BearManor Media

The Burning Typewriter - The Rebels and Other Writers Onscreen Volume 1 (paperback)

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The Burning Typewriter - The Rebels and Other Writers Onscreen Volume 1

by Brett Taylor

548 pages

6x9 size

ISBN 9798887712741

Legendary authors are the stars of The Burning Typewriter, the first major book to concern itself with acting appearances by writers, as well as biographical films about writers.

From macho epics based on the lives and works of Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, and Zane Grey to lighter forgotten fare (like Carol Burnett’s surprisingly believable turn as Erma Bombeck in The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank), the book is a wild ride through an amazing array of cinema-literature.

Hilarious gonzo portrayals of Hunter S. Thompson by Johnny Depp and Bill Murray. Biographical films. Talk show appearances, from shy Jack Kerouac to outrageous Truman Capote and boisterous Norman Mailer. Horror movies featuring (the real) Stephen King and the Edgar Allan Poe. There’s the sad demise of Yukio Mishima, perhaps Japan’s greatest post-WWII author, who rehearsed his own real-life suicide by acting it out first in the movies. Plays and other media appearances, all are covered and all are amazing to read about.

Did you know that All Quiet on the Western Front author Erich Maria Remarque acted in a romantic war epic alongside fifties heartthrob John Gavin? Or that the prophetess of individualism, Ayn Rand, met her beloved husband while they were working as extras on the silent biblical epic King of Kings? Probably not! And even if you did, The Burning Typewriter is a wild ride through decades of author appearances strange and fascinating.

Volume 1 covers the roots of the Romantic Writer tradition, from Christopher Marlowe, Lord Byron and the Brontës all the way to wild men like William S. Burroughs, Bukowski and Harlan Ellison. Volume 2 follows feisty figures from Mark Twain to Gore Vidal, Dorothy Parker, and Kurt Vonnegut. Chances are your favorite writer is in here somewhere.

Brett Taylor is the author of Old Roads, which was published by Jim Kacian’s Red Moon Press in 2021. He has written for such film journals as Mexican Film Bulletin, Shock Cinema and Video Watchdog. His work has also appeared in Green Mountains Review, Big Muddy, Redivider, The South Carolina Review, Skeptical Inquirer, and Fortean Times.

SHOCK CINEMA REVIEW

THE BURNING TYPEWRITER: The Rebels and Other Writers Onscreen, Volume 1

and 2 by Brett Taylor(BearManor Media; bearmanormedia.com; paperback: $38.00 each).

Full disclosure, Brett Taylor is a longtime Shock Cinema contributor, but that

doesn’t mean I wasn’t genuinely impressed by this massive two-volume set — 548 pages and 544 pages, respectively — focusing on (1) famous writers who attempted to act on film, as well as (2) biographical films about renowned writers, with its eclectic subjects ranging from Mark Twain and Norman Mailer, to Yukio Mishima and Erma Bombeck. In the process, Taylor also examines the appeal of these writers, their troubled or self-destructive lives, films that whitewashed the past, as well as some asinine notions (an Edgar Allan Poe bio starring Sylvester Stallone?!)... Volume 1 kicks off with Chaucer and Shakespeare, followed by Mary Shelley, the Brontë sisters, Hans Christian Andersen, Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, Beatrix Potter, and Charles Dickens. “Decadents and Drugs” embraces the Marquis de Sade and Oscar Wilde; plus we get “Sex” (Henry Miller, Jacqueline Susann); “Adventurers” (Jack London, Ian Fleming, Ernest Hemingway), “Tough Guys, Noir Division” (Dashiell Hammett, James Ellroy), and “Hipsters, Weed, Fags, Etc.” (Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs), while “More Drugs and More Bohemians” delves into Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson... Volume 2 tackles another roster of celebrated writers, including C.S. Lewis, Sylvia Plath, Ayn Rand, Roald Dahl, Agatha Christie, Truman Capote, Emily Dickinson, and Dorothy Parker. There are playwrights turned actors (Harold Pinter, Sam Shepard, Jason Miller); “Outlaws” (Jean Genet, Edward Bunker, Miguel Piñero); screenwriters (Dalton Trumbo, John Sayles); plus horror and sci-fi (including Stephen King’s misguided attempts at acting and directing). “Lovers, Loners and Postmen” focuses on the likes of Franz Kafka, Shirley Jackson and Pablo Neruda; and humorists include Kurt Vonnegut, Terry Southern and James Thurber. Those are only a handful of the names covered in these two hefty volumes. Overflowing with fascinating insights and trivia, this remarkable set is both incredibly informative and thoroughly engrossing.