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Lillian Ross knew how to put words together and make them magical. Thank goodness for that, or I would have given up on this book at page 10. As it is, it took me more than two months to get through just over 200 pages, and though I am a slow reader, I'm rarely *that* slow.

Picture is about the making, from idea to release, of The Red Badge of Courage, starring Audie Murphy as the young soldier terrified at his first battle. The film was not a success, and some of the inside information provided here may explain why.

The problem I had was that this story is so "inside baseball" that I just couldn't bring myself to care enough to slog a little further. Perhaps if I'd adored the film it was about, I might have been more interested. Even if it had been Gone with the Wind (my favorite film) my eyes might have glazed over a bit at the minute discussion of scoring every frame of film and the endless cutting and re-cutting of the same scenes.

I found it fairly interesting that once John Huston finished directing the film and had handed it off to the editors and musicians and publicity department, he pretty much checked out and moved on to his next project. Only dogged determination kept me from doing the same.

If you are a filmmaker, or you are deciding which branch of filmmaking to go into, and would like a detailed look at how a film got from page to screen during the last gasp of the Studio Era, this is going to be invaluable to you. For those of us who just want to sit in the dark, have a little popcorn, and enjoy the show, it might just be a bit much.