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What Makes Sammy Run? (1941)

de Budd Schulberg

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5841040,241 (3.74)17
What Makes Sammy Run? Everyone of us knows someone who runs. He is one of the symp-toms of our times—from the little man who shoves you out of the way on the street to the go-getter who shoves you out of a job in the office to the Fuehrer who shoves you out of the world. And all of us have stopped to wonder, at some time or another, what it is that makes these people tick. What makes them run? This is the question Schulberg has asked himself, and the answer is the first novel written with the indignation that only a young writer with talent and ideals could concentrate into a manuscript. It is the story of Sammy Glick, the man with a positive genius for being a heel, who runs through New York’s East Side, through newspaper ranks and finally through Hollywood, leaving in his wake the wrecked careers of his associates; for this is his tragedy and his chief characteristic—his congenital incapacity for friendship. An older and more experienced novelist might have tempered his story and, in so doing, destroyed one of its outstanding qualities. Compromise would mar the portrait of Sammy Glick. Schulberg has etched it in pure vitriol, and dissected his victim with a precision that is almost frightening. When a fragment of this book appeared as a short story in a national magazine, Schulberg was surprised at the number of letters he received from people convinced they knew Sammy Glick’s real name. But speculation as to his real identity would be utterly fruitless, for Sammy is a composite picture of a loud and spectacular minority bitterly resented by the many decent and sincere artists who are trying honestly to realize the measureless potentialities of motion pictures. To this group belongs Schulberg himself, who has not only worked as a screen writer since his graduation from Dartmouth College in 1936, but has spent his life, literally, in the heart of the motion-picture colony. In the course of finding out what makes Sammy run (an operation in which the reader is spared none of the grue-some details) Schulberg has poured out everything he has felt about that place. The result is a book which the publishers not only believe to be the most honest ever written about Hollywood, but a penetrating study of one kind of twentieth-century success that is peculiar to no single race of people or walk of life.… (més)
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Es mostren 1-5 de 10 (següent | mostra-les totes)
Unstoppable jewish boy can't stop going and makes it from errand boy to the head of the studio. great stories, great insights... but the story itself was ultimately pedestrian. i was happy to put up with this to go with the characters throughout though. ( )
  apende | Jul 12, 2022 |
The recent explosive discovery of Hollywood’s dirty little secret involving Harvey Weinstein inspired me to read this book. To hear the media and celebrities talk, you would think Harry’s amoral behavior was an anomaly. News flash! There has always been excessive corruption, an obsession with sex, and ruthless politics in Hollywood.

It’s true "What Makes Sammy Run?" is merely a novel. But the author knew of what he wrote. Budd Schulberg’s father- B.P.- was a drunken, womanizing producer in the early 1900’s. Budd witnessed this and eventually had his own Hollywood career as an author, screen writer and TV producer. His classic novel about Sammy Glick, published in 1941, depicts Hollywood during the 1930s.

His story is unpretentious. The 30’s represented an era of wise-guy hard-boiled street talk and that is how the tale is told by Al Manheim, a New York City newspaper reporter. The style of writing reminds me of the classic noir murder mysteries written by Dashiell Hammett and James Cain. I visualize Jack Webb, the star of the old 1960’s TV show "Dragnet" in the role of Al Manheim. Sammy Glick is a poor Jewish boy from the Lower East Side of Manhattan who gets hired in Al’s office to run errands. And does he run! Al has never encountered anyone as aggressive, determined, hungry, and desperate to make money and achieve success as Sammy Glick. Thus, throughout the entire novel Al is mystified as to what makes Sammy run.

As years pass, both Sammy and Al end up in Hollywood. Al watches Sammy rise in power to eventually become one of Hollywood’s most prestigious, powerful movie producers. He becomes Al’s boss. And Al alone knows all the devious, dishonest, unscrupulous, corrupt, despicable things Sammy does to reach the top. It is strongly believed that Sammy Glick is modeled after Budd Schulberg’s own father.

Hollywood is portrayed as a very superficial city. Success is based on who you know, and what you are willing to do to achieve fame. Sammy has no limits. His mantra is, “Going through life with a conscience is like driving your car with the brakes on.” He knows how to play the game. In fact, he writes his own rules, and is in it to win. And the female characters too of "What Makes Sammy Run?" are no wide-eyed innocent waifs. Everyone is in the game for their own personal gain.

The book was shunned by the Hollywood elite when it was first published. But if you are curious to read a first-hand account of what Hollywood was like in that era, you will enjoy "What Makes Sammy Run?".

The story was made into a movie in 1959 and a very successful Broadway musical debuted in1964. ( )
1 vota LadyLo | Nov 11, 2017 |
Or how Hollywood really works; this book, written by an insider, lays it on the line. Double dealing, double crossing, and backstabbing his way to riches, Sammy makes Eve (_All About Eve_) look like a saint. ( )
1 vota dbsovereign | Jan 26, 2016 |
Book Circle Reads 82

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Book Description: Everyone of us knows someone who runs. He is one of the symptoms of our times—from the little man who shoves you out of the way on the street to the go-getter who shoves you out of a job in the office to the Fuehrer who shoves you out of the world. And all of us have stopped to wonder, at some time or another, what it is that makes these people tick. What makes them run?

