Locuras de Hollywood

by P.G. Wodehouse, Javier Calzada (Translator)

Cuando el riquísimo Alfred Cork murió, dejó toda su fortuna a su mujer, que había sido una famosa actriz del cine mudo. Pero en el testamento había una cláusula: Adela, la viuda, tenía que mantener de por vida a su cuñado Smedley Cork, un petimetre acostumbrado a la buena vida y a no pegar golpe. Claro está que la idea que Adela y Smedley tenían sobre esta manutención era muy diferente. Para la ex actriz, significaba una habitación en su propia casa, tres comidas por día, y yogur, mucho yogur, en lugar de los cócteles a los que el bon vivant estaba acostumbrado. Smedley, por su parte, pensaba que Adela estaba moralmente obligada a instalarlo en un apartamento en Park Avenue, y a poner a su disposición una bien provista cuenta bancaria. Como la frugal viuda se mantenía en sus trece, Smedley urdió un plan para conseguir la fortuna que se merecía por sus refinados apetitos. Y en ese plan ocupaba un lugar destacado el diario de una volcánica actriz muerta en un accidente de aviación.

En esta ocasión, Hollywood es el territorio elegido por Wodehouse para desplegar su desternillante humor, su desopilante sentido del absurdo. Una ciudad enloquecida donde toda locura es posible. P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) nació en Surrey. Tras trabajar un tiempo como periodista en Inglaterra, se traslado a los Estados Unidos, donde se dedicó por entero a la literatura. Escribió numerosas obras de teatro y comedias musicales, y más de noventa novelas, situadas la mayoría en la Inglaterra de los años veinte. Creador de personajes inolvidables -Jeeves, Bertie Wooster, su tía Agatha, Ukridge, Psmith, Lord Emsworth, los lechuguinos del Club de los Zanganos, y tantos otros-, sus obras han sido traducidas a numerosos idiomas y se reeditan continuamente, como corresponde a uno de los grandes humoristas del siglo, un clásico indiscutible.

En esta colección se han publicado las siguientes obras de Wodehouse: El inimitable Jeeves, De acuerdo, Jeeves, Ola de crímenes en el castillo de Blandings.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, British Literature, Literature, Novels, 20th Century

208 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 18, 1951

About the author

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE, was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read over 40 years after his death. Despite the political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in France and the United States, Wodehouse's main canvas remained that of prewar English upper-class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career.

An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by more recent writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.

Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song Bill in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin/Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).

Reviews

[W · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one is set in Hollywood and includes film stars,movie moguls and the obligatory love affairs found in a Wodehouse novel.

Former silent film actress Mrs Adela Cork purchases the house formerly owned by Carmen Flores,the former star,who died in a plane crash.

Adela's brother in law,Smedley,hatches a scheme to make money.He wants the diary of Carmen Flores,which is full of sensational disclosures.He wants to sell it for fifty thousand dollars.

Phipps,the butler,is a former safe cracker,and the gets the same idea.Who gets the diary,makes for a nice little twist at the end.

Meanwhile,Adela Cork's sister,Bill is writing the memoirs of the former silent film star.She is the old reliable,who finds a way to ease the financial difficulties of her lover Smedley.

She also comes to the rescue of her niece Kay and the man she loves.

A cheerful and entertaining book.
3.5 stars

[Steven R. Kraaijeveld · Rating 3 out of 5]

"'Heavens, Smedley, you look like something left over from the Ark,' she said, and marveled at the mysteries of a woman's heart, which can preserve its love for a man intact even when his appearance is that of flotsam and jetsam. For in describing Smedley as something left over from the Ark, she was really giving him the breaks. Actually, he resembled more closely one of those mildewed pieces of refuse found in dustbins, which are passed over with a disdainful jerk of the head by the discriminating alley cat." (178)

I snuck in another Wodehouse; the beginning of The Old Reliable is very nice, quick and humorous, but then the plot staggers and drags on a bit. It probably doesn't help that the main arc of the story is basically that of Spring Fever. All in all, though, it was an enjoyable read at a time when I needed something light and uplifting—and passages like the one above pay for themselves.

[Benita Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, this is P.G. Wodehouse. It goes without saying that it's brilliant. Whilst I give it five stars, however, the ending seems a teeny bit, ever so slightly, abrupt. Other than that: characterisation, superb. Use of English language, already classified as Wodehouse and therefore skilful and elegant. And plot, classic Wodehouse.

Everyone around Adela Cork's home is poor except for Adela Cork (who's rolling in the stuff). Adela's brother-in-law Smedley's dreams hinge on the diary of Carmen Flores, the movie star who originally owned the Cork home and led a wild life. Smedley's reasoning goes that he could blackmail any number of people thanks to the information in this diary. He just has to find where Flores hid it... Bill (a.k.a. Wilhelmina, Adela's sister) and Joe want to run a literary agency; they just need the $20,000 to buy it. What shall we do? Why, help Smedley find the diary and then touch him for that measly sum, of course.

But they don't reckon on Phipps, the evil genius.

Always include your English butler in the equations for your get-rich-quick schemes.

