Boffo!

Boffo!, New York, 2006, Peter Bart

Boffo is written by a long time editor and writer for Variety magazine. His job gave him an interesting view of how numerous movies that were gambles were made.

The anecdotes he tells are often fascinating. He does a great job of showing how movies like The Lord of the Rings trilogies, in retrospect one of the biggest grossing franchises in cinematic history, were at the time huge gambles that could have sunk studios and wrecked careers.

For those who just know the names of movies such as Casablanca, Batman, The Sound of Music, The Godfather and other similar movies, or who have enjoyed Broadway smashes like Cats or even the odd movie series like The Real World, Bay Watch, and CSI it is shocking to think that all of these were close to not being made.

Bart does an excellent job of making the stories interesting. Famous names, unheard of names, huge gambles, questionable decisions, arguing casts and crews all combine to present a backroom view of trouble and turmoil in bringing classic media productions to life.

The problem is that after a while they all run together. The names overlap, the problems overlap, and one starts to think it is amazing anything ever gets made. Bart writes well but his material is not varied enough to carry the interest for 322 pages. It is well worth picking up a copy to read about how your favorite series made it to stage or screen but you might find it difficult to wade through some of those about which you don't care.