Charles Tranberg

Very thorough look at the life and career of MGM star, Robert Taylor. The book covers his life very thoroughly with interviews from not only those who worked with him, his second wife and his son and even childhood friends. There are also plenty of photographs. There is a detailed description of his illness which, if every smoker read it, would hopefully make them kick the habit. The book does not have a filmography which was disappointing. I also would have liked if the text of Ronald Reagan's eulogy had been included. However, it is the best book I have read on Taylor.… (meer)

William Powell and Myrna Loy were two of the brightest stars during Hollywood’s Golden Age of Film. As a huge fan of both, I thoroughly expected to enjoy this book and couldn’t wait to dive into it. Sadly, this enthusiasm did not last for long once I actually started reading.

Although it says Charles Tranberg has written several books and articles related to film, judging from the biographic blurb on the back cover, the author really has no credentials that would qualify him as a professional film scholar, historian, or even as an expert writer; this lack of qualifications is painfully evident throughout this book. The writing is often clumsy and ill-punctuated, and always monotonous. The content doesn’t reflect any kind of in-depth, original research on Tranberg’s part; and it certainly doesn’t provide any interesting commentary or unique insight into the films or the lives of William Powell or Myrna Loy. Much of it is factual or descriptive information readily accessible to anyone with an Internet connection and a free weekend.

The first chapters are devoted to simplistic biographies of William Powell and Myrna Loy. Subsequent chapters are dedicated to each of the Thin Man films and contain a description of the film, followed by mini-biographies of people affiliated with the films. They conclude with selections from published reviews of each film. None of these chapters are particularly engaging or enjoyable to try and get through.

Bookended by some basic facts about their early childhoods and what they chose to do in retirement, most of the biographical information is simply a tedious listing of film credits presented in the form of sentences: William Powell’s first film was this…his initial small roles were in these films with these co-stars…then his big break was in this film…then he was in this film…then he appeared in that film…he starred in these films in 1936…and then he was in these films before finally deciding to retire. Sorry to say it is all about as dull as ditchwater.

To make it even worse, the author’s insistence on constantly referring to William Powell as ‘Bill’ is a grating affectation that wears thin quickly. There is certainly no indication that Charles Tranberg (Chuck?) was a lifelong friend of William Powell, or even just a casual acquaintance; so why does he insist on referring to him with the informality of a longtime pal from high school days? Even if they had been friends, a skilled writer would keep a more professional detachment between himself and his subject. It would make for a more polished manuscript and be a lot less irritating for the reader.

Unfortunately, the movie synopses do not fare any better. Scenes from the films are described in painfully unnecessary detail, and not always with accuracy. It really seems as though Mr. Tranberg (Chuckie?) ran the movies on his DVD player, but had other things going on at the time and couldn’t be bothered to pay close attention to the action.

For example, in his description of The Thin Man Goes Home, Tranberg (Chuckles?) states that Gloria DeHaven plays Laura Ronson, who is ‘referred’ to by everybody as Laura-belle; he then proceeds to call the character ‘Laura Ronson’ for the remainder of the chapter. Well, that’s just plain wrong. Although the character is technically listed as ‘Laura Ronson’ in the opening credits, this is obviously an error (which is common enough in film credits). Within the context of the film, however, the character’s actual name is clearly Laurabelle; she is introduced and consistently referred to as ‘Laurabelle’ throughout the film. So why does Tranberg (Chucklehead?) insist on constantly referring to her by the wrong name? It makes no sense to anyone who has seen the movie and paid attention to it.

Tranberg (The Chuckman?) also directly quotes Laurabelle as saying “I can feel it inside.” after first meeting Nick Charles. That’s not accurate either. In actuality, Laurabelle clasps her chest dramatically and exclaims, “I feel it here…Inside!”; she does this throughout the film as a kind of running gag…Laurabelle is in drama school after all. There is no decent excuse for him getting her name or her signature quote wrong.

Tranberg (Chuckerino?) also manages to screw up details about my favorite Thin Man film, Song of the Thin Man.
When he describes the opening sequence at the casino as two thugs wander around admiring all of the glamorous ladies, he writes, “One man says to the other, ‘Check that one out’ and the other man goes ‘Whoo-whoo.’ At this point Nick Charles, who overheard them, turns and says, ’In polite society it’s not ‘Whoo-whoo’ it’s pronounced ‘Whoo-whom,’…”
This is one of the many comic scenes in the film, but-because Tranberg (Chuck-a-doodle-doo?) can’t seem to write or handle direct quotes very well-any reader who has never seen the movie is left wondering why this is supposed to be funny.

The actual scene can be correctly quoted like this:

1st hoodlum: “Hey, get a load of that one!”
2nd hoodlum: “Yoo-hoo!”
Nick Charles: “Boys, boys! In polite society, we don’t say ‘Yoo-hoo!’ we say ‘Yoo-whom!’ ”

Furthermore, Tranberg (The Chuckmeister!) refers to the character of David Thayer as an antique dealer. That, too, is incorrect. David Thayer is a wealthy, avid collector of fine art and antiquities who has recently made a large donation to the local museum; he is never identified as an antique dealer.

There is no justification for such inaccuracies, and the credibility of the book and the author can only suffer because of silly mistakes like these. If a succession of glaring errors like these appears throughout a book, it always makes me wonder what other misinformation is being dished out that isn’t so obvious.

My recommendation to the potential reader: watch all of the Thin Man movies in order, read Myrna Loy’s autobiography, browse your local library or bookstore for authoritative biographies and film studies by respected publishers, and spend a couple of hours surfing the net for reputable info about the movies and related stars; it will be a lot more entertaining and informative than reading this book.… (meer)

Author Charles Tranberg has done such a good job on previous books on Fred MacMurray, Agnes Moorehead, and Marie Wilson so I expected a lot from this book and it delivered. Overall, the book premise was excellent. It started with short bios on William Powell and then Myrna Loy. Then it took the first Thin Man film, provided credits, a full synopsis (except for who the murderer was), and then some biographical information on some of the other featured players in the film, followed by the reviews. In turn, each Thin Man film was discussed in this fashion. A lot of the information provided was new to me, especially biographical information on players such as C. Aubrey Smith, Sam Levene, Nat Pendleton, Minna Gombell, Anne Revere, Otto Kruger, and many others. The biographical info on cinematographer James Wong Howe was very good although I would have liked to have known how Howe escaped being sent to a relocation camp during WWII. The book also had quite a few photographs. The book provides a great companion to all Thin Man films and provides some interesting behind the scenes information.… (meer)