[Ellis · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's nice to know that a Wodehouse book need not contain a Bertie, a Baxter, an Emsworth, or a perfunctory P to be uproarious. This happens to include a woman named Bill, a former queen of the silent screen, and Phipps, who I have on good authority is not the world's only safe-cracking butler (in retrospect, why shouldn't there be dozens of safe-cracking butlers? provided that they have better morals than Phipps does).

"'Ah, Hollywood, Hollywood,' said Bill. 'Home of mean glories and spangled wretchedness, where the deathless fire burns for the outspread wings of the guileless moth, whose streets are bathed in the shamed tears of betrayed maidens.'" Or something along those lines.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*
One of Wodehouse's standalone novels that are set in the U.S., in this case Hollywood. Many grins & giggles but not quite as hilarious as some of his books.

[Pachy Pedia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Divertido y con unos personajes entrañables, me quedo sobre todo con la increible Bill y el flemático Phipps.

[Joe Boenzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

British writer and humorist Pelham Grenville Wodehouse locates this 1950 novel in the Hollywood Hills. The characters are mainly members of the extended family of a Silent-Era film star by the name of Adela Shannon Cork who, thanks to her deceased husband's fortune, is a multi-millionaire. The woman remains a commanding presence even if the era of the silent cinema was already long-past.

As in other of P.G. Wodehouse's novels, the plot revolves around a young couple falling in love and middle-aged relatives scrambling to regain financial independence lost through bad luck (or more likely though incompetence). A pivotal character who stays in the background but who emerges when called is the butler James Phipps. Phipps must juggle many tasks based on contrary demands from the harsh lady of the house (Adela Shannon), her highly competent sister "Bill", her has-been brother-in-law, her young niece, a visiting English but penniless nobleman and a young screen-writer, not to mention visiting officers of the Law. Phipps is a very capable butler who can never seem to please his employer, but upon whom others increasingly rely. He is both aloof and attentive… and as Bill discovers early on, Phipps has a dark secret that could cost him his job.

Except for the opening and closing chapters, the entire action of the story seems to take place in one room - much like a stage play. In this comedy, Shakespeare-quoting, jazz-quoting P. G. Wodehouse employs many of the pranks that he has used in other novels; the outcome is brilliant. I enjoyed Wodehouse depicting a mid-20th-century Southern California that no longer exists but which, I think, is relatable even now.

[S. Suresh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in the prime of his career, The Old Reliable is a fun, comedic, farce set in Hollywood. Wilhelmina “Bill” Shannon, the cheerful, confident, smooth talking, problem solver takes on the role of The Old Reliable, pitting her gray cells against her rich widowed sister, Adela Cork, and spreading a bit of light and sweetness in the lives of her niece Kay and ex-colleague, Joe Davenport. With compromising diaries to be pinched and safes to be blown, this is a classic, enjoyable Wodehouse, even if it is not one of his best.

I originally considered giving this novel only 3-stars. However, when I reflected on Phipps the butler, without doubt the best character in the novel, I had to bump it up to 3.5. Phipps, with his stately English buttling and added safe blowing skills surely is one Wodehouse’s best characterizations.

[Natasha Uzdensky]

This was such a funny and witty book that was overall a comfortable and casual read. The characters were all so likable (even the ones that were a little sassier), and I look forward to reading more Wodehouse!

[Iblena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entretenida, divertida y amena comedia de situaciones, que recuerda mucho a esas peliculas de principios de los años 40's. Humor inteligente,mordaz e ingenioso. No para reírse a carcajadas, pero si capaz de provocar muchas sonrisas. Phipps y Wilhelmina ‘Bill’ Shannon, los mejores personajes.

[Michael Baranowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was feeling a little low, I hadn't read any Wodehouse in a while, and there was The Old Reliable sitting on my shelves, calling to me. Not at the level of his best work, but even mediocre Wodehouse is awfully good stuff.

[William Leight · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ironically, despite the fact that this is one of the few Wodehouse novels to put a woman, and a middle-aged woman at that, at center stage, this has to be one of his least original works. The plot is mostly cribbed from "Spring Fever", published two years prior: shifting the action to Hollywood doesn't do much to disguise it. The exception is the device of bringing the young folks together by knocking out the male half of the sketch -- an indication, I fear, of a failure of imagination -- which was first used (I think) in "Money in the Bank" four years before. Even Bill (short for Wilhelmina) herself is hardly original: her dialogue could be swapped with that of any number of Wodehouse characters of similar vintage, most of them men, without the reader having any idea that something was off. It's not that "The Old Reliable" is bad, as such: even if the jokes are all old -- for instance, the policeman who long to break into the movies originated in the Mulliner story "The Rise of Minna Nordstrom", from 1933 -- they're mostly still pretty good. But it's really only for the hardcore Wodehouse fan.

