I Lost My Girlish Laughter

De: Jane Allen

Narrado por: Amy Rubinate

A lost literary gem of Hollywood in the 1930s, I Lost My Girlish Laughter is a thinly veiled send-up of the actors, producers, writers, and directors of the Golden Age of the studio system.

Madge Lawrence, fresh from New York City, lands a job as the personal secretary to the powerful Hollywood producer Sidney Brand (based on the legendary David O. Selznick). In a series of letters home, Western Union telegrams, office memos, Hollywood gossip newspaper items, and personal journal entries, we get served up the inside scoop on all the shenanigans, romances, backroom deals, and betrayals that go into making a movie.

The action revolves around the production of Brand's latest blockbuster, meant to be a star vehicle to introduce his new European bombshell (the real-life Marlene Dietrich). Never mind that the actress can't act, Brand's negotiations with MGM to get Clark Gable to play the male lead are getting nowhere, and the Broadway play he's bought for the screenplay is reworked so that it is unrecognizable to its author. In this delicious satire of the film business, one is never very far from the truth of what makes Hollywood tick and why we all love it.

Public Domain (P)2020 Tantor

A satire of the Hollywood movie industry in the 1930s

The author’s teasingly disguised portrait of David O Selznick and a host of other Hollywood characters is delightful. Easily, the best lighthearted satire of Golden Age Hollywood. It deserves to be better known. If the Hollywood movers and shakers could have laughed at themselves, it would have been adapted into a fine screwball comedy. I recommend it heartily. The Audible recording is well done.