Backlisted - Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman

Episode Date: October 2, 2017

Simon Garfield, author of The Wrestling, The Nation's Favourite and A Notable Woman, amongst others joins John and Andy to discuss William Goldman's groundbreaking account of his life as a Hollywood screenwriter.Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)35'23 - Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Let's just say, you've got to admire Bill Buford for his sort of chandelierian approach to the judging process. Bill Buford, who was the editor at the time. Grunter at the time, yeah.

I mean, there's a classic one here. Our next meeting was two days before Christmas. London traffic was impenetrable, clogged up by last-minute shoppers and IRA bombers. I had just finished editing our winter issue and was exhausted. John Mitchinson had just been left by his wife and didn't know where he'd be sleeping that night. Antonia had just come down with the flu and was bundled up in jumpers, and Salman had just finished reading 50 novels. We protested. It's because he's got protectors looking after him that

he gets so much time, but in fact he'd been spurred on by the reading. His excitement was contagious. It just goes on. It's just very funny. What's that the judging for? For the best of young British novelists in 1993. I was a judge for Salman Rushdie and Antonia Byer. Oh, my goodness. I remember.

I went to the party. You did? I remember seeing you at the party. Yeah, yeah. And it was, where was it? It was at the... Was it not the Polish Club? I can't remember. No, no party where was it was it not the Polish club I can't remember it was a trendy

East End gallery it was it was the Saatchi gallery the white guy oh my god when was that 1993 it's only nearly 25 years ago.

I mean, it's... Jeez. Yeah, well... 90s. Yeah, because that was obviously my first marriage. That was on the rocks at the time. We've started well today. I'll just give you one more.

I don't know here. I'll do. A week later, a message from Antonia. She was depressed. They're so awful, she said when I phoned. There's no thought or history or interest except the miseries of the world we've made. They're full of the horror of the

horrid 80s. But they themselves are that horror. They are what the 80s produced. It's as if a diet of video nasties has ruined a generation. She lashed out at Martin Amis, not for being a bad writer, but for engendering so many bad inventations. He's had a baleful influence on a whole generation.

Tonight, John Mitchinson will be A.S. Byatt. Welcome to my... The last one, because it's got a New Year's effects from Salman Rushdie. And this is terrible. This is what you never should do. Bill, A.L. Kennedy, enjoying. D.L. Flosfido, no.

Philip Kerr, excellent. Adam Lively, very good. Carl mcdougall likewise i think strong french very surprising and enjoyable uh ann wilson antonia digs her too alexander stewart second thoughts out see you salman the reason i brought it was just as i mean i love bill and it was the whole judging process was a bit mad because we, because we had to read everybody under 40. But I think I said at the time that had it been 25 writers under 40, there would have been no argument whatsoever. There was a tiny number, as it boiled down to,

and I think it's always the same with judging panels. And hugely important as well, that work. I mean, it was regarded as something incredibly significant, that list. The first one, that had been ten years earlier, was the most extraordinary list. That was the one that brought that generation of writers from Angela Carter, Ian McEwan, Amis, Barnes, Ish, there were a few writers that were in both.

This one was kind of interesting. It's still, I mean, it's a pretty good list. But if you were young, you wanted to be on that list. Yeah. And your publishers wanted you to be on that list. And I don't think it's quite the same anymore. I don't think it... Yeah, it doesn't have the same...

It was massively talked about and important. Louis de Bernier, he won't ever happen to him. Alan Hollinghurst, never heard of again. Yeah. And Yves Koreshi. Yeah. It's not a bad list, actually. It's a good list. Except for Helen Simpson, who, never heard of again. Yeah. And if Qureshi. Yeah. It's not a bad list. It's a good list.

Except for Helen Simpson, who's never written a novel, so shouldn't have been on there in the first place. Oh, Helen Simpson. Four bare legs in a bed. And Anne Bilson, who I love, and who's a great film critic, but she wrote a sort of schlock vampire. We all enjoyed this vampire thing called Suck, but she's never really gone on to do much more. Simon, you're judging at the moment.

So the Costa Biography Prize. So, you know, obviously thrilled to be asked to judge it. And then the books start arriving, and it becomes a piece of work. And it's a delight. But a biography, I mean, we're not talking slim novels. How many other judges are there? The way it works is,

so the biography section obviously covers memoir, nature writing, a lot this year, that kind of thing. It's not heavy political biographies all the time. In fact, a few of those. And the way it works, which was news to me, is that unlike a lot of prizes, each judge, and there are three of us, I think for each category,

only get a third of the books, because otherwise it would just be too overwhelming. So if, for instance, there is a fantastic book that I think I might absolutely adore in someone else's pile, the chances are, and if they don't like it because it's just not for them, or they picked it up and it was an awful day for them and they thought, no, I don't never want to read a book again, out it goes you know and that's uh that's the thing but then then I thought well either that or read 150 books each and that would be too much so it's it's one of those things whatever it's called whether you know the terms of the experiment change the the nature of the thing because when you're reading

I mean I was when I was doing the judging for, and it's the only serious thing I've judged, but it was a hell of... I mean, it was well over 100 novels I read. I felt like I'd swallowed a kind of whole generation. And you read in such a weird way. You're really reading to get through, and you're kind of, you know, tossing... But you don't read the whole thing, do you? I mean, you skim.

You can't. You skim, and a lot... The ones where you do find yourself... In a way, it's quite self-selecting. The stuff that really does grab you, you think, my God, that's... And there were one or two things that were genuine surprises. I mean, like, Under the Frog by T. Bill Fisher was something I pulled out of a... under a charing cross road out of the... It was, you know, I'd seen it in there and never read it

they'd sold the there was one copy left in the store and I picked it up I liked it so much I had to share it with the other judges but in general what you're saying is right, you each read your list Simon is there a barrier as well so you're judging biography

I've always found it all exercised like this you're battling with your own personal tastes so a biography of somebody you might want to read about is has less work to do theoretically than a biography of someone you wouldn't necessarily yeah i read about i'm finding that i'm most responsive to books that i thought i would have no interest in in at all nature writing i don't read a huge amount of and And obviously, I can't mention any books. We're talking at a time where the shortlist hasn't been announced yet. We haven't even had our first judging meeting. So basically, I'm just in a room here. Matt, tell us.

Matt will bleep them out. There are... So the three books that I like the most at the moment, one is a nature book and one is... And there are two memoirs. But then all sorts of other thoughts come into your mind. So one book that I'm reading is very short and I love. And I think, is it substantial enough to win a prize?

