Frank Capra's autobiography :"The Name Above the Title"

[millbrookmusic]

Hey friends,
I'm nearly finished with Frank Capra's 1971 autobiography called "The Name Above the Title" and am so pleased with it, I thought I'd head over this way and recommend it.
Frank Capra's life reads half like a history of film and half like Forrest Gump-esque tale in that his life was just a sequence of being in the right places at the right times and rubbing shoulders with the right people. Frank talks about starting up in silent movies and more or less "making" Harry Langdon (and later Harry Langdon thought he knew who Harry Langdon was and it ended his career)...and the birth of talkies and then into the war (during which he was enlisted in the Army) and then on to It's a Wonderful Life.
It's a long read (my first edition clocks in at just a tick under 500 pages) but well worth it. If you're a fan of film or film history - this book is a must read!

~ Daniel Jacob

 

[Fletch]

Seconded! A fun and breezy read despite its length. I especially recall Mr. C's way with dialogue. (Harry Cohn: "Hey Walyo!" Dmitri Tiomkin: "Fronk, you need beeg drink.")

HBO or TCM or somebody needs to docu-dramatize this. Maybe with Paul Giamatti as Capra...Albert Brooks as Cohn...Jim Caviezel as Jimmy Stewart? (hey, he played Jesus...) Jane Krakowski as Jean Arthur...and of course Bill Irwin as Harry Langdon.

 

[Doctor Strange]

An outstanding book, one of the best movie-biz autobios ever written. I first read it as a teenage movie buff back when it was first published, and I have revisited it many, many times since.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Capra was always very confident in his achievements -- and if you didn't know what they were, he was very pleased to tell you about them. But he's a great storyteller, and the book makes for a very engaging read.

There's a lot of controversy these days, though, about the section on Langdon. Many Langdon enthusiasts insist that Capra actually had a lot less to do with developing the classic "baby dope fiend" Langdon character than did Arthur Ripley, Harry Edwards and Langdon himself -- who had played less-refined version of that same character for twenty years in vaudeville before ever setting foot in Hollywood. Capra was a man to carry grudges, and many suggest that he was very bitter about being fired by Langdon -- and that this anger still burned more than forty years later when he wrote his memoirs, shading his description of his former employer. Something to consider when reading, at least...

 

[Doctor Strange]

That's true enough, Lizzie. There's no question that Capra was bitter about what happened with Langdon, and he was still pretty angry even as an old man.

But since I've always found Langdon's films made with Capra far more watchable than those without, I tend to agree that Capra's writing/direction was a very valuable asset. (Actually, I have to come clean and admit that Langdon is the one silent comic "great" whose appeal eludes me. His films have their moments, but frankly, he mostly creeps me out!)

 

[Fletch]

Many Langdon enthusiasts [...]

Are there many? I'd think they could all fit into this picture.

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, 1926

 

[LizzieMaine]

Now, now. I'm proud to say I'm a Langdon fan -- especially the way he has of leading up to a gag you'd expect any other silent comic to do a certain way and then proceeds to do it exactly the opposite (the sweater-snagged-on-the-fence bit in "Tramp Tramp Tramp" as one example). That sort of sensibility is very much in line with descriptions of his pre-Hollywood vaudeville act -- enough so, at least, to make me think he had lots more sense of his characterization than he gets credit for.

What he wasn't, though, was a great *filmmaker,* and this is where the Capra supporters have a point. He tends to be very ragged in his shot selection in films like "Three's A Crowd," and you can find yourself yelling CUT when you know the shot's being held too long. That's the kind of thing he needed Capra for, and it's the difference between his better films and his lesser ones.

An interesting might-have-been: Langdon was close friends in vaudeville with Fred Allen, and when he was making plans to go to Hollywood in the early twenties, he asked Allen to join him as his chief writer. Allen already hated California, though, and declined the offer -- but one can't help but imagine what *his* dark sensibility would have done with the Langdon character.

 

[Fletch]

Now don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed what little Langdon I've seen. It's just that I can't imagine there's much awareness of him these days, any more than music scholars or fans are aware of, say, Leo Reisman or Ted Weems.

The era is just so far back that only one or two broad caricatures, made in later eras, have any meaning for most of us. By now, more people have seen Gloria Swanson imitate Chaplin than have seen Chaplin himself.