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If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor Bruce Campbell St. Martins, $23.95 |
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Bruce Campbell (a.k.a. Ash from the EVIL DEAD movies) is either one of two things. He is either a bad actor of limited intelligence and unlimited ego, whose piss poor knowledge of his craft has him doomed to play the same basic character in a never ending string of commercial failures. Or, he is a brilliant actor of near genius intelligence, whose overwhelming knowledge of his craft and general distaste for the major Hollywood establishment (as well as a fierce loyalty to his friends) have led him to pick and choose only the roles he feels are right for him. The reader will have to decide for themselves which category Mr. Campbell fits into. After finishing this book, all I know is that it is one or the other, no middle ground here. What is cut and dried is the fact that this was a really good book and was a pleasure to read. You come away thinking that this guy and his friends, most notably the Raimi brothers, must have been a really cool and fun group to hang out with, and as the years and various projects have shown, they have remained true to their roots. Aside from getting his feet wet in local playhouses at a relatively early age, and honing his skills at the technical side of film making by producing several Super-8 movies with his friends during his teens, there is nothing extraordinary about his journey to cult icon. The stories dealing with his childhood and coming of age in the '70's are common to millions of us who grew up during the same period. However, they are told with such honesty and candor that they seem almost touching in their innocence. Who among us didn't, as a child, melt their army men into little green blobs and shoot bottle rockets at each other? The chapter discussing his divorce is written with equal sincerity and leaves the reader feeling the sorrow and sense of failure that comes with any break up. The point is, you very much feel like you have known these people personally, and in most cases they are just like us. That, I guess, more than anything else is the mark of a good autobiography. "To close out this life altering experience, we gathered around the trapdoor, exchanged a few solemn words, and buried a primitive time capsule deep below the floor in the main room. This cigar box, filled with a spent shotgun shell, a sample of fake blood and a hand written 'visual code' to the film, commemorated the culmination of twelve grueling weeks filming our first 'real' movie" In that quote, Mr. Campbell is referring to the completion of the first EVIL DEAD movie. At the time, they were all very young and could not have had any real notion of what they had created, they just knew they had followed a shared dream and had their first big movie in the can (mostly). EVIL DEAD not only went on to make a profit, but it spawned two more films and was a springboard to bigger and better things for most of the people involved. More than that, the film and its sequels have attained a cult status that will last for decades to come. "It ain't GONE WITH THE WIND, but I think we can make some money with it." That was the comment of a veteran Hollywood sales agent upon seeing the movie in a private screening before it was released to the masses. I can say something very similar about this book, it's no WAR AND PEACE, but it's a damn good book and an entertaining read. |
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THE
HIDDEN HITLER By Lothar Machtan Translated by John Brownjohn Basic Books $26.00 |
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In
this much anticipated book, author and historian Lothar Machtan attempts
to give a somewhat final answer to the question: Was Hitler gay? Given
what is known for sure about Hitler and the mark he left on this world,
a reasonable person would surely find this question trivial, if not
obscene. In this instance, I must count myself a reasonable person.
However, the fact of the matter is that, particularly in its early days,
the Nazi party was loaded with homosexuals. Given their rowdy and
boisterous nature as storm troopers and such, there were many public
incidents and rumors. It is on these that the author bases his theory
that Hitler was gay, a sort of guilt by association. It can neither be
proved nor disproved, and ultimately no one actually saw anything first
hand. So let the reader be warned in advance that there is no smoking
gun in this book, and the "facts" presented must be taken with
a grain of salt. Most people these days don't realize that the homosexual stigma was attached to the Nazis from the very start. There is no getting around it when doing any research on the period. Noted historian Robert Westrich put it like this when dealing with this aspect of the Nazi elite, they were "given to dissolute homosexual orgies and drinking bouts, loutish behavior and wildly indiscreet remarks." That statement is a classic example of how most mainstream Oxford-type historians are forced to put a sterile face on what must have been truly outrageous conduct even by today's standards. Machtan dives right in and deals with this subject exclusively, his names, dates, and places are all substantiated by documentation, but time and time again he relies on reading between the lines. Hitler probably was gay or at least asexual with a preference for the company of men. Machtan does not come near to solving this, he simply extrapolates on several accounts of vaguely defined immoral behavior given by people who for the most part were motivated by greed. In pre- WW2 Germany, blackmail was an accepted and much used means of settling scores, public and private. Though in some cases wholly unsubstantiated, these sworn statements could easily ruin careers and lives. For whatever the real reason, Hitler paid well and often to keep certain people quiet. Which brings me to this excerpt, which was taken from a statement given by a fellow who was in Hitler's platoon in WW1 and is describing a night that the company all had to sleep in a French brewery. This line also provided me with the funniest quote I've read in a long time. "...We slept in the hay. Hitler was bedded down at night with 'Schmidl', his male whore. We heard a rustling in the hay. Then someone turned on his electric flashlight and growled 'Take a look at these two nancy boys.' I myself took no further interest in the matter." You will notice that the person giving that statement didn't actually see anything, but rather sets the stage for a homosexual interpretation. This theme runs on and on in this book. The bottom line is that this is just a few rungs above supermarket tabloid journalism. Some questions simply will never be answered, and "Was Hitler gay?" is one of them. I'm left wondering one thing, if you invade and occupy a third of the world and personally order the deaths of millions of innocent people, does it really matter if you're sleeping with Heinrich or Heide? I think not. Wait for the paperback. |
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