And all these things. And you do get a fairly detailed outline saying, oh, don't be worried that someone has already won a prize for this book or is already well known. If it's the best book, it goes through. It's that kind of thing. Well, we're talking a couple of days after the Booker Prize shortlist was announced and somebody should have sent a message to

the Booker Prize judges saying, it's all right. Despite the fact that it's already won prizes, you can include Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad. The non-appearance of that seems very well, we can't now cover that because it's already won

two massive prizes in the States. I think that's a mistake. Yeah, I wonder the problem is it's such a lottery because it's taste isn't it? I mean, people just oh, fascinating discussion internally because we've, you know, we had Scott Pack's helpful dismissal

of George Saunders as rent-a-ghost, literary rent-a-ghost. Look at me, John. I'm utterly poker-faced throughout that. But I, you know, you and I... It was amazing. We loved that book. And we had, you know, really good readers like was amazing we we loved that book and we had we had but intelligent you know really good readers like stuart evers and lissa and indeed scott and you know other people don't just don't like it they don't like it at all yeah um and i it never

ceases to amaze me i would have i would have put my money on colts and whitehead because it seemed to me to be the sixth novel by somebody who's just getting better and better on such an amazing subject. It's kind of formally interesting. It seems to tick all the boxes. It's already won two major prizes, but I'm afraid that you're right. It ought not to make a difference,

but on some conscious level, maybe it does. Simon, you're talking about nature. Sorry, you're talking about nature. I've invented something this week, which is going to be the next trend, so get ready. It's about nature writing. I've invented something this week, which is going to be the next trend, so get ready. It's called nurture writing. And I've now worked out what it is. Initially, I didn't know what it was going to be.

But I realise it's a brilliant name for the kind of Matt Hay, Kathy Rensenbrick school of books to help you with your depression and help you feel better about yourself. Nurture writing. Formerly known as self-help lit. Yeah, but self-help has a terrible reputation. We need to

bring it into the 21st century. Is Marcus Aurelius self-help on one hand, yes, on another one, no. It's the original nurture writer. Marcus Aurelius is the McFarlane. Oh, my nurture writer. The risk is, isn't it, and all these things,

that a book wins by default. And that's the ones that cause least offence or people, you know, if you're funding for one particular book and people think, no, I don't think that's going to happen on this. And the other judges are, I know, very level-headed and also great readers. So I think, I don't foresee that. Despite all this, I reread the brilliant Julian Barnes posh bingo piece on the Booker, which is just in the LRB, which was in 1987, I think he wrote it. It's a brilliant piece.

Very, very good and very funny. But in general, although it's hellish for everybody, I do think prizes are kind of... I mean, there is a sort of point to it. My feeling on all these prizes is that it's great because it gets on the BBC News

and more people will buy the books. It's as simple as that. And it actually does provoke interest. One picks the best stuff. It does provoke interesting discussion. I mean, as I say, we had a really good internal discussion here. Hello and welcome to Backlisted, the podcast that gives new life to old books.

You find us watching rushes in the viewing theatre of our sponsors, Unbound, the website which brings authors and readers together to create something special. I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher of Unbound. I'm Andy Miller, author of The Year of Reading Dangerously and joining us today is the writer Simon Garfield. Hello Simon. Hello Andy. Author of Variously. Simon, we did a thing at a festival together and I introduced you in this one. I'm going to do it again because I think it is just the best list Simon Garfield author of variously books about AIDS wrestling radio one the colour move steam locomotives stamps the mini car fonts the mass observation archive letters

writing and most recently the nature of time yeah that's uh you know that's a magnificent portfolio work and also we're going to talk a little bit about a couple of simon's books because we've got in here because we've talked about your books on the podcast before um you edited a book called a notable woman uh which i think listeners to backlisted would absolutely love absolutely could you just say a little bit about how you came to do that book and what it is? Yeah, so what it is, it's a collection of 43 diaries written between 1925 and 1986

of a woman called Jean Lucy Pratt, who was someone I discovered in the Mass Observation Archive. So I went in there years before I was able to edit Jean's diaries and put together a series of lives from the Mass Observation. A summary, at the University of South Essex, there is this fantastic archive of life writing that began

just before the Second World War, continues to this day, there have been years of interaction, and people just write about two things. Well, one is they write about their lives, originally in a kind of diary format, and they also answer what are known as directives, which are questionnaires.

They were encouraged, weren't they, to... They're sort of benign Stasi. They were encouraged to travel around, looking at what other people were doing and noting down... Exactly. That was the organisers before the people took over, as it were. And the idea was

what do ordinary people... I mean, a terribly patronising was what do ordinary people, I mean a totally patronising thing, three separate people one of them an anthropologist, but all have sort of anthropologist views. What do ordinary people in a northern club think about the real world? This is before Gallup and

We did the amazing book The Exmoor Village which was a sort of mass observation project and it was sort of Oxbridge people going into local villages, which was a sort of... Oh, yes, that's right. A kind of mass observation project. And it was sort of Oxbridge people going into local villages. It was a brilliant book. But the whole thing was sort of... I mean, it's one of those classic British...

I feel it's in the same spirit as sort of Pevsner and... Mass observation as well. And the Ordnance Survey, amazing. There's a book, isn't there, The Letters or the Diaries of Nella Last, the housewife Nella Last, which Victoria Wood made a film, isn't there, The Letters or the Diaries of Nella Last, The Housewife of Nella Last, which Victoria Wood made a film about. Anyway, so to come back to...

So I went in, edited three books, and she, Jean Lucy Pratt, was in all of them. And that was great. Then the books came out, got some attention. Her niece, who was alive, Jean Lucy Pratt, long gone, said, do you know that Jean not only wrote for Mass Observation but also kept diaries through her life? And I said, I'll be down in ten minutes.

This was extraordinary because she was such a beautiful writer, incredibly frank, wrote about disasters at work, disasters with love, the whole thing. It's a fabulous book. Yeah, and I kind of thought, oh, well, if she wrote about mass observation, and I knew, I got the feeling, and you always get this with mass observation, that there is still a veil.

People are aware that they are writing to a professional organisation. Yeah. And I thought, well, if these diaries are really personal diaries, then they are going to be extraordinary, because she was extraordinary for mass observation. So I went to see her niece, and it was a battle. So originally she said, oh, read these. So I went, took notes, and she brought down classic, you know,

a suitcase from the loft with all these diaries, which smelt of tobacco and, you know, Ovaltine's, whatever. And really fantastic. Fantastic things. And I began taking notes and, you know, Ovaltine. And really fantastic. Fantastic things. And I began taking notes and said, oh, that's great. It'll make a wonderful book. And, you know, it's a tribute to her and stuff. And this is before I realised that actually Jean did want her diaries published.

It wasn't just me going in as a sort of voyeur, thinking, oh, we're going to sort of, you know, do something she didn't want. When that book was published, first of all, it's a terrific book as john says it was very well reviewed and i think it sold well yeah it's that was that a very satisfying thing it was to see it out there in the world you know i i'd be dishonest if i didn't say i wanted it to be a huge hit because um it's you know it's 95 her five percent me i mean i i did the hard work on the editing i i i can't remember i think she wrote well over a million words and the book turned out to be oh i i'm really not sure about 160 000 or so um so i had to cut a huge amount

or maybe 200 000 and um so i had to lose a lot but actually some of that was easy because she repeated herself a lot of the things she said weren't of any interest to anyone so i had to sort of carve my way through and we're going to talk about that obviously more about the idea of the narrative you know with william goldman but but the water but it took me 10 years to persuade her niece to actually allow me to she got cold feet and then i and then i said oh please and then three years later i I went back. So I was kind of proud that I persevered and I got them, you know, and I persuaded her, and she finally said, OK, let's do it.

