Jaws Unmade

Jaws Unmade: The Lost Sequels, Prequels, Remakes, and Rip-offs by John LeMay, 302 pages

Jaws is sometimes regarded as the first summer blockbuster, and, as such, the prototype for all those that followed.  Whatever caveats ought to be attached to that claim, it was certainly wildly successful (indeed, the highest grossing film in unadjusted dollars to that point) and like successful movies before and since it spawned a legion of imitators, some more flattering than others, from its own sequels and major studios' attempts to bottle the same lightning to the inevitable parade of Italian rip-offs.

Jaws Unmade chronicles these more or less misbegotten children of Bruce, both legitimate and illegitimate, not only describing the movies that did get made but, just as intriguingly, all those projects that miscarried.  There are the well-known early versions of Jaws 2, one featuring Quint's son and another angry mobsters.  There's MST3K favorite Devilfish (aka Monster Shark, not to be confused with Bert I Gordon's aborted project Devil Fish, which is also discussed).  There's the legendary unmade spoof Jaws 3, People 0, which Universal spent 2.5 million dollars developing before cancelling the project for fear of alienating Steven Spielberg.  There's Bruno Mattei's 1995 film Cruel Jaws, sometimes marketed as Jaws 5 ("This time it's even more personal than the last time."), which piles on subplot after subplot seemingly without purpose, until, that is, you learn that the main plot rips off 1981's The Last Shark to the point of actually stealing entire sequences of footage.  There's Joe Dante working on Piranha and James Cameron working on Piranha II and John Sayles working on anything that pays the bills.  There's Roger Corman and Dino De Laurentiis and a surprise appearance by John Carpenter.  There's George Clooney and Laura Dern getting eaten by a giant grizzly bear.

If this is your idea of fun, it is tremendous fun.  It isn't clear how extensive or accurate LeMay's research is (his cites sometimes go no further than an IMDB trivia page), and the book is riddled with homophonic errors that suggest the proofreading was limited to a spellcheck, but the author's love of this material, as misplaced as it seems at times, is truly infectious.

June

June by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore    400 pages

Dual timelines and dual heroines make up Miranda Beverly-Whitemore’s fourth novel, June. At the heart of this suspenseful tale are movie stars, inheritances, and the fine line between truthfulnesses and falsehoods.

I loved that the title had played three roles, first as the book’s title; second, as the 1955 heroine’s name; and third, as the month both timelines occurred: June 1955 and June 2015.

The book opens in June 2015. Cassie Danvers has retreated back to her grandmother’s home, Two Oaks, in small town St. Jude, Ohio. She seems a tad delusional, or maybe, it’s just sensitivity to the spirits that still lurk in the crumbling mansion. Even her dreams are made of the houses’ long-gone inhabitants. She also seems to be suffering from clinical depression.

The mansion is almost beyond repair, yet all the twenty-five year-old wants to do is stay in bed. She barely eats, lets the mail pile up on the foyer floor, and refuses to answer the landline. Cassie is not only mourning her grandmother, but she is reeling from the breakup, which instigated (I think), with her beau, Jim, back in New York City.

Then the doorbell rings.

The story then switches to June 1955. Told from Lindie’s point of view, the whole town is anxiously awaiting the arrival of a film crew, in town to shoot the exteriors for Erie Canal. Starring in the movie are handsomer-than-handsome Jack Montgomery and more-beautiful-than- a-spring day Diane DeSoto.

June is expected to marry Artie Danvers in three days’ time, provided he returns to St. Jude.

June is a wonderful novel, full of interesting characters and plot twists. It took me a little while to get into the story. I had hoped to be pulled in quicker to the story. Cassie’s section was slower to develop than June’s. I think Lindie’s strong character had a lot to do with it. That’s the reason I give June 4 out of 5 stars.

I received this novel from Blogging for Books in exchange for this review.

High Society

High Society: The Life of Grace Kelly by Donald Spoto, 303 pages

As an actress and a princess, Grace Kelly was the picture of poise, beauty, and, fittingly, grace. In this life-spanning biography, Spoto uses his close relationship with the late princess to give a more intimate look at her childhood, career, and life as princess of Monaco. In doing so, he offers up some wonderful stories about the working relationship between Grace and Alfred Hitchcock, with whom she made three movies and nearly made a fourth (Marnie, which would have marked her first film role after leaving Hollywood to marry Prince Rainier; the role went to Tippi Hedren instead). My favorite story in this biography, however, involves a running joke between Grace and Sir Alec Guinness; like many of the others, it shows off the magnificent sense of humor in an actress who was often seen as aloof.

I'll admit that I didn't know a lot about Grace Kelly before reading this book (basically that she was an actress and then a princess who died in a car crash) and I think I've only seen one of her movies (the fantastic Rear Window), but that didn't matter. Spoto created an approachable and insightful book that serves as a good introduction without patronizing novices like me. If anything, his obvious love of Grace Kelly comes through a bit too much, smoothing over troublesome situations a bit more than someone more objective might have. All in all though, this was a good book. Recommended for those with a love of old Hollywood and/or European royalty.