Dangerous Friends: Hemingway, Huston and Others

by Peter Viertal

This book evokes the mythic giants of the glory days of the American film industry. Creative artists and men's men, flamboyant egoists, performers of spontaneous acts of selfishness and these are Peter Viertel's "dangerous friends". Seeking to distance himself from the intellectual climate of his European emigre upbringing, the young Viertel left the company of Franz Werfel, Thomas Mann, Christopher Isherwood and others of the Los Angeles refugee community to follow his own star. After serving in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, Viertel was an aspiring screenwriter and novelist when he came to know Ernest Hemingway, John Huston, Orson Wells and others, seeing in these quintessential American extroverts the authentic self-expression he sought in his writing and in his life. In this unsentimental memoir, Viertel draws pictures of these men and how they influenced him. As Viertel follows his mentors around the world, he also retraces an older, deeper the ageless search of a young man for his father - and his own identity.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir

406 pages, Hardcover

First published October 31, 2006

Reviews

[Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not usually a fan of the celebrity tell-all, but the subject matter makes this one pretty entertaining. Told by Huston's longtime script collaborator, who was also pals with Papa, there's enough testosterone here to make the reader sprout chest hair. But in this dry-martini confessional, you also get some fairly deep insight into these two artistic titans - the insecurity that fueled Papa's bravado and the manic glee behind Huston's lust for life.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Award-winning, Hollywood screenwriter rubbing elbows with some of the famous shapers of modern American pop-culture of the 1950s...the hedonism, immorality and leftist twaddle of today was certainly matched in the 50s...Its kind of an "E True Hollywood Story" in book form disecting the 50s...I enjoy the background of the business; how the deals are struck, scripts are prepared and the planning of film production.

[Pablo]

Continuación/ampliación de las memorias Cazador blanco, corazón negro (¡el que quería leer antes!) con detalles prolijos de la vida de Viertel, su amistad con Huston y con Ernest Hemingway. Me he leído la traducción española, Amigos peligrosos.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author was a screenwriter during the 40's and 50's. He seemed to know just about everybody in Hollywood so this reads a bit like a who's who list. It is interesting to get a peek at the "inside" of famous people but the writer doesn't offer that many deep insights into his friends. He also spends an awful lot of time recounting his travels. Again, not so much in details about the places but rather: "I was here, then I went there, then I was in...." And the guy did lots of travel! I can't even list how many times he went back and forth across the Atlantic. Travel wasn't that easy in those days so it's amazing to read how everybody was galavanting around the world and running into each other everywhere they went. Like all memoirs, the author has chosen only to show us what he wants to us to see. He says he feels guilt about leaving his pregnant wife for a fashion model but there's not really a sense of shame. He describes many of his friends as sleeping around as though it were the norm... which maybe it was in his crowd. He has little contact with his daughter until she is seven years old. Not exactly your doting dad. I found that I didn't particularly like this man. I kept wondering what everyone saw in him. His friends were incredibly generous and he just seemed to accept their generosity as if it were his due. He mooched off of nearly everyone and yet they kept inviting him back. I don't know that I would have been so willing to provide food and lodging to this man. Ironically, I think the author is the Dangerous Friend.

[Michael Webb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad. Somewhat dated.