And they came out. They are wonderful things. You know, when you write a book, you kind of think it has a certain life. It has a certain shelf life, as you know, plus it then gets reviewed. It has a window. It's a bit like a film. It has a window. It's either going to make it or not.

With this, I know that it's going to just carry on. Yes. And partly thanks to you guys here now, really. But it will carry on because it's an important document. That's the key, I think. In fact fact I was going to do it as one of my things you've been reading but

knowing that you were coming on the podcast I thought let's organ grinder rather than monkey but also you talk about carving out narrative from all that material you know I when we did our episode a few months ago

about oral histories, the one that I brought to the table was The Wrestling, your book The Wrestling. As you know, I'm a big fan of that book. I've read it several times. On the way here today, I bumped into the writers Joel Morris and Jason Haisley, our former guests,

who were quote-unquote prepping a podcast, as all middle-aged men currently are and they're in a pub they were prepping a podcast in a pub jason was the next book he's going to read is the wrestling he's never read it and i said you know what i envy you yeah i envy you the the peculiar journey that you're about to go on with Simon as narrator in the book. I just wanted to ask you, I don't think I've asked you this before. Was it easy to construct the narrative of the wrestling? It's an oral history about British wrestling in the early 1970s and its decline. The hardest thing about it was, oddly enough, not persuading an editor that this was worth doing.

Because this was, you know, wrestling now has sort of come back in a way, and enough time has passed. At the time, it was, I'd just written a book about AIDS, so then to write a book about wrestling, people thought, hang on, what's going on here? And people may get sort of confused. But also, just persuading the wrestlers to talk. So even after all those years, and they were no longer...

My interest in the story was these guys were huge, huge superstars for a short period of time. And if you watched the football results come in, you know, on ATV, or whatever the ITV was then, you know... Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. And you were waiting for things, and they came across, you know, likeot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot. And you saw, you were waiting for things, and they came across, you know, like a tear, a textile underneath.

You watched the wrestling, whether you liked it or not, and then you probably got into it, you know. And I did. Like, a lot of people my age... Mick McManus, Jackie Pallett. Yeah, exactly. And I just thought, well, what had happened to these people? They were so huge, and then suddenly not,

because Greg Dyke decided that you know they weren't suitable for the new itv and they weren't going to attract the advertisers that that they wanted so they were from one day to the next the plug was pulled and these people who on the front of the tv times and were opening not just supermarkets but you know sort of estates or whatever was suddenly nothing. They weren't earning a huge amount at the time, even when they were on TV, but at least then, you know, there were big names and they could do offshoots.

And they were on every light entertainment show. They were on the Tommy Cooper show. They were on, you know, everything. There's a spread in the book of, you know, Mick McManus with the Rolling Stones and Rod Hull and Amy, but it was that range. And then they weren't. And it was about how they got so big and then what happened to their lives now.

And that's what I love doing. So when I had that narrative, I mean, can I read you a tiny bit of here? God, yeah. Okay. We'll make it up later, Matt. This is the bit that... We haven't even announced the book we're doing.

Oh, yeah, Christmas special. We may not cover what we've been reading this week. This is a bit where I kind of knew that the book was going to work. So the first person I interviewed was Mick McManus. And then I thought, well, if he would just open up his address book, and he was obviously reluctant, and I think he wanted a bit of money and stuff. His thing was that in the mad world of the wrestling I remember my grandfather because I used to watch it with my grandfather my grandfather said he's a proper wrestler he said these other guys are just um and isn't there a brilliant line somewhere somewhere it was it was made up but it still

hurt yeah he and Jackie Palo would definitely, and then he worked what they call the office. Then he became the broker as well, and he was incredibly... And so my delight in beginning to meet these people was to find out that not only did they hate each other in the ring, but they actually hated each other in real life. And that was the key. So then if I said to Jackie Palo, well, I've talked to Mick, and he said, oh, you talked to Mick, you've got to talk to me.

What Mick told you, whatever it is, it's rubbish. You know, is it? And that carried on. So I'm going to tell you when I... So this is me going to see Jackie Palo. So I should explain, it's an oral history, and I'm in there as a sort of character. I say the first time I saw Palo outside the ring

was one blazing August afternoon when he picked me up at Ramsgate train station to drive me to his house we shook hands at the ticket barrier and he hobbled back in his small shorts and t-shirt and flip-flops to his old Saab 900 I told him I had an old Saab too he said, I have lots of Saabs. He said he moved down to Kent 14 years ago from Tartaridge. When he had an offer on his place, he just couldn't refuse. Crazy money. We arrived at his house and parked in deep overgrowth. Around us, there were eight or nine other Saabs, various old models, 900s, 99s, 96s, all rusting away, not buffed like most collectors. He said he doesn't like the new models since General Motors took over.

His son was in the garden, wearing even shorter shorts, nothing else, lazing on his back. In the distance, some goats chewed grass and plants. There was a huge rectangular hole at the bottom of the garden. They were building themselves a swimming pool. Should have had it finished by now palo said but i've been on well with flu and we've missed the summer altogether there's still something nasty on my lungs and they're trying to sort it out also we got the wrong bloody tiles

and then he says and then he turns to his son he's suspicious they were so suspicious of all journalists even you know well after they after they'd fallen from grace. And then he turned to his son and said, he's all right. He's a Saab man. Well, the question I wanted to ask you is, from a writing point of view, right, and you put yourself in the book,

you've decided to make yourself a character in the book. This is relevant to what Goldman does in Adventures in the Screen Trade, how you present yourself in the book, right? Can you what Goldman does in Adventures in the Screen Trade. How you present yourself in the book. Can you remember when, faced with all that material and how to organise it, you hit upon the idea of trying to get

hold of the wrestler Les Kellett as the spine of the book? Because that, I don't want to, again, if you haven't read the book and you feel like reading it, read it. But that becomes the quest element. Yeah. I was genuinely keen to talk to Les Kellett, because he was

sort of my hero. He was much, much older, if people don't know. Much, much older man. Terribly out of shape, it seemed on TV. This was when, you know, he was in the ring. He was a big fella, but not in good condition. Yeah, exactly. And everyone had terrible stories about how he loved the pain, and that's sort of what he wanted.

So I thought, I've got to talk to him, and I knew he was a Yorkshireman, and he was going to be tough, and he would probably say no. But I kept on writing to him. I got his address, and, you know, he wasn't going to be answering the phone and stuff, and so I wrote to him. And then I heard nothing, And so I wrote to him.

And then I heard nothing. And then I wrote back and I heard nothing. And I said, oh, I've heard all these wonderful stories. And everyone was telling me great stories about him. And then he did write back and said, I'm so sorry to, like, refuse you. And then I think I offered him booze and stuff, you know, to talk to me. And then he wrote back and said, I'm terribly sorry to refuse you. I'm you know, to talk to me. And then he wrote back and said, I'm terribly sorry to refuse you, I'm just not going to talk to you.