This is the question Schulberg has asked himself, and the answer is the first novel written with the indignation that only a young writer with talent and ideals could concentrate into a manuscript. It is the story of Sammy Glick, the man with a positive genius for being a heel, who runs through New York’s East Side, through newspaper ranks and finally through Hollywood, leaving in his wake the wrecked careers of his associates; for this is his tragedy and his chief characteristic—his congenital incapacity for friendship.

An older and more experienced novelist might have tempered his story and, in so doing, destroyed one of its outstanding qualities. Compromise would mar the portrait of Sammy Glick. Schulberg has etched it in pure vitriol, and dissected his victim with a precision that is almost frightening.

When a fragment of this book appeared as a short story in a national magazine, Schulberg was surprised at the number of letters he received from people convinced they knew Sammy Glick’s real name. But speculation as to his real identity would be utterly fruitless, for Sammy is a composite picture of a loud and spectacular minority bitterly resented by the many decent and sincere artists who are trying honestly to realize the measureless potentialities of motion pictures. To this group belongs Schulberg himself, who has not only worked as a screen writer since his graduation from Dartmouth College in 1936, but has spent his life, literally, in the heart of the motion-picture colony. In the course of finding out what makes Sammy run (an operation in which the reader is spared none of the grue-some details) Schulberg has poured out everything he has felt about that place. The result is a book which the publishers not only believe to be the most honest ever written about Hollywood, but a penetrating study of one kind of twentieth-century success that is peculiar to no single race of people or walk of life.

My Review: Budd Schulberg got a lot of grief for writing this "anti-Semitic" shriek of outrage at the backstabbing, grasping, greedy, hollow culture of Hollywood. Well, how else could he tell the story? The moguls of the time were almost all Jewish, and they weren't nice little yeshiva boys but street toughs with chips on their shoulders hell bent for leather to make it to the top.

Today it is a lot less true of Hollywood's power elite. Not the behavior, the Jewishness. The behavior is intact! Of this I assure you from personal experience. And people of both genders and all religious and cultural affiliations enact it there. Awful place. As one would expect from any place where there is that much money floating around. *Breathtaking* amounts of money. The greed of these people is utterly beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. "Enough" is what you say to the chauffeur you're firing who complains it's unjust.

Reading this book was a bitter and painful reliving of my education in how "no good deed goes unpunished" and I will never re-read it for that reason. But dayum! What a glorious excoriation of the moral midgets who make our movies, TV shows, and music! I am in *awe* that Schulberg got away with writing it and stayed in Hollywood! Steven Spielberg, that maker of iconically positive movies, said the book should never be made into a movie because it's too anti-movie-biz.

Guess what: It never has been. Even Ben Stiller, who wanted to star and direct, couldn't get it done when he was at his peak of fame and power.

Shows you just how true it was, is, and will remain. *shudder* ( )
2 vota richardderus | Feb 18, 2013 |
Scritto bene, ma non mi ha convinto ( )
  mara4m | Jun 8, 2011 |
Es mostren 1-5 de 10 (següent | mostra-les totes)
afegit per booksaplenty1949 | editaInverarity (Jan 12, 2015)
 
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What Makes Sammy Run? Everyone of us knows someone who runs. He is one of the symp-toms of our times—from the little man who shoves you out of the way on the street to the go-getter who shoves you out of a job in the office to the Fuehrer who shoves you out of the world. And all of us have stopped to wonder, at some time or another, what it is that makes these people tick. What makes them run? This is the question Schulberg has asked himself, and the answer is the first novel written with the indignation that only a young writer with talent and ideals could concentrate into a manuscript. It is the story of Sammy Glick, the man with a positive genius for being a heel, who runs through New York’s East Side, through newspaper ranks and finally through Hollywood, leaving in his wake the wrecked careers of his associates; for this is his tragedy and his chief characteristic—his congenital incapacity for friendship. An older and more experienced novelist might have tempered his story and, in so doing, destroyed one of its outstanding qualities. Compromise would mar the portrait of Sammy Glick. Schulberg has etched it in pure vitriol, and dissected his victim with a precision that is almost frightening. When a fragment of this book appeared as a short story in a national magazine, Schulberg was surprised at the number of letters he received from people convinced they knew Sammy Glick’s real name. But speculation as to his real identity would be utterly fruitless, for Sammy is a composite picture of a loud and spectacular minority bitterly resented by the many decent and sincere artists who are trying honestly to realize the measureless potentialities of motion pictures. To this group belongs Schulberg himself, who has not only worked as a screen writer since his graduation from Dartmouth College in 1936, but has spent his life, literally, in the heart of the motion-picture colony. In the course of finding out what makes Sammy run (an operation in which the reader is spared none of the grue-some details) Schulberg has poured out everything he has felt about that place. The result is a book which the publishers not only believe to be the most honest ever written about Hollywood, but a penetrating study of one kind of twentieth-century success that is peculiar to no single race of people or walk of life.

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