Description
Author: Raymond Lee, Hardbound, 237 Pages, ASIN: B001QW7FG8, First Edition, 1969 **SECOND-HAND BOOK IN EXCELLENT UNREAD CONDITION**
"The automobile careened around the corner and headed straight for the audience. The first three rows emptied quicker than magician Houdini could finger-snap a disappearance. After much coaxing from the quick-thinking manager of the movie house that no one would be killed, the first three rows filled up again."
Thus begins this thrilling photographic essay on what is perhaps the greatest cinema prop that has ever been conceived of—the automobile.
In more than two hundred photographs, many never previously collected within the pages of a book, you will meet some of the screen's greatest stars of yesterday and today as they embark upon adventures in cars old and new—Tin Lizzies, Rolls Royces, and even racers.
Obviously, the car is perfectly Fit for the Chase. Here you will see the queens of the serials, like Pearl White, crashing their cars as they swerve down dusty roads in desperate attempts to escape from the clutches of the villains.
And there were the great comedians—the Keystone Cops, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy, and W. C. Fields—who did things with, and to, automobiles that you still won't believe.
(Ever try to play a round of golf in one? Fields did. And how did Laurel and Hardy manage to sandwich that jalopy in between those two trolley cars?)
Then, of course, there were the great cinema villains—Bogie, Cagney, Edward G. Robinson—making their getaways in various cars, their machine guns blazing, the police hard on their wheels.
But the automobile had its quieter moments, too. Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, and Jean Harlow "tumbled their boys in rumbles," while Mickey (Andy Hardy) Rooney used them for his romances with girls like Judy Garland. And who can forget lovely Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina, taking loving care of her father's cars and Humphrey Bogart?
Racing cars have often made their appearences in various films, too. Sometimes Clark Gable or Tony Curtis would be behind the wheel. Taxis have often helped to move plots along; and then there's always Marilyn Monroe riding a bus.
Off the screen the automobile also made headlines. Hollywood favorites often drove fancy vehicles. There was Clara Bow's Kesell, frequently filled with football players; and don't overlook Jean Harlow's Cadillac and Valentino's Italian racers. There were, and still are, countless Rolls Royces parked in front of Hollywood mansions—and some Fords, too.
But this only scratches the surface of the cinematic automobile show that Fit for the Chase puts on display. Moviegoers all over America will want to own this handsome book, or receive it as a gift. Certainly it is a unique approach to the art of the film, one that you will not soon forget.