And then, obviously, it became clear that much better not to talk to him. So sort of the idea of the myth. And then, obviously, I dotted those through the book. And the same with Kendo Nagasaki. The fact that he doesn't talk, although in the paperback in the reissue of the book it's I do talk to Kendo in character

and then I learn more about him, which I'm not sure is a good thing, but I just say about the wrestling I've written lots of books, and some work and some don't, and some work better than others, and that's fine and some sold and some didn't sell. And the only thing I feel about

the rest of it, which is why I'm so happy to talk about it still and things and everything, is because it's pretty much the only book, not counting the edited diaries, that worked out the way I thought, I hoped it would, in my head.

You know, everything else, you have the idea and then everything hoped it would in my head you know everything else you have the idea and then everything else is downhill from there with practically everything you write you know everyone tells you I'm sure the idea that it's a golden idea and then for a hundred reasons it doesn't quite live up to the the book that you want to write it's it's mostly my fault sometimes it's you know other other people's fault as well. But with this, I kind of felt I got as close to it as I possibly could. And now, of course, half the people in the book aren't alive anymore. And I just thought, you know, and it was a great... Initially, it didn't sell at all.

And then what happened was that Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman were on Pointless. There was a question about the wrestling, and Richard Osmond asked Alexander Armstrong in the show, during the live recording of the show, have you read Simon Garfield's The Wrestling? And Alexander was sort of, you know, affronted. I don't read a book about The Wrestling.

He said no. And Richard Osmond said, oh, it's just fantastic. You've got to read this book. And so from nothing, it goes from really selling, I don't know, a couple of thousand copies to being number three on Amazon. It's just extraordinary. I must tell you, it's such a great time.

With Arthur's sincerity. The rest of that. I love it. Count Arthur Strong was tweeting how much he loved the book just a couple of weeks ago. God love him. Well, I haven't read it, so I've got it. I've ordered it. I ordered it after the podcast.

So are you saying, Simon, when you write your Goldman equivalent, when you write Adventures in the Book Tray, that the rest thing is your book and Sundance? This podcast is my Adventures in the Book Tray. End of. It's enough about me.

And also, Matt, you must tell Simon this story, and then we will cut to the book we're here to talk about. So Matt, our producer, was at Radio 1 when The Nation's Favourite was published. Now, The Nation's Favourite was your book after the wrestling, and again, an oral history of the turmoil at Radio 1 in the 90s when it went from the old guard what became known as the smashy and nicey lot to

the then young Chris Evans etc Matt what was the just that I actually had left Radio 1 I was in a different part of the world I was working somewhere else when the book came out but I was at Radio 1 when you were having meetings and kind of coming in

and talking to people and stuff. And so I hadn't read it, but I just heard an awful lot. Everyone that I knew at Radio 1 was like, this book's come out. And it was kind of really a big thing. And I hadn't read it, but I just heard that quite a few people didn't come out of it in the way that they maybe had hoped.

I can remember buying a copy. Listeners, you can't see Simon laughing, but he definitely is. I can remember buying a copy, and it was one of those occasions where, and I'm used to getting my name on thank you lists on albums and stuff like that and it was one of the occasions where I flicked to the index and was relieved not to see my name in the index, it was like

phew I can read that now and then of course you look to see who else's name is in the index Simon enough about me we thank you again. And perhaps we should say that Germaine to Ellis, I think, in all sorts of ways,

is the book that Simon has come here to talk about today, which is the classic Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman. The classic and, we believe, currently out of print Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman. Now, we have decided, out of print Adventures in the Scream trade by William Goldman. Now, we have decided, because we've had a bit more wrestling and a bit more chatting, than we had not to do, what have you been reading this week, Andy? So, do you want to...

I've got 20 minutes now. Do you want to... Is that what we're going to do? Is that what we're going to agree to? Yeah, no, I think, you know... Because we've got a lot to say about Goldman. Yeah. And the two books, although, yeah,

they'll wait until next year. What I've been reading this week is a book that I'm passionate about and therefore I don't want to squeeze it into like a minute. I am also passionate about the book I've been reading, so I don't want to. Well, we can do that on our live show,

which is when you get to hear this, listeners, if you're in oxford tonight rush to uh to uh avoid disappointment beat down the doors of blackwell's in oxford where we're appearing tonight so the next thing is that we have a message from our sponsor my name is penny pepper and the book is first in the world Somewhere, The True Adventures of a Scribbler, Siren, Saucepot and Pioneer. Yes, I didn't choose all those words, but I'm very proud of them. So the memoir is about my life, particularly from when I moved to London in 1985. in 1985.

And at that time, the post-punk scene, sort of new wave indie scene was still really big, really influential on me and my views and politics. And against that backdrop, I decided as a disabled girl, I didn't care what everyone else thought, I was going to move to big bad London and make records. I was talking about this yesterday, who the archetypal reader of the book might be.

I think people who are interested in a different story, people who are interested in music in the 80s, feminism, radical politics at the time anyone who hated margaret thatcher people who like a story are the coming of age with a bit of sort of radicalism thrown in because it's only now i realized how radical i was the disability thing is in there and i know that I was the disability thing is in there and I know that I've tried to write a book that weaves that in it's not a book about disability but it is a book about finding a way in the world with that as part of my identity this piece I'm going to read is about my first big birthday event in Leighton East London where I was moving to so I think the only other thing is to say that Freddie who I mention in this is my music manager yay and also my very

new boyfriend the Lord Clyde in Capworth Street, E10. Six o'clock. I sit with Freddie on one side, Tone on the other, and Tamsin in front of me. We're waiting for the boys. Tamsin and me sluice ourselves in drink. Freddie tickles me. I can't stop giggling. And Tamsin giggles too. We're on vodka and cokes one after the other. I'm wearing a black corset with lace edged at the waist and bustline. It's a bit Madonna especially with the long necklaces and bracelets I've added. Below there's a blue tartan skirt old style proper safety pin. On my legs fishnets and my red victorian horse boots

my recent hair extensions are multi-coloured with slashes of blonde and blacks and blues pinks and purples i have one gold flower in my hair eyelashes painted on and a splash of fuchsia on my lids. Freddie helps me totter to the toilet when my bladder finally demands attention after a typically long battle to ignore it. The cubicles are very small. The toilet is very low. It is a toilet for the normals after all. No bars to grab hold of. Nothing.

In some pain, I sway in indecision. I know I won't manage it with my unbending knees, and I'm loath to ask Freddy. Come on, dear heart. I'll help you, Freddy says, gently holding me around the waist. It's deliciously sleazy, in a good way. I'm sorry, I whisper, burning up with vodka and embarrassment. Shh, silly thing. Freddy kisses me and before I know it, his strong hands have whipped down my knickers. Fortunately, my best pink satin fries, and he's lowered me to the loo. I wee for hours, and as I'm finishing, Freddie decides we must snog. First in the World

Somewhere by Penny Pepper is available now from all good bookshops and the Unbound website at unbound.com. To receive money off the registered price at the Unbound website at unbound.com to receive money off the registered price at the Unbound checkout and to the code BACKOFF. That's B-A-C-K-O-F-F. We'll be back in just a sec. And now we're back for the main subject, the large, capacious and best-selling

mid-'80s tome that is... Out of print. Adventures in the Screenshows. Well, can I just say, before we get Simon going tome that is out of print adventures in the screen trade well can i just say before we get simon going if it is out of print yeah that is remarkable because i started my book selling career 30 years ago this week in um in happy birthday in waterstones regent street and i was put in charge as new people were in charge of the science fiction section and the cinema section and easily the best selling book in the cinema section

and this was I guess three years after it was published was Adventures in the Screen Trade. I mean it was the book I think that shaped a whole generation it came before the other books that came afterwards. It's what I call the disaster movie books You Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again by Julia

whatever her name was afterwards. It's what I call the disaster movie books. You Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again by Julia... whatever her name was. And Jake... was it Jake Ebbets' The Goldcrest Story? My Indecision is Final. Yes. And what was the one about Heaven's Gate? Final Cut.

