Film buffs can be tough to buy for, because chances are that they own every film that you think might suit them. Enter Karina Longworth’s Seduction.
By the end of this week, the holiday shopping season will be officially on, “pre-Black Friday” sales aside. That means that if you’re buying gifts, we’re entering into the home stretch. But what do you get the movie lover in your life, the one whose library probably puts yours to shame and who has strong opinions on the essential films?
Much as we’d love to say just give them some of the movies on our own film buff essentials list, that runs into the original problem. But odds are that even if they don’t listen to it regularly, they’ve heard of You Must Remember This, Karina Longworth’s podcast on Hollywood history. Unfortunately, you can’t buy a podcast. What you can buy, however, is Longworth’s new book, Seduction: Sex, Lies and Stardom in Howard Hughes’ Hollywood.
Designed for the movie newbie and the old hand alike, it could make a great gift (or part of one) this holiday season, and here’s why.
Digging deep
If you’ve listened to basically any episode of You Must Remember This, then Seduction will feel very much like a long series of podcasts, and that means that there’s a lot of research entailed. Actually, the podcast has a series ongoing to tie into the book, and if you’ve listened to the “Dead Blondes” season, quite a bit of this will sound familiar. This could be a benefit if you haven’t heard it, but it’s also a drawback in that it means that some of the book is just a retread written out instead of narrated. Longworth has quite the sizable bibliography as well as a list of films she refers to throughout the book.
But aside from that, she has a different take on Howard Hughes; sure, his eccentricities are referred to (how anyone can survive on chocolate bars and milk, I’ll never know), but the focus here is on the women of Hollywood, from the big names (Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn, and Jane Russell chief among them) to the smaller ones (Longworth even notes that one woman she mentions does not even have an IMDb entry).
The films
The movies Longworth lists span from 1923 to 1957, and while not all of them are available for viewing anymore, most of them are. Here’s where this comes into play even for newbies, as someone who’s just getting into film might recognize titles like Holiday and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but there’s more to movies than that.
However, Longworth doesn’t assume that her readers know everything about the movies themselves, and does describe them in detail as well as connecting them to each other when relevant, as well as going into the production of the films Hughes worked on. Additionally, she has a knack for describing the costuming and use of cameras to exploit women’s appearances, such that you don’t need to see the film.
This is beneficial not only because it makes the book more accessible, but in that it provides a jumping-in point for someone who reads this to then experience more of Hollywood history.
Wit
Non-fiction isn’t written from an objective perspective, but Longworth has more sly asides than most. She occasionally steps in more openly, too; it’s a bold choice to do in non-fiction, but it works, making this seem again, more like her podcast.
But it also makes the reading a bit lighter in places. Like most works of non-fiction, Seduction is a bit hefty in places, which makes the wit shine through even more when it does show up. It’s a standout of the book because it’s used judiciously, although Longworth might have had a bit more leeway than she exerts.
All in all, Seduction should entice plenty of film fans to dive back into the golden age of Hollywood … and then go out and watch more movies. Mission accomplished.