December 2013 6 Book Review VideoAge has been late in reviewing Peter Bart’s ninth book, Infamous Players: A Tale of Movies, the Mob (and Sex), his third published by Weinstein Books, and sold in the U.S. for $15. Weinstein Books is part of the Weinstein film company founded by Bob and Harvey Weinstein. Bart called the latter a maverick when he was editor-in-chief at Variety. Indeed, the first ecstatic review of the 274-page book came out in The New York Times and was penned by Janet Maslin on May 11, 2011, followed by another a month later by Caryn James in the highly sought-after NYT Book Review. Since Bart reported for four years at The New York Times, starting in 1963, the least one can expect is a glowing review by the newspaper, regardless of the book’s content, accuracy and relevance. However, accuracy is not something that we’ll dwell on here, except to point out that some critics challenged Bart with film release dates, and Donald Sutherland denied that, when at Paramount, Bart was on the set during a supposedly real sex scene between the actor and Julie Christie. Bart published the book in 2011 at age 79. Therefore it is understandable that some facts were lost in the database. Relevance, on the other hand, is important tous, so we called upon other executives at Paramount to check whether, for example, Bart’s depiction of Charles Bluhdorn, the chairman of Golf & Western, which controlled Paramount Studios, was accurate. The response was that even though Bluhdornwasn’t a nice person, Bart’s descriptions of him were at times “creative.” Nevertheless, the narrative of Infamous Players is somewhat interesting, if less relevant, since, according to critics, most of its material comes from the 1994 book The Kid Stays in the Picture, an autobiography by Robert Evans, and Bart’s 2002 book, Shoot Out. Infamous Players also slows down to near-boredom, when about threequarters into the book it becomes a version of the Internet Movie Database’s (IMDb) credit listings. The story begins when Bart was asked to move from the NYT to Paramount Pictures in 1967 by Robert Evans, then-president of Production at the studio. In his eight years at Paramount, Bart rose to VP in charge of Production. According to Bart, Evans noticed him when, on August 7, 1966, he wrote in the NYT, “I Like It. I Want It. Let’s Sew It Up,” a glowing feature story about Evans; an article that, in turn, was noticed by Bluhdorn, who offered Evans the production job. Others, however, recall that Greg Bautzer, a Hollywood agent and Sidney Korshak, a labor lawyer, introduced Evans to Bluhdorn. Five main points in the book struck this reviewer oddly: The over-emphasis that Bart puts on remaining faithful to his wife, despite open offers by beautiful women; the large number of movie actors that he helped become stars; the numerous film projects that he saved from doom or development hell; the good relationships with the 280 top-level movie executives and stars mentioned in his book, and the brief overview of his time at Variety. Only 27 lines of Bart’s book are devoted to his former position at Variety, which began in 1989 and ended in 2009. His job started when Variety was called the bible of the entertainment business, and it ended with the virtual demise of the trade paper, which ultimately closed its daily edition and turned its weekly into a glossy consumer gossip publication. To compensate for this shortcoming and get some insight into Bart’s reign at Variety, we consulted Peter Besas’ book Inside “Variety,” published in 2000. Besas, who worked at Variety for 30 years, left the publication in 1999. Besas devoted only 12 of the book’s total 563 pages to Bart, and they are not full of praise: “Bart started to flex his journalistic muscles [at Variety] just enough to draw controversy and attention to himself…A calculated attack [that] succeeded in raising just enough dust to keep Bart in the limelight and assure his place as a subject of conversation in Beverly Hills cocktail parties.” Besas also wrote, “Bart was meticulously tinkeringwith the paper. Like amilitary strategist each carefully-planned move was designed to bring him a little closer to his ultimate objective: A triumphant return to the corridors of filmic power in Hollywood.” And about the beginning of the end of the venerable trade paper, Besas wrote: “The much ballyhooed ‘new’ Varietywas officially presented at the Regency Hotel on Park Avenue by Peter Bart and [publisher] Gerry Byrne at a breakfast ‘Celebration of Change.’ It was a tame affair. About 25 or 30 guests appeared — only one network executive [and] virtually no film or legit people.” In conclusion, with this latest book, Bart did not succeed in ensuring his legacy, the same way Henry Kissinger wasn’t able to ensure his, despite his many revisionist books, and indeed he’s still considered a war criminal by critics. It is said that, at times, one has to die while living in order to live after dying. It is doubtful that Bart would go to that extreme. As for Kissinger, the former Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon (who’s mentioned in this review’s headline and described by Bart as Robert Evans’s friend), occupies six pages of Bart’s book, despite their brief encounters. Yet, that’s still five and a half more pages than he reserved for Variety, where he worked for 20 years. DS Following in Henry Kissinger’s Footsteps: Writing His Own History Peter Bart sets out to protect his legacy before someone sets the record straight Bart did not succeed in ensuring his legacy, the same way Henry Kissinger wasn’t able to ensure his, despite his many revisionist books.
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