Final Cut. All of these. Julia Phillips. But Goldman was the kind of... Because one of the things people always said about movie books is nobody read books about the movies, and then suddenly Goldman changed all that. I mean, how it's out of print is extraordinary because the films have survived.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is still one of the all-time great movies. Let's just say what this book is before I ask you the question, Simon. So this is a book which appears to be and we will come on to this, it's a book that appears to be by a screenwriter

about screenwriting. And some of the book is that. It appears to be Robert McKee on screenwriting. It appears to be. Now, when I saw Joel Morris and Jason Haisley earlier, they both love that book. They are scriptwriters.

They've written scripts for films and they write the adult Lady Bird books, but they also wrote for the Paddington movie. They devoured this book. And Jason said, the thing about this book is all books about screenwriting are how you do this, except Adventures in the Screen Trade, which is about how I did it.

And it makes it seem fun, even when it's awful. And it makes it seem achievable, even when we in our wildest dreams couldn't write butch cassidy and the sundance kid and it managed to make something that is the product of sitting in what goldman calls the pit yeah beating himself up because he can't do it seem effortless and fun and it's it's got three act structure the first bit is his kind of more philosophical observations on... Hollywood realities. Hollywood realities, which is full of gossip and full of brilliant announcements,

the most famous of which being, you know, nobody knows anything. The middle section is him really basically telling his autobiography through the movies he's helped to write, of which Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is probably the most famous. But also Marathon Man and All the President's Men Princess Bride, though that isn't covered in this book, so that's another bridge too far

and then the final quite odd I found section, but sort of brilliant, is he finds an early short story and before our eyes turns it into a screenplay and then does the thing that I think is monstrously egotistic,

this book, but it's also kind of brilliant. He hires a set of people, a director, somebody who directs the musical score, Gordon Willis, the greatest cameraman, certainly of the 70s and 80s, and then gives them the script and interviews them about the script. I laughed out loud, may I say, John, in this section.

He gives it to the director of Butch Cassidy and the Sundarskis, George Royale. This made me laugh out loud when I reread it. He said, so there's a harmonica scene in this screenplay that is called Da Vinci. And he says, in your notes you say it would be phony, bad, dangerous to write a scene that establishes a relationship with the boy and bim-bam, the barber

and then you go ahead and write one the very thing you say is bad, you write the thrust of that scene where he's playing the harmonica is to give something to the old man he softens his attitude towards the boy for one moment, it's the crotchety but dear old man, that's the artist saying what every young artist wants to hear

you know what I've written in the margin beside this scene? Enjoying this, Bill. So Simon, where and when did you first read Adventures in the Scream? The great thing about this, I can actually, well, I can't quite answer it to the day, but I was at Time Out in my first year, so I was at Time Out for seven years or something, and I just remember the buzz about this, a bit, you know, you must have

experienced in Waterstones as well, so both from the books people on Time Out, this is when, I should say, perhaps when Time Out was slightly more of a magazine. Chris Pettit and Peachment were doing film, and maybe Anne Wilson was there. Ann Wilson's not there yet. I don't think. Richard Rayne

I think was the books editor. And he was abuzz with this as were all the film people. So that's when I first got on. And the time out there were pretty much ahead of the curve. They knew what was coming and everything was being given to them in advance.

And I have got, this will date it as well a little bit i've got a name here who i vaguely remember but not quite sure why called paul cray so if you're listening paul and i have a phone number and i have and this obviously dates it as a you know this is actually generally my god a beep uh number or beep code so i could beep him at any point. And so that was it. And I loved it as well. I mean, the thing that appealed to me then, when I first picked it up, was, you know, I had no intention,

and, you know, I'm sure most people reading it, because it reached such a wide audience, had no intention of learning how to write a screenplay whereas if you pick up the McKee books you probably want to write a screenplay you don't read it for pleasure but this is absolute pleasure and it's gossip I mean that's why yes that's why it works all the big stars who are still big stars uh or still big names the Paul Newman's and the Robert Redford's he just had fantastic insights because he saw them, as it were, with their pants down. And as you said, it's I was there and it's from the inside.

That's why it works. The most famous phrase from this book, which is passed into film law and publishing law... It's the first line of the book, which it actually is. ..is, nobody knows anything. into the film lore and publishing lore... Often described as the first line of the book, which it actually isn't. ...is, nobody knows anything. Yeah. Which is to say... Well, we have a clip, actually.

This is William Goldman interviewed probably about six or seven years ago. If he remembers writing that phrase or coming up with that phrase. Nobody knows anything. It's funny. It's caught on. As I remember, what I meant by it

was that nobody has the least idea what movie's going to work. I mean the big movie that's opening this weekend is Sex and the City 2 and sequels are horror movies as I've written. The only reason you do a sequel is to make money and nobody has the least idea is it going to be a phenomenal success or is it going to tank? I was going to tank i was talking with a studio guy recently and he said we'll make movies that cost under 25 million or movies that cost over 75 and i thought total horseshit what he meant was they would make quote quote an art film and they would make special effects movies but that leaves out a gigantic percentage of what

most of us fell in love with movies for i mean it wasn't because of the special effects stuff that they're doing now i understand that avatar was terrific etc etc but there were other things besides avatar it was the movies i liked a lot. He says somewhere else, he might say in the sequel, which is called Which Lie Did I Tell, which we might talk a bit about as well, the kind of films that he was writing, that Hollywood was producing in the 60s and 70s, kind of pre-famously, pre-Jaws,

