Word: vidor
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...Randall also moves as quickly as a film, dropping in and out of the important events of Stevenson's life with the assurance of a Welles or Vidor. In a typical twist, Leland gives the mysterious Mrs. Randall a "secret from the past," only to reveal it to the reader in the first chapter. No cheap thrills here, despite a plot so byzantine it might confuse a Dallas junkie...
...Vidor interviewed all the survivors and gained access to secret police files. One of his most surprising discoveries concerned the "evidence" found in Taylor's bungalow: it had been planted there by Paramount. The studio wanted Taylor portrayed as a Casanova to disguise his homosexual private life. Even more surprising was the fact that the police had barely investigated several obvious leads. Working alone, Vidor traced the crime to its source. But he never made the movie, and never made any use of his more than 650 pages of notes and records...
...third mystery stars Sidney D. Kirkpatrick, 30, a documentary filmmaker and teacher of writing at California State University, Los Angeles. Vidor's family asked him to put the director's papers in order and write the official biography. Kirkpatrick found that Vidor had saved just about every scrap of paper he had accumulated in his long life--some 200 boxes of letters, manuscripts, Valentine cards, income tax returns--but almost nothing from 1967. The biographer ransacked Vidor's three houses, prying up attic floorboards, prowling through crawl spaces. After three weeks of searching, he found a padlocked strongbox...
...killer, Vidor concluded, was Charlotte Shelby, who not only wanted to protect her daughter from Taylor but also had a yen for him herself. According to this scenario, the ultimate stage mother locked up her love-hungry daughter on the night of the murder. Minter escaped and fled to Taylor's house. When Normand came by on a social visit, the girl hid upstairs in the bedroom. Mama arrived with her trusty .38 just in time to see her daughter descending the stairs. Assuming the worst, she opened fire. The case was never solved because Shelby used most of Minter...
...Vidor felt obliged to present his solution to Minter, whom he remembered as a beautiful nymphet. He found a grossly obese sexagenarian living in a dusty % and heavily curtained mausoleum. In a scene out of Sunset Boulevard, or even Great Expectations, she answered his questions by reading poems, which all bore the byline of her hated mother. When Vidor asked her to confirm his theory, she snapped: "You don't know anything about it. Mr. Taylor was a great man." Then as Vidor pressed harder, she sobbed: "My mother killed everything I ever loved." Well, what good would...