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Comebacks: The Return of the Aging Film Star
238 pages, Hardcover
Published December 9, 2025
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 8, 2026
3.5 stars
"There are a variety of of reasons why a film can be conceived as a comeback. Some are about a [performer] trying to regain a prominent position in the entertainment industry. Some of these may succeed in delivering a box-office hit for an aged and faded star after a period of absence from the big screen, while others fail to do so . . . [This book] testifies to the fact that [performers] around the world have regained fame, popularity, marquee value, and box-office success after a period of decline or absence from the cinema screen in all kinds of parts and in all types of films." -- on pages 3 and 4
Although a bit too detached or impersonal at times - as if it was meant for film study course offered at a university - Comebacks: The Return of the Aging Film Star is an essay collection boasting sixteen different contributors. While actress Gloria Swanson's role in Sunset Boulevard is an obvious starting point (and is mentioned, if only briefly, in the introduction), the included performers veer from the obvious like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction and several other films, to the more offbeat or international choices like Wesley Snipes, Viveca Lindfors, Sessue Hayakawa and Sonia Braga. My favorites chapters, however, were on Burt Reynolds (with his underrated but ideal career finale of The Last Movie Star, which cleverly spliced present-day footage with some of his notable roles in the 1970's) and the action hero-ish character actor Woody Strode, who must've had a million stories to tell after his five prolific decades on screen via such elite directors as Stanley Kubrick, John Ford, Sergio Leone, and Francis Ford Coppola.
"There are a variety of of reasons why a film can be conceived as a comeback. Some are about a [performer] trying to regain a prominent position in the entertainment industry. Some of these may succeed in delivering a box-office hit for an aged and faded star after a period of absence from the big screen, while others fail to do so . . . [This book] testifies to the fact that [performers] around the world have regained fame, popularity, marquee value, and box-office success after a period of decline or absence from the cinema screen in all kinds of parts and in all types of films." -- on pages 3 and 4
Although a bit too detached or impersonal at times - as if it was meant for film study course offered at a university - Comebacks: The Return of the Aging Film Star is an essay collection boasting sixteen different contributors. While actress Gloria Swanson's role in Sunset Boulevard is an obvious starting point (and is mentioned, if only briefly, in the introduction), the included performers veer from the obvious like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction and several other films, to the more offbeat or international choices like Wesley Snipes, Viveca Lindfors, Sessue Hayakawa and Sonia Braga. My favorites chapters, however, were on Burt Reynolds (with his underrated but ideal career finale of The Last Movie Star, which cleverly spliced present-day footage with some of his notable roles in the 1970's) and the action hero-ish character actor Woody Strode, who must've had a million stories to tell after his five prolific decades on screen via such elite directors as Stanley Kubrick, John Ford, Sergio Leone, and Francis Ford Coppola.
Displaying 1 of 1 review