Jaws and Star Wars being the films that change everything. Those are the films, he says, in retrospect, we were really lucky. I got into Hollywood, whatever my ups and downs, in a period where I got to make serious films and good films at a very basic level. And I'm happy to turn my hand to popcorn movies too, serious films and good films at a very basic level, you know. And I'm happy to turn my hand to popcorn movies too,

as he talks about at length, but fundamentally, you know, there's a good chance that Butch and Sundance wouldn't be made now. The great thing about the line, I think why it resonated then and now, if nobody knows anything, is that it sort of lets everybody off the hook. So that idea of, you know, you can be brilliant and fail,

or you can be mediocre and get larky, and it's the most inspirational thing. If you are writing a screenplay, it's the most inspirational thing as well. I think the other thing that appealed to me initially about his writing was that he, you know, this was, we should say, if it's not already obvious, he was sort of the Aaron Sorkin of his day. He was the kingpin. He was the go-to man, terrible phrase, I'm sorry, go-to man, for if you wanted your script improved and doctored,

he would be the person who would accept, you know, 100 grand for a week's work to improve your script, because he was the man. And so to hear him say, as he does frequently, you know, I may be the worst writer in the world, I've got no idea, you know, even I have no idea if this movie, even at the sneak preview or the screener,

is going to be a success, it's great, because he is self-deprecating in that way, and he doesn't generally have a very high opinion of his writing, which is reassuring, and some work and some don't. And he talks about his flops absolutely brilliantly, I think. OK, I want to give you my theory about this. So I remember where I was when I read this book the first time. I'd just started work, I was working in a bookshop on the paltry wages that Waterstones paid them, John. I was able to

afford in late January 1991 to go for a weekend away with my then-girlfriend to Bath, right? So in January, we went to Bath in January, and I took along with me a copy of Adventures in the Screenshot. I have clear memory of reading it and not being able to put it down. And I remember reading this bit because I have thought about it probably at least once a week in the ensuing 26 years.

It's this bit. He's talking about movie stars and he's saying movie stars are so blessed and not just with physical beauty they have talent and intelligence and command and an unending supply of self-deprecating charm. Remember that phrase. We have read their interviews in the papers

and we've seen them on talk shows and it's very hard to realise that what we are seeing are not the people themselves but the actors doing what they do best, acting. George Segal may have put it best. I had watched him be terrific on a talk show playing his banjo or whatever the hell instrument he plays and joking it up acting. George Segal may have put it best. I had watched him be terrific on a talk show, playing his banjo or whatever the hell instrument he plays and joking it up. And I asked him if he had always been able to enjoy himself that way. And he said, I prepare myself. I do an acting

exercise. I tell myself I'm playing a character who's enjoying himself. Now, okay, so here are the two things I thought coming back to this book. First of all, every single time I've tuned into a chat show for 26 years, I have looked, I genuinely, at some level, I've thought that. I've looked at whoever it was and thought, you're good at this or you're not good at this. You know, you're playing the part of being delighted to be sitting next to whoever you're sitting next to, right? So that's the first thing I thought.

But the second thing I thought coming back to it is actually looking at this book as a book with a slightly more analytical eye. One of the brilliant things that Goldman does in this book as the author who puts himself in the narrative is play the part of a guy who's enjoying himself. Yeah. Right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That idea that what you're seeing him is playing his banjo or whatever the hell instrument he plays. Because he's so charming and he's so much fun to spend time with and he's so avuncular that actually, when I got to the end of the book, which now reads like much more of a period piece, I think. And a slightly sad farewell, I think, to an industry.

But also, I read it thinking, I'm not sure this... Is this a great... It's not a great book, but it's so much fun. And it's so enjoyable to spend time with him. If we were to apply his rules of structure to it, and certainly to the sequel, the whores book, as he would describe it, to the sequel, it doesn't play right. No, it's all to the sequel the whores book as he would describe it to the sequel it doesn't

it doesn't play right no it's all over the place and it's not you know talking about sort of prize winning it's never gonna it's never gonna win you know sort of any any prize but as you say it's actually i mean this is in the second book and which lie did i tell which came out more than 10 years uh later, 15 years later. And there's this fantastic thing where he talks about the phoniness. A fantastic line where he's talking about Gwyneth Paltrow. He says, I saw Gwyneth Paltrow being interviewed. She was a few weeks away from winning her first Oscar for Shakespeare in Love.

And she said, essentially, that her chief thought of the coming ceremony was to be sure to remember to wear comfortable shoes, that she had given no thought to winning and, of course, didn't care, she said. Well, he says, there aren't enough lightning bolts in heaven to cover all the falsehoods in that little discourse. But he also, you know, he starts Which Lie Did I Tell by talking about the wilderness period

that followed the publication of Adventures in the Screen Trade without ever, it seemed to me, acknowledging that he might have perhaps crapped on his own doorstep by, as you said, Simon, publishing a book full of gossip, albeit affectionate gossip, about the appalling habits of people like Dustin Hoffman, that people would look at him and say, well, can we employ this guy if he's just going to go into print

and make us look foolish? There's so many great scenes in it. The scene where Hoffman insists on getting Olivier, who is literally dying, I mean, he can barely stand to walk and improvise the scene. And Olivier really, Olivier comes out really well after the book.

This is a marathon man. Yeah. Yeah. And he just, the director, Schlesinger, because he's, Hoffman's the star.

I mean, the meditation, I mean, there's so many brilliant one-liners in the book, but that scene in particular. Can I just read a piece of where I think,

this is comedy writing, but also serious comedy writing of its finest. This is about the Stepford Wives, a movie, OK, brilliant premise, which he writes the screenplay for, but the director is an English director, Brian Forbes. And anyway, Brian Forbes has asked him a question, which is, hey, Bill, what do you think about... Oh.

..what do you think about having Nanette Newman as the main character? And he says, what could I have answered when Brian's question was put to me? Well, I could have said, Brian, she's English, and this is a very American piece. I could have said that, but it would have been dicey. In the first place, she was a more than fine enough performer to act the role, and as noted, there's no law barring the British from New York suburbia. But most important, Brian knew it was an Americana piece and he was English so he already felt perhaps somewhat uncomfortable as director throwing his background it throwing his background up at

him would have done nothing you can't say the actress is wrong because she's English when you're working with a director who's also English what I could not say was the truth that she wasn't sexy enough, that casting her would possibly kill the picture right there. Why couldn't I say that? Because Nanette Newman was his wife. What else could I have done? I might have run to the producer, Edgar Sherrick,

and told him everything, but Stepford was a troubled production. We'd had difficulty finding a director, preliminary casting had turned out to be a bitch, and since everything is soft till principal photography, never forget that, the last thing Edgar needed was a hysterical writer predicting doomsday because a good actress was suggested to appear in the movie.

Besides, being his wife meant security for Brian. His family would be around, he wouldn't be as much a stranger in a very strange land. And even if I was right, even if Nanette meant a change in the look and the reality that didn't mean the movie wouldn't work nobody knows what movie will work never never forget that so i said what i said i like to think at least i took a long pause before answering she's a wonderful actress i think she'd'd be fine. I'm still not sure.

One of the things he's so good at, though, and again, I wondered reading it a second time the extent to which I believe him, that he is very good at selling you the line that movies are a collaborative process. He's very keen to rubbish auteur theory. Which he does brilliantly, right? Where he gives you a history of auteur theory, debunks it entirely,

says all these people contribute to the movie, the screenwriter contributes to the movie, I want to draw attention to the screenwriter but at the same time, I don't want to draw attention to the screenwriter, we're part of a team. And one of the reasons he says that, I think we've got another clip here, Matt, he says, however good the script

I turn in is, it has to go through a series of compromises with the star and the director and the producer and whoever is going to put the soundtrack music on it. And even then, you can't tell. You can't tell. Let's listen to this. I went out to California when they were halfway through shooting. And I remember going, wow, when I was looking at dailies.

