Saturday, September 28, 2013

BOOK REVIEW: Bruce Campbell Books: If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor (2002 Thomas Dunne Books) & Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way (2006 Thomas Dunne Books)


Reviews by Scott Lefebvre

     I borrowed If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor and Make Love!* The Bruce Campbell Way from Josh and Dolores Gravel, respectively.
     I read them in chronological order, one after the other in quick succession.
     Not that I was trying to burn through them both to do a double review.
     Bruce Campbell has an enjoyably readable writing style that makes getting through his books great fun and when I finished the first I immediately began the second.
     The author’s writing style doesn’t change much between books, but they are definitely different.
     As far as If Chins Could Kill, allow me to begin by putting forth that this is not the only Hollywood autobiography that I’ve read.   But it may have been one of the most-entertaining.
     The book follows Bruce Campbell’s life story from his youth, through his Super-8 movie days in college with Sam Raimi, ending with Campbell’s impressive but short-lived career(s) in syndicated television shows, specifically those of the ‘action’ genre, both in front of and behind the camera.
     It’s possible that readers who are completely unfamiliar with Bruce Campbell would enjoy this book as an insider’s perspective on the hard work and perseverance needed to find work and perpetuate a career as an actor.
     I’ll never know, not having that objectivity, because I am an avid fan of the Evil Dead trilogy of films, and am always pleased to notice Bruce in a cameo in the films of Sam Raimi and other directors.   I did experience some unfamiliarity, because unlike some readers of this book who rabidly celebrate Campbell’s entire career, I haven’t seen a single episode of Brisco County Jr. or Hercules or Xena.   I guess I just missed all of those years of television for some reason.   But at least I had heard of the shows and had a general idea of what they were about, so I wasn’t that disoriented.
      The chapters relating to the Evil Dead films are thorough and fulfilling and could have a life of their own if published as one of those prestige format books which deal with a specific film or series of films like Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left: The Making of a Cult Classic by David A. Szulkin or Making Friday The 13th: The Legend Of Camp Blood by David Grove.   There are either archival photographs or humorous graphics on literally every other page which really helped me to visualize the events that he was describing, and no doubt also helped to pad the length of the book, but Campbell is not the first or only author to indulge in this kind of illustrated text format.
     Some of the humor is a little forced, but I get the sense that this is reflective of the author’s broad sense of humor.   It’s almost expected that Campbell will go for the wry, sarcastic, or in the author’s own words, the “cheese-ball” approach when the opportunity presents itself.   At least he’s consistent.   Fans should know Campbell’s approach when they pick up the book, and would probably be disappointed by anything else.   In a way it’s almost the author’s way of being sincere without giving too much away.

     Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way is a different creature altogether, although it reads much the same way as Campbell’s first book.
     ‘Make Love!’ is a novel which details the comical misadventures of Bruce Campbell as a supporting actor in an A picture.   Campbell’s familiarity with the inner workings of movie-making allows him to create a believable fictional film.   So much so that I initially thought that Campbell was writing a genuine or thinly veiled novel relating anecdotes from his actual experiences, intermixing it with exaggerated farcical episodes.   I don’t follow Campbell’s career as avidly as his more devoted fans, so it’s possible that he had worked on a film called “Let’s Make Love!” which had been shelved for whatever reason.
     As the novel progressed, even the most gullible of readers would discern that there’s just no way that anything so absurd could happen surrounding a production.   That’s saying a lot considering the misadventures which have crippled many an ill-fortuned film in the throes of production.
     Campbell’s more outlandish fictional scenarios read a lot like the “Dirk Gently” books by author Douglas Adams.   Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency & The Long-Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.   For those that are unfamiliar with the Dirk Gently books, Douglas Adams also wrote the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, and the comparison is meant favorably.   Readers who enjoy one author will most likely enjoy the other.
     I must admit that as far as thinly veiled exposes of the behind the scenes machinations of the Hollywood set, my favorite novel is still Charles Bukowski’s Hollywood, mostly because it does the inverse of what Campbell does in his book.   Bukowski used real events as the base for his novel, then changed the names so that they are different, but recognizable if one knows a little about the history of the film Barfly, which was supposed to be a pseudo-autobiographical film about Bukowski, but grew to be inconsistently over-dramatic and larger than life.
     Campbell, instead, uses actual names from the entertainment industry and constructs his humorous novel around these personalities, but it seems that Campbell’s use of celebrities serves the same function as casting recognizable names in a movie.   The studio hopes that more people will go see a movie starring actors they recognize, and Campbell, seems to have assembled a cast of characters but often-times seems to get lost in his narrative, going for broad comical outlandishness to patch in the holes in the story.   It’s not an unforgivable fault, but it gives the book a pace like driving on alternating sections of asphalt and dirt.   When it’s smooth, it’s very smooth, but when it’s rough the difference is jarring.
     That being said, both books were eminently enjoyable with different qualities to attract readers.   Although, in my opinion, Bruce’s strength is in his wryly comical reactions to actual events, and this comparative strength makes his first book the more enjoyable of the two.
     Having borrowed these books, am I going to go out and buy my own copies?   No.
     Am I pleased that I took the time to read them?   Yes.
     If you’re a big fan of Bruce Campbell’s persona and can’t find these books at your local library, they may well be worth seeking out and acquiring, which is easy enough since both are readily available through any of the many online book sales sites.

More on the Web:
Thomas Dunne Books is an imprint of St. Martin’s Press:
St. Martin’s Press: www.stmartins.com
Bruce Campbell Online: http://www.bruce-campbell.com/

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