cover image Memo from Darryl F. Zanuck: The Golden Years at Twentieth Century-Fox

Memo from Darryl F. Zanuck: The Golden Years at Twentieth Century-Fox

Rudy Behlmer, Darryl Francis Zanuck. Grove/Atlantic, $22.95 (276pp) ISBN 978-0-8021-1540-9

Zanuck, production chief at Fox during the studio's heyday (1935-1956), was the organizational genius behind such films as The Grapes of Wrath , How Green Was My Valley , Laura , Miracle on 34th Street and All About Eve. This collection of minutes, letters and memos from Zanuck to Fox executives, directors, writers and actors allows us to look over the shoulder of one of the dominant figures of the old studio system and observe how an authentic ``movie mogul'' put a feature film together. Zanuck's enthusiastic, persuasive personality comes across in his blunt letters (including one to director Elia Kazan on the relationship between socialism and Communism, and another to the Chicago Tribune defending himself against the paper's accusation that he had been ``long friendly to internationalist and Leftish causes''). The minutes of story conferences and meetings about casting will greatly interest readers familiar with the movies discussed. Zanuck died in 1979. Behlmer also selected, edited and annotated Memo from David O. Selznick. Photos. Movie & Entertainment Book Club selection. (May)