And it was wonderful. I mean, you never know, is it going to cut together? And you never know, most of all, is the audience going to give a damn? Because they could just as well have not. You never know when something's going to work. I mean, many, many, many of the greatest hits of all time were disasters while they were shooting the godfather tootsie you can go on and on and on these are because no one knows until you really see it

what the reaction is going to be you know there's all this hype oh this is going to be great no one has the least idea again nobody knows anything he's talking about butch and sundance there he's he tells a brilliant story many brilliant stories about Butch and Sundance but one of them he says is that because the screenplay of Butch and Sundance sold for $400,000 at that stage

the most expensive screenplay ever sold in Hollywood that it already had a reputation by the time it got into cinemas for Butch and Sundance, a film that we all look at one another and feel warm just thinking about. It got terrible reviews when it came out.

Because people, because he thought everyone was envious of him and so they had to sort of somehow do it down. And they knew they had a hit when people, and this again is totally analogous to the book industry. You know, people publish books because they think they will work, but hit yeah when people and this again is totally analogous to the book industry you know people publish books because they think they will work but until they are read by the public and they

like them so much that they say to other members of the public you've got to read this you don't have a hit and and it's really reassuring i think it's really reassuring because if we knew how to do it it would be much more boring. The other thing which is sort of very obvious in the meaning that you get into the book is that he writes it, writes the whole book pretty much, there are excerpts of screenplays

in here, like a screenplay. So it's all pretty much dialogue. It's as if he's talking to you like we are now in a pub. The classic thing for me on this, there are hundreds of lines I could pick out, but there's as if he's talking to you like we are now in a pub and and the classic thing for me on this I mean there are hundreds of lines you I could pick out but there's one where he's telling the disaster for him uh although the film was okay of um all the president's men and he wrote this fantastic screenplay thought absolutely you know very complex tale and found a way of doing it on screen and then he gets called into a meeting

and is told that Nora Ephron, Carl Bernstein's wife then, has done a rewrite on it with Carl Bernstein. But the way he tells it is so brilliant because what he says, he says, he gets called up, he has no idea of the kind of bombshell that's going to hit him, which is basically, you know, sorry, these people who have no experience of this are going to screw it up, although nor everyone obviously went on to do fantastic things. And he just says this. So there's a new paragraph.

There's basically every line is a new paragraph in the whole book. And he says, Redford's in the room, Woodward's in the room, Bernstein's in the room. And that's the thing. Rather than just say they were all there, it's just okay, bang it out, bang it out

ellipses everywhere in this book you know you were saying about remembering there's a bit that I have also thought about through my whole life and this is because of its relevance to the book industry he's talking about money in the movies

and it's in the first bit of the book. Studios have the money, and that's always where the power lies. I remember an early Sam Peckinpah film, still for me his best, called Ride the High Country. It opened in New York as the bottom half of a double bill with a European Mongol-type picture. It got some sensational notices, and when I saw it, I couldn't believe the way it was handled.

I eventually tracked down an executive at the studio and asked why it had been dumped. He explained, sure we previewed it and the preview cards were sensational but we decided to send it out the way we did because that way we were sure to pick up a little money. We didn't believe those preview cards. The movie

didn't cost enough money to be that good, my italics. And that is publishing yeah god that's so true isn't it and i've it's always been in my head it's like but you haven't spent enough money on it so it can't be a good book well but it is a good book the way he navigates his way all through that is is um i mean it's just it's so entertaining That's the thing. It's been a joy going back to it because you'd imagine, I thought maybe it had dated. Non-fiction can date, you know, the movies.

But actually, he was writing at a really interesting moment, which was sort of early 80s. Yeah. For the blockbusters, I mean, he starts the book saying all the blockbusters are looking dodgy this year. And we've just had a summer where all the blockbusters have gone, really haven't worked. So it's like this cyclical thing.

Hollywood finds a way of making money and then the audiences just get a bit bored with it. I felt coming back to it, you know, I first read it 10 years after it was published. And I felt coming back to it, actually, one of its strengths was that if it's dated, it's dated into a brilliant time capsule of the state that Hollywood was in in the late 70s and early 80s. Actually, moving on to Which Lie Did I Tell,

which was published in 2000, the follow-up, that hasn't dated well at all. There's a couple of problems with it. One is certainly reading them close one after the other. I don't know if you felt this Simon or not but it's appallingly edited. Which lie did I tell?

It's not just that it's a bit baggy and too long. He repeats stories that are in Adventures in the Screenshade that should have been blue penciled. That anyone who had read as we have just done, had just read Adventures in the Screenshade would go no it's fine had just read Adventures in the Screenshape would go, no, it's fine, you wrote Adventures in the Screenshape 20 years ago,

but FYI, we don't need to hear that again. And weirdly, there's too much Butch and Sundance in which line did I tell? I think it's like a classic. He had one great book. This is the studio executive, it's just one sentence, but everything you need to know about a studio executive He had one great book. I mean, this is the studio executives, just one sentence, but everything you need to know about a studio executive is in this one sentence.

Studio executives are intelligent, brutally overworked men and women who share one thing in common with baseball managers. They wake up every morning of the world with the knowledge that sooner or later they're going to get fired. Yeah. And the book is full of those brilliant observations, and you feel that this is the book because he's had to think about it and it's his first go and he's put all his he's put all his he hasn't killed all his darlings he's gathered them all together and

i think it's a brilliant example as well as you need deserves credit a bit like with the princess bride in fact that you know that he's he he's very good in his screenplays. He writes hybrid screenplays. He says that a lot of the time. What is Butch and Sundance? It's a Western, but it's not really a Western. You know, what is The Princess Bride? Is it a funny film? Is it a romantic film? Is it an adventure film? Well, it's sort of all of those and none of those. It's not playing for laughs. And it's hard to think that this type of book didn't exist before he wrote it. Because it's sort of, when he pitched it, how did he pitch it? Did he pitch it to say it's going to be a screenwriting guide?

It's not a screenwriting guide. As you said, Simon, it's, you know... It's just a wonderful collection. It's sort of just anecdotes most of the time. The other thing that I think, looking back on it as well, I mean, I don't know at the time, did people take it as sort of gospel truth or did people take it as we do now with a sort of a bit of...

I looked at the reviews. I think the general consensus was that it was massively entertaining and a bit of a mess. I mean, the screen, the Da Vinci section bit of a mess i mean the screen the da Vinci section at the at the end which is the screenplay is quite hard work i mean you have to be really interested it's i don't think there's a lot of people have pointed out i thought that the director skewered the whole thing he said how are you gonna it's basically it concerns a guy who's a hairdresser who's expressing himself at his art, through cutting hair.

And it's the guy who's very fun. It's really hard to communicate that on the screen. What are you going to do? Have some big Afro wig? No, let's not talk about wigs. It's just the wigs are where the whole thing falls apart. It's very funny. So I think the reviews were...

But, you know, if you're interested in movies, this is kind of a classic, which I think it is, which is why I am genuinely amazed to discover that it's not in print. Simon, did you review it in time? No, I didn't, I didn't. I just enjoyed it instead. Good Lord.

