Word: clef
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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They should look closely at the film before they leap to conclusions. White Hunter, Black Heart is based on co-screenwriter Peter Viertel's roman a clef, published some four decades ago, about his experiences in Africa when he was engaged by Huston to polish James Agee's script for The African Queen. Eastwood has dared to attempt a faithful impression of the director, his growling drawl, his loose-limbed stride, the arrogant tilt of his head. The result is a stretch for him as an actor, and fun for the audience...
...Think of Clifton Webb at age 40," says Dominick Dunne, speaking of a gentleman bitch in his latest roman a clef, An Inconvenient Woman (Crown; 458 pages; $19.95). And why not? Everyone else in the novel seems to have stepped directly from a '40s feature: plutocrat Jules Mendelson; his socialite wife Pauline; his long-suffering mistress Flo March; and a sexually ambiguous friend, the late Hector Paradiso. Hector's violent death was marked as suicide, but Mendelson knows who shot him and why. The cover-up is reminiscent of an actual Los Angeles scandal; the malicious dialogue and the insider...