Word: kaufmans
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...full agony of American Family life in his best play, which is also the finest American drama, Sidney Lumet, who hasn't made a fine film since, assembled a great cast to perform it-Katherine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards and Dean Stockwell-and picked a master cineniatographer, Boris Kaufman, to make the images jibe with the faces and dialogue. The result is devastating...
...radically different backgrounds. Marquand and Kaufman shared surprisingly similar careers. Both had unselfconsciously gone the popular route as writers, succeeded with a vengeance, and by 1943 they both shared the summits of their professions with a handful of others and the others weren't nearly so rich. It is often said, however, that writers who succeed commercially pay the price in posterity. Judging from the recent biographies by Howard Teichmann and Stephen Birmingham, they are paying dearly...
...Kaufman pays most and it is hard to imagine that his reputation as a humorist will ever fully recover. Although his numerous hit comedies are often revived they are a fragile literary legacy and he needs a talented biographer to appreciate his personal wit. Instead he has Teichmann...
...portrait," so he packs a series of topical chapters ("...The Playwright, The Wit, The Cardplayer...") between two very thin slices of reminiscence. While the reminiscences are very good, the stuff in between would be bad filler for the Reader's Digest. In each chapter Teichman sloppily recounts a few Kaufman anecdotes, comes up with a few obvious generalities and sometimes even tacks on a list of short witticisms. The purpose of this approach is understandable; he is trying all along to give an impression of Kaufman as a great wit, but instead Kaufman comes off as the author of tired...
After Marquand had driven his wife to the train station that Saturday in 1943, he drove back to the Kaufmans'. For awhile the two collaborators stood silently on the front porch, until Kaufman finally said, "John, why do you associate yourself with people like the Lindberghs?" Marquand thought a moment and replied, "George you've got to remember all heroes are horses' asses." Marquand makes fun of Apley's inhibitions and his struggle to fit the grip of Boston tradition and his struggle to fit the grip of Boston tradition and not betray it. Yet all his life Marquand sought...