But the other thing which I think is extraordinary about it is that he is so... But not in a kind of full-of-himself kind of way, not that you react badly to it, but his pronouncements are so finite... Yes. ..that you kind of think, I can't possibly take it seriously. So I've got an example, it's perfect for us here. He says, you know, because he is a novelist,

was a novelist as well and successful as well and he wrote a book called Boys and Girls Together and then in brackets there's a bit where he says note to fledgling writers under threat of torture never write a long novel and so he says why you should

never write a long novel and then the next paragraph he says I wrote for maybe a year and a half and I suppose I had 600 or 700 type pages, blah, blah, blah. And then he says, the piece perhaps two thirds completed, when I stopped to do two Broadway shows, a play and a musical, both died bouncing, which was not a lot of fun.

Then he says, notes to fledgling writers, never, never write for Broadway. Well, he says at one point, he echoes what you were saying about the wrestling actually. He says, and he's written lots of books, William Goldman. You know, a lot of screenplays and a lot of books. He says the two things that went

right, that I'm proudest of, which I knew were good, were the screenplay of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Princess Bride. And he sort of said it's one of my great pleasures of my life is that I wrote the novel of The Princess Bride. It didn't really do anything. We made the movie a significant time afterwards.

The movie kind of became a sleeper hit which has drawn people back to the book and now the book actually does really well yeah you know that it's become a kind of self-perpetuating thing and he says you know i wrote that for my kids and it just went right his description of how awful it is to be bogged down in to be halfway through a long book knowing it's not working. I wondered if there's a funny thing about the book. I was thinking he obviously enjoyed, you feel him enjoying the book. And, you know, the other rule along the big capitalised

nobody knows anything, the other one is screenplay is structure. And this book is the structure. I mean, there is a structure. If we were critiquing... But then I love this, where he says at the beginning, he says, in the world of the screenplay,

not only are you terribly limited as to what subject matter is viable, your treatment of that subject matter is infinitely more restricted by the power of the star, which is why I truly believe that if all you do with your life is write screenplays,

it ultimately has to denigrate the soul. You may get lucky and get rich, but you sure won't get happy because you will spend your always decreasing days doing the following, writing perfect parts for perfect people. And there's got to be more to the human condition than that, dot, dot, dot. Which is kind of, yeah, sort of sums the book up, really. What I love, and it's clear, and I'm sure this has come across to listeners as well,

is how much we've absolutely loved reading out little bits. And we could carry on for another three hours reading out little bits, which just tells you about the joy of the book. And they work sort of out of context as all the little chapters do in the book as well. I found reading this, like I was saying, found like i was reading it thinking well this is like a time capsule and then i thought well is there a book like this here we are in 2017 that

covers the 21st century film industry in the same way because the film industry has clearly changed a lot in certain respects maybe not in others but nevertheless independent production companies and how deals are put together and all that kind of stuff, which he's so good at. We're talking about how the world was 40, 50 years ago. Is there a book? It seems inconceivable that there isn't a book. And I've asked people on Twitter,

and I had several people recommend me, like both Frank Cottrell Boyce and bradshaw came back and said you must which i haven't read said you must read rob long there's a book by a guy called rob long so he wrote a book called conversations with my agent but a book called set up jokes set up joke which i will read it sounds great nothing but good things about it but first of all those books were written in the case of uh conversations With My Agent, 20 years ago. Set-Up Joke is 10 years old, and also they're about TV, they're not about the film industry.

In publishing terms or in writing terms, there's got to be an opportunity. The book that Joel Morris and I were talking about earlier that comes closest to fulfilling this brief in TV is Russell T Davies' book called The Writer's Story about producing the revival of Doctor Who it's a really good book in terms of putting you right at the

edge of what it's like to try and reinvent something on a deadline with loads of other people coming in to collaborate or ruin what you're doing and yet I still would love to read a book about collaborate or ruin what you're doing. And yet I still would love to read a book about the film industry in the States,

how the big blockbusters get signed off, how indie hits become hits. Maybe people are too scared to do it now that they feel they can't offend. I mean, William Golden was's absolutely the top of his game at this point so maybe he felt he could tell these stories because he was sort of indestructible in some way

and that people would sort of almost forgive him anything and even the stories he tells against people are quite endearing in a way so although you know the big stars won't laugh it off they'll just never work with him again but maybe he thought well there were you know I'm bigger than all of this. And now I think there aren't very many people who can say that.

Don't you also think that there is a difference? The culture of Hollywood has changed. There aren't flops of the spectacular Heaven's Gate kind of way that maybe there were. There are, though. I know, but they're much more... They are like the Lone Ranger, you know, John Carter of Mars. They're always making vlogs. They're quite...

It feels a lot more corporate, a lot more closed off. You don't have these heroic Chimina figures who are being hung out to dry. Yeah, and you're right. I mean, the mad producer, the maverick producer, he was working with Joseph Levine, who was totally independent, not part of the system. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the producer of Bridgetoo Far.

Yeah, exactly. But giving all his money, millions. We're not talking about a sort of $10 million indie movie. We're talking about blockbusters. As you say, you know, Bridgetoo Far. And the money just kept on piling in, and he did it brilliantly, and he made money out of it. But those guys, I'm not not sure exist in the same way.

I mean the other one I guess is the Biskin book that comes up, Easy Riders Raging Bulls which is much more to do with the it's much more to do with I guess the independent movies that became... Yeah, also Easy Riders... Also, here you go. Easy Riders Raging Bulls is kind of a book that's about the same period that this book is about.

Yeah, but it's not by a top practitioner, are you? It's a great book, but it's a very 90s book. It's a book about groups of blokes doing horrid stuff. Well, I guess that's the point. I just don't think Hollywood's that interesting anymore. I mean, I don't feel it. Hollywood's that interesting anymore. I mean, I don't feel... I cannot believe that there isn't, right now,

some funny, talented film writer who's had two hits and a couple of flops who couldn't talk us through what it takes to get a movie made now. There's such a gap there. Isn't it kind of crying out for somebody... You're just describing somebody like Tarantino to write a book about how he kind of crying out for somebody you're just describing somebody like Tarantino

to write a book about how he kind of made his movies there we go there we go if you're listening get in touch we can offer you

maybe four maybe even five figures anyway I think we're leaving we're leaving with unanimously saying to everybody if you are

even the slightest interest in movies, in writing, in the creative process, and how the creative process is kind of turned into money, or not turned into money, Goldman's sort of, it's got to be near the top of the pile. But also if you just want to spend some time with someone... Hilarious human being. ...a charming, funny series of stories... Rat-a-tat-tat. to spend some time with someone hilarious human being charming funny

series of stories rat-a-tat-tat kind of it's just still terrific okay well I think

that's probably as good a point as any to stop thanks to Simon Garfield to our producer as ever the great

Matt Hall and thanks once again to our sponsors Unbound you can get in touch with us on Twitter at BacklistedPod on Facebook which is

BacklistedPod and on our page on Unbound site at unbound.com forward slash backlisted. Thanks for listening. We'll be back with another show in a fortnight. Until then, goodbye. Who are these guys? Who are these guys? Who are these guys?

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