuff about personalities, perceptive insights into Wilder's film making process with enough detail to satisfy most movie geeks. One of my favorite Hollywood books of the last several years. Well done!

Reviewer: Deb Lombardi
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A great story about a great story teller told by a great story teller author!
Review: Billy Wilder was one of a kind - how many movie directors actually wrote every movie that they directed? From "Some Like It Hot" to "Sunset Boulevard", Billy Wilder left his native Austria, became a journalist and then a movie writer in Germany, and then left as The Nazis moved in to become the personification of the American Dream.While the cliche about "certain works of non-fiction read like a novel" can become a trope, in this case, it holds true in every regard.

Reviewer: johnkenrick
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Delightful
Review: A great biography, filled with wit and heart, just like the brilliant and prolific man it introduces the reader to. After a lifetime enjoying Wilder's films, it was a genuine pleasure to find his life story every bit as engaging as his fictional screen creations.

Reviewer: Bookish One
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Compelling Bio of a Hollywood Great
Review: Superb. Exhaustive and well-written. This book provides a view into one of the greats. I had seen a number of Billy Wilder movies before reading the book, but now I have much more appreciation of the man and his accomplishments. After finishing this biography, I have resolved to watch as many of his movies as I can.If you want to learn about how one individual can go from a rural outpost of a decaying empire to a preeminent position in the center of the world's image maker, read this book. A compelling story of a compelling life.

Reviewer: Michael Charton
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Good Could Have Been Better
Review: I decided to read this, because I just read the New York Times Rewview of Ed Sikov's new book about Peter Sellers.The part of the book I enjoyed the most was from the beginning to World War II. The later in his life it got, the denser and more academic it became. Mr. Sikov teaches film and it got more like a textbook.The end of the book, I have to agree with the reviewer from Vienna. It was more a book for film students. The beginning in Europe was a great look through a certain person into another time. Make Billy Wilder fictional and you have a great historical fiction piece.

Reviewer: warren
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: absolutely terrific
Review: one of the best biogs I have read and I've read hundreds.

Reviewer: Miss Kubelik
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Aus mir selbst nicht ganz erklärlichen Gründen ist das bereits die vierte Biografie, die ich über Billy Wilder im Lauf der Jahre gelesen habe. Das macht aber nichts, weil man die Filme ja auch immer wieder sieht, nicht wahr?Kurze Zusammenfassung:Die erste - und auch gleichzeitig die einzige, die es damals gab - war die von Karasek, und wie bei K. üblich: wie immer peinlich von sich selbst überzeugt, dafür aber nichts verstanden und intellektuell überfordert.Dann die nächste Katastrophe, das Interviewbuch von Crowe: total unstrukturiert, voller Lücken, dafür endlose Wiederholungen, ein einziges unlesbares Ärgernis.Die Biog. von Phillips ist zwar auch ganz gut, konzentriert sich aber hauptsächlich auf die Filme.(Ich hab auch noch in die Biog. von McBride reingelesen, aber die ist fast schon sowas wie eine wissenschaftliche Abhandlung, seeeehr ausführlich und für mich zu ausufernd.Jetzt aber:Dieses Buch von Ed Sikov ist genauso unterhaltsam wie ein Billy Wilder-Film, bunt, lustig, spannend und mit viel Liebe zum Detail.Sikov hat aufwändig recherchiert und liefert tonnenweise Hintergrundinfos, weiß viel über Filme und die Industrie. Auch als Fan von Wilder und seinem Werk bleibt er trotzdem kritisch gegenüber den Schwächen Wilders und seinen nicht ganz so gelungenen Filmen. Viel besser kann man eine Biografie, egal über wen, eigentlich kaum schreiben.Dieses Buch gehört in jedes Apartment.Oder gleich ins Billy-Regal.

Reviewer: John Fisher
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Thorough, detailed and well written. Great story.

Reviewer: Peter Berts
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Cette biographie de Billy Wilder, l'un des géants du cinéma mondial, est une mine d'informations. Par exemple, saviez-vous que le premier film de Wilder, en tant que réalisateur, était français ? Il s'agit de "Mauvaise Graine", sorti en 1934, avec Danielle Darrieux, un film tombé dans les oubliettes de l'histoire du Septième Art.Chaque scénario écrit par Wilder, chaque film qu'il a tourné est abondamment documenté dans cet ouvrage passionnant. Tout comme le sont les 25 premières années de sa vie à Cracovie, Vienne, Berlin et Paris, avant son départ précipité pour l'Amérique dans les années 30 pour échapper aux persécutions nazies à l'encontre des Juifs.Lorsqu'il débarque à Hollywood dans la communauté des expatriés austro-allemands (dont fait partie Lubitsch, son maître), il ne parle pas un mot d'anglais. Pourtant, à force de volonté et de travail, il devient rapidement (avec son compère Charles Brackett avec lequel il écrira une douzaine de films) l'un des scénaristes les plus demandés d'Hollywood. Mieux encore, il en devient l'un des tout premiers auteurs-réalisateurs, décrochant ses premiers Oscars dès 1945 pour "Le Poison" (meilleur film, meilleur scénario). La suite, nous la connaissons tous. De "Boulebard du Crépuscule" à "Aavanti !", Wilder injectera au cinéma américain une bonne dose d'humour noir et de cynisme désabusé, mais toujours avec classe et un sens inné de la phrase qui fait mouche.J'ignore si le livre est traduit en français, mais je le recommande chaudement à tous les cinéphiles anglophiles. Un must.