Benchley-or Else!

by Robert Benchley

273 pp.

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction, Essays

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

Works, including How to Sleep , the film of 1935, and My Ten Years in a Quandary , the book of 1936, of Robert Charles Benchley, humorist, critic, and actor, often pitted an average American against the complexities of modern life.

People best knew Robert Charles Benchley as a newspaper columnist. He began at the Lampoon and meanwhile attended Harvard University and wrote many essays and articles for Vanity Fair and The New Yorker.
From New York City and his peers at the Algonquin Round Table, short style brought acclaim, respect, and success to Benchley to contemporaries in the burgeoning industry.

Benchley contributed best remembered influential topical or absurdist essays to The New Yorker. He also made a name in Hollywood, when his popular success won best short subject at the academy awards of 1935, and his many memorable appearances in such as Foreign Correspondent of Alfred Joseph Hitchcock and a dramatic turn in Nice Girl? . He wrote his legacy in numerous short appearances.

Reviews

[David Allen]

Published after his death, this is a mixed bag of good stuff and dregs, some of which read as if written on a deadline with little inspiration. Still, even lesser Benchley has its pleasures. One gem is about how he likes reading mystery novels but that he's always lost at the end during the dense explanation by the detective of how the crime was pulled off.

[Andrew]

Usual Benchley fare - reliably funny