Wild and Crazy Guys
How the Comedy Mavericks of the '80s Changed Hollywood Forever
1 of 1 copy available
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NEW YORK
“An enjoyable romp that vividly captures the manic ups and downs of the remarkable group of funny folk who gave us a golden age of small and big screen comedy, from SNL to Groundhog Day.”—Peter Biskind, author of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
Wild and Crazy Guys opens in 1978 with Chevy Chase and Bill Murray taking bad-tempered swings at each other backstage at Saturday Night Live, and closes 21 years later with the two doing a skit in the same venue, poking fun at each other, their illustrious careers, triumphs and prat falls. In between, Nick de Semlyen takes us on a trip through the tumultuous '80s, delving behind the scenes of movies such as National Lampoon's Vacation, Beverly Hills Cop, The Blues Brothers, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and dozens more. Chronicling the off-screen, larger-than-life antics of Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, John Belushi, John Candy, and Rick Moranis, it's got drugs, sex, punch-ups, webbed toes, and Bill Murray being pushed into a swimming pool by Hunter S. Thompson while tied to a lawn chair. What's not to like?
Based on candid interviews from many of the stars themselves, as well as those in their immediate orbit, including directors John Landis, Carl Reiner, and Amy Heckerling, Wild and Crazy Guys is a fantastic insider account of the friendships, feuds, triumphs, and disasters experienced by these beloved comedians. Hilarious and revealing, it is both a hidden history of the most fertile period ever for screen comedy and a celebration of some of the most popular films of all time.
Praise for Wild and Crazy Guys
“Eminently readable . . . Children of the 1980s, take note: this is a fond, engrossing look back at the making of movies that became cultural touchstones.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Nick de Semlyen smartly charts the pinballing career paths of the stars of this new comic wave. . . . His punchy, nonstop narrative . . . tells a [story] where art and commerce smash hard against each other, sometimes causing destruction, but sometimes making sparks fly.”—The Sunday Times (UK)
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
May 28, 2019 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781984826657
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781984826657
- File size: 46282 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Film journalist de Semlyen recounts the migration from TV to film of a once-iconic generation of comedians. The year 1975 saw the debut of Saturday Night Live, with a cast of gifted, sardonic comedians headed by Chevy Chase and John Belushi, who broke all kinds of rules and regulations every time it turned around. Then came the second season, and Chase departed the show for, as he admitted, "money. Lots of money." The money flowed, and though Chase would star in far more dogs than winners, the comics who followed his path to Hollywood--Belushi, Bill Murray, John Candy, Steve Martin, and many others--overturned the comic image of the Woody Allen-dominated 1970s ("a wimp in specs") in favor of the smartass who couldn't be bothered to follow anyone else's norms. Perhaps the most canonical of all the characters was Belushi, who perfectly filled the role of John "Bluto" Blutarsky in the 1978 film Animal House. Others established their own characters for better or worse and in between: Eddie Murphy was undeniably brilliant, Chase could barely act, Candy and Martin had hidden depths, but all swallowed up whatever was thrown to them as readily as some swallowed up whatever drug was on the table. The book doesn't have much of a thesis as such, but it's full of entertaining revelations: Murray was in the running to play Boon in Animal House; Dan Aykroyd was cerebral, anomic, and straitlaced all at once, so much so that a writer described him as "a cross between a state trooper and an android"; everyone loved The Blues Brothers except for Jerry Garcia; and so on. The book is often overwritten ("Steve Martin, a keen student of Picasso, was experiencing his own Blue Period"), but film buffs are likely to forgive the excesses in exchange for its many anecdotal rewards. It's not deep, but fans of Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd, and their wild-and-crazy ilk will find pleasure here.
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