[Arthur Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another pleasant but unremarkable post-WWII Wodehouse novel. It is chock full of the typical Woodhousian farcical situations, but none of the characters is particularly likable, and the story doesn't build to a logical (by the standards of P.G. Wodehouse) climax. There are no great moments, and one senses by the midway point that this story really isn't going anywhere. Still, it's never dull, and the author has a way with words that can't help but amuse.
Incidentally, I have never encountered a Wodehouse story with more references to contemporary celebrities. Given that many of the leading characters are (or were) involved in the movie industry, this makes a certain amount of sense. But it's almost as if the author made a conscious decision to pepper the text with the names of movie, TV, and literary notables. This in no way detracts from the story (it may, in fact, ADD to the reader's enjoyment), but I did find it curious.

[Petr Flégl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Můj první Wodehouse, ale obávám se, že jsem si nevybral dobrou knížku. Ač se často říká, že Jirotka se při psaní Saturnina inspiroval právě Wodehousem, v tomto případě by to znamenalo, že žák předčil mistra. A to hodně. Musí se nechat, že Wodehouse asi psát umí - čte se to hezky, není to trapné jak pokusy o Saturnina od Macka. Ale mám problém s postavami. Prakticky nikdo není sympatický, jeden loser, podvodníček a zoufalec vedle druhého. Navíc to člověk snadno a rychle přečtěte, ale to je tak všechno. Rozhodně se nebudete smát, sotva se pousmějete... Ale dám tomu ještě šanci a zkusím něco z původní série - s komorníkem Jeevesem - a pak se finálně rozhodnu.

[Meena · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short standalone novel about Wilhelmina (Bill) a.k.a the old reliable, and her gang. Bill is the sister of Adela who's rich but not fun, Smedley is Adela's brother-in-law who is not the sharpest crayon in the box.

Add a pair of lovesick couples, an ex-con butler, the personal diary of a famous old lady and the promise of living life like kings (or queens) once you become a literary agent, you have a hilarious, cozy story with some twist of fate popping up every 5 minutes.

Like all of Wodehouse's works, this is pure unadulterated sunlight in book form.

[Lola Martínez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Se trata de una historia muy divertida en la que hay actrices de cine mudo, herederos desheredados, escritores en ciernes, o mayordomos expertos en robar cajas fuertes. Todo un mundo de la época retratado desde una vis cómica muy personal con una escritura ágil e imaginativa.
Convertirse en agente literario parecía ser una ocupación con la que obtener pingües beneficios en el Hollywood de la época.
No sé cómo no me había cruzado antes con este autor inglés, siendo como fue tan prolífico y tan conocido en su época. Nunca es tarde si la dicha es buena.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty sure this is my first Wodehouse without any of the series characters. Enjoyed it very much. This one stands out for being set in California instead of England, though an English butler features prominently and one of Wodehouse's typical goofy young English upper-class men also features, somewhat less prominently. Not sure if I'll do a proper review later, not a lot to say beyond it's Wodehouse and it's hilarious. :)

[Patressa Kearns · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked "The Old Reliable" a lot. What's not to like about any P. G. Wodehouse story? I did find it to be very similar to Wodehouse's "Spring Fever," which I read recently -- many of the same plot elements. But that's OK, because, really, do we read Wodehouse for Wodehouse's great character development anyway? No, we do not. We read Wodehouse for fun and to for the tight, fun plot lines and uber-snappy dialogue!

I especially loved the "Bill" character.

[Robert Hepple · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in 1951, 'The Old Reliable' is a farce set in a fully furnished house purchased by an old silent movie star from the estate of and older silent movie star. Add to this a search for the diary of the deceased star, a butler with a knack for safe-cracking, and other improbable additions to the mix and you have the sort of daft shenanigans that make Wodehouse stories so good.

[Paky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lectura de entretenimiento, una historia desenfadada, con algunos toques de humor, pero sin ningún atractivo especial. No podía ser de otra manera, por su ambientación, en el Hollywood de las primeras décadas del siglo XX. Unos personajes curiosos y situaciones algo cómicas, incluso en ocasiones disparatadas. Aceptable, pero prescindible.

[Diskojoe · Rating 3 out of 5]

An apt description of the author himself. Excellent summer reading for putting the mind in Neutral & luxuriating in the prose of the Master.

[Vicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in Hollywood in the late 1940s, just before Wodehouse became an American citizen. The butler in the story is not Jeeves but a reformed safe-cracker.

[Herman Schmitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mantém o ritmo, se bem que as histórias do Jeeves são bem melhores.

[Ryan Barretto · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely and fun read, full of laughs, and twists.

Enjoyed this - it is a great stressbuster.

[lärm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though fairly little happens in this book, it's still a very pleasant read.
(little action seems to be Wodehouse's trademark)
Smedley is a fun chap.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 - not bad, not great. The plot line was somewhat annoying and I found the characters in this book to be rather one-note and stale. But still had some good Wodehouse humor in it.

[Gary Chorpenning · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one of Wodehouse's best, no particularly appealing characters; I finished it just to see how he would resolve the complicated plot.

[Bronte · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was definitely a fun one. I gave it 4 stars instead of five because it didn't quite rival my favorites by Wodehouse. But it's definitely worth reading if you like fun little situation comedies.

[Laura-leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The funniest play that never was.

[Erin Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this; classic, perfectly amiable, hilarious Wodehouse. 👌🏻