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Escape from Film School
Escape From Film School tells the sprightly tale of a young man who makes it in Hollywood without ever leaving film school.
When Stuart arrives in California in the Sixties, he is fleeing the draft and he quite literally stumbles into USC's film school. Within a few weeks he is living out of his car and making student films with stolen equipment. Within a few years he is rubbing elbows with a young Mike Ovitz and other characters pulled straight from the pages of Variety.
Blessed with a biting wit and a jaundiced eye, Stuart is a keen observer of the machinations, power plays, and absurdities of the movie biz. His account of his own circuitous progress -- and that of his beautiful and ambitious wife, Veronica; his beautiful and ambitious girlfriend, Ginger; and his loyal daughter, Rainbeaux -- also offers an incisive and satirical look at this bizarre, yet fascinating world. Like The Player , it is a dead-on, often hilarious and occasionally poignant tale about survival and redemption in Hollywood.
When Stuart arrives in California in the Sixties, he is fleeing the draft and he quite literally stumbles into USC's film school. Within a few weeks he is living out of his car and making student films with stolen equipment. Within a few years he is rubbing elbows with a young Mike Ovitz and other characters pulled straight from the pages of Variety.
Blessed with a biting wit and a jaundiced eye, Stuart is a keen observer of the machinations, power plays, and absurdities of the movie biz. His account of his own circuitous progress -- and that of his beautiful and ambitious wife, Veronica; his beautiful and ambitious girlfriend, Ginger; and his loyal daughter, Rainbeaux -- also offers an incisive and satirical look at this bizarre, yet fascinating world. Like The Player , it is a dead-on, often hilarious and occasionally poignant tale about survival and redemption in Hollywood.
256 pages, Paperback
First published June 30, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 20, 2018
Covering all the bases of what it was like for film students of the golden age, the author manages to be a total crack up in the manner of his mentor, Jerry Lewis.
August 6, 2023
I read it too seriously the first time. I need to reread this book.
October 28, 2009
Fiction (or quasi so). The cover has a Coppola quote about the book being eerily accurate of the film school experience. It is a somewhat contrived story in parts and looks to be written with a screenplay in mind, but I do agree that it seems to portray the life of a typical group of film folks. Don't want to give away stuff, even if it is sometimes predictable. The book is worth a quick read if you are interested in the film industry and want a fiction piece. The writer is the UCLA chair of film writing and I kind of expected better from someone with those credentials, but it is an easy read.
October 10, 2011
Like "The Player," this book tells a filmmaker's story from an insider's point of view. I liked the book for its likable protagonist and surprising plot turns. I wish the author could have extended the second half, because it went more quickly than the first.
November 5, 2007
Not so hot. Very quick read (because the story is pretty flimsy) and set around the film school/film world...The story isn't that interesting or funny.
June 19, 2012
A great screenwriter and professor turned novelist
January 1, 2013
Had some funny moments. Enjoyable.
June 22, 2013
It was fun to have an inside look at Professor Walter's own experience as a film student. What a naughty, naughty boy!!!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews