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FRANKLY: UNMASKING FRANK CAPRA
"There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.” -- Ray Bradbury
Joseph McBride’s 1992 biography FRANK THE CATASTROPHE OF SUCCESS was described by Barry Gewen in The New York Times Book Review as "Masterly, comprehensive, and frequently surprising." What readers did not know then was how arduous it was to reveal the hidden truth about this iconic American figure.
While McBride was researching and writing for more than seven years, he was fighting a pitched legal battle with his original publisher and allies of the celebrated film director. UNMASKING FRANK CAPRA is McBride's revealing, harrowing, often darkly comical account of that Kafkaesque but ultimately successful struggle.
Joseph McBride's many other books include biographies of John Ford and Steven Spielberg, three studies of Orson Welles, and an investigation of the murders of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit. McBride is a professor in the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University.
Joseph McBride’s 1992 biography FRANK THE CATASTROPHE OF SUCCESS was described by Barry Gewen in The New York Times Book Review as "Masterly, comprehensive, and frequently surprising." What readers did not know then was how arduous it was to reveal the hidden truth about this iconic American figure.
While McBride was researching and writing for more than seven years, he was fighting a pitched legal battle with his original publisher and allies of the celebrated film director. UNMASKING FRANK CAPRA is McBride's revealing, harrowing, often darkly comical account of that Kafkaesque but ultimately successful struggle.
Joseph McBride's many other books include biographies of John Ford and Steven Spielberg, three studies of Orson Welles, and an investigation of the murders of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J. D. Tippit. McBride is a professor in the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University.
601 pages, Paperback
Published March 22, 2019
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May 9, 2019
I dropped everything to read this book, and so should you—if you are willing to confront the corruption endemic in writing certain kinds of biography. The plot involves a celebrated archivist, a famous editor, a respected lawyer, and a renowned publisher. I won’t name names—not out of any fear of reprisal or observance of discretion (McBride names them all)—but because the characters: The Biographer, The Editor, The Archivist, The Publisher, and The Lawyer represent, for allegorical purposes, the conflicts of interest that are rife in the tension between archives, publishers, and editors who often side against biographers. What has happened to Joseph McBride has happened to me. In fact, I have known and worked with some of the principal players in this story. If McBride is sometimes impetuous and the author of his own predicaments—as he confesses—his plight is all the same a profound lesson for biographers.
So here is what happened: McBride, a well-regarded screenwriter and film scholar—believed he had the cooperation of director Frank Capra, the creator, if you don’t know it already, of such American classics as Meet John Doe (1941) and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), generally considered as paeans to the common man and American democracy. McBride conducted extensive interviews with Capra, who, by turns, was friendly and hostile. The Archivist was welcoming and assured McBride he would have permission to quote from Wesleyan’s extensive archive. It was McBride’s understanding that Capra had given Wesleyan copyright control. What McBride discovered in his research was a man who was no democrat or Democrat but instead a conservative Republican, misogynistic and prejudiced against ethnic groups who downplayed the importance of the screenwriters who created “the Capra touch,” and later informed on those writers and others during the McCarthy Blacklist Period. What is more, after the great achievements of the 1930s and 1940s, the director’s work declined dramatically—in part, McBride believes, because of Capra’s unwillingness to deal with his betrayal of fellow professionals. The biographer still held Capra’s signature films in high regard but also felt compelled to show their contradictions and how those contradictions explained the director’s later failures.
When The Biographer began seeking permission to quote from the Capra papers, The Archivist, The Editor, and the Publisher, all deferred to the The Lawyer, who kept putting The Biographer off, saying all would be resolved when The Biographer turned in the book. I don’t want to spoil the intrigue and horror of what happened to Joseph McBride. You need to follow every twist and turn of the plot—no other cliche will do. Unlike many biographers who do not have the courage or the financial resources to brook the interference of the powerful forces against them, McBride did not relinquish control over his book to his subject’s estate or to his publishers. He kept insisting on his rights even as The Editor keep issuing vague promises that all would be well. Then two things happened: The Editor signed up another Capra book by no less than The Archivist at Wesleyan, creating a conflict of interest in McBride’s view, and then departed for a high profile job editing a famous magazine.
The orphaned McBride, who had no income other than what he could earn from journalism and his book advance, went through several lawyers, all of whom sooner or later went over to the dark side—that is, to The Publisher and The Lawyer who now considered McBride as, you know, one of those “difficult authors.” For seven years McBride carried on—sometimes not even sure who was editing his book—barely able to pay for the necessities of life, ruining his health, and seeking a way through to publication, which ultimately involved finding the right lawyer who would not back down and extricated The Biographer from his contract. McBride had to pay back his advance but not until he found another publisher—one, I might add, that helped McBride produce a brilliant biography (that is my assessment) under fair use at a time when fair use was under attack because of the Salinger decision.
Let me assure you, however, that Frankly is more than just a searing memoir, more than a wonderfully instructive guide as to how to negotiate the perils of biography, more than a disquisition on the nature of film biography, more than a defense of biography itself as a form of knowledge, more than an object lesson in how biography can bankrupt you, more than an astute assessment of the future of biography, more than an inside look at the parlous state of a biographer who tries to earn tenure, more than a disclosure of the poor sales of biographies and yet why it is so necessary to write them. McBride sums up the why of biography in one sentence. After discussing how biography calls upon the skills of a researcher, a writer, a critic, a scholar and sometimes “a legal strategist,” he arrives at the nub: “The full use of your powers along the lines of excellence.”
So here is what happened: McBride, a well-regarded screenwriter and film scholar—believed he had the cooperation of director Frank Capra, the creator, if you don’t know it already, of such American classics as Meet John Doe (1941) and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), generally considered as paeans to the common man and American democracy. McBride conducted extensive interviews with Capra, who, by turns, was friendly and hostile. The Archivist was welcoming and assured McBride he would have permission to quote from Wesleyan’s extensive archive. It was McBride’s understanding that Capra had given Wesleyan copyright control. What McBride discovered in his research was a man who was no democrat or Democrat but instead a conservative Republican, misogynistic and prejudiced against ethnic groups who downplayed the importance of the screenwriters who created “the Capra touch,” and later informed on those writers and others during the McCarthy Blacklist Period. What is more, after the great achievements of the 1930s and 1940s, the director’s work declined dramatically—in part, McBride believes, because of Capra’s unwillingness to deal with his betrayal of fellow professionals. The biographer still held Capra’s signature films in high regard but also felt compelled to show their contradictions and how those contradictions explained the director’s later failures.
When The Biographer began seeking permission to quote from the Capra papers, The Archivist, The Editor, and the Publisher, all deferred to the The Lawyer, who kept putting The Biographer off, saying all would be resolved when The Biographer turned in the book. I don’t want to spoil the intrigue and horror of what happened to Joseph McBride. You need to follow every twist and turn of the plot—no other cliche will do. Unlike many biographers who do not have the courage or the financial resources to brook the interference of the powerful forces against them, McBride did not relinquish control over his book to his subject’s estate or to his publishers. He kept insisting on his rights even as The Editor keep issuing vague promises that all would be well. Then two things happened: The Editor signed up another Capra book by no less than The Archivist at Wesleyan, creating a conflict of interest in McBride’s view, and then departed for a high profile job editing a famous magazine.
The orphaned McBride, who had no income other than what he could earn from journalism and his book advance, went through several lawyers, all of whom sooner or later went over to the dark side—that is, to The Publisher and The Lawyer who now considered McBride as, you know, one of those “difficult authors.” For seven years McBride carried on—sometimes not even sure who was editing his book—barely able to pay for the necessities of life, ruining his health, and seeking a way through to publication, which ultimately involved finding the right lawyer who would not back down and extricated The Biographer from his contract. McBride had to pay back his advance but not until he found another publisher—one, I might add, that helped McBride produce a brilliant biography (that is my assessment) under fair use at a time when fair use was under attack because of the Salinger decision.
Let me assure you, however, that Frankly is more than just a searing memoir, more than a wonderfully instructive guide as to how to negotiate the perils of biography, more than a disquisition on the nature of film biography, more than a defense of biography itself as a form of knowledge, more than an object lesson in how biography can bankrupt you, more than an astute assessment of the future of biography, more than an inside look at the parlous state of a biographer who tries to earn tenure, more than a disclosure of the poor sales of biographies and yet why it is so necessary to write them. McBride sums up the why of biography in one sentence. After discussing how biography calls upon the skills of a researcher, a writer, a critic, a scholar and sometimes “a legal strategist,” he arrives at the nub: “The full use of your powers along the lines of excellence.”
January 4, 2020
Concerns the multi-year ordeal he experienced in haggling with his publisher [ultimately replaced after legal wrangling to get out of the deal], agent(s), lawyer(s), editor(s), various layers of people in charge of the archives in which he did research, relatives of the subject, etc. etc. to get his bio of Frank Capra published in the early 1990s to high praise but [by author's estimation] disappointing sales.
Broadens it out some to consider the economics of freelance writing as compared to his later career writing books on the side of a position as university professor, but mostly focused on the one saga.
Excellent writer, and he really immerses you in the twists and turns of who is a double agent, who is BSing him about "fair use" standards because they don't like what he's revealing about Capra's politics or Capra's informing on colleagues during the "Red Scare", etc., who is secretly aligned against him, etc.
On the other hand......I'd have been curious to hear the other side's take. He's very candid about his own rough edges, but I did find myself occasionally thinking "if someone slow-walks getting back to you about the editing process after you turn in a 1600-page+ draft and embrace the conflicts enough that you have other people place calls for you, require real-time coaching from your spouse on keeping tone constructive when you are on the phone, and accuse them of conspiracies, there's more than one possible explanation."
To be clear, he certainly makes a compelling case that he was getting hosed, just saying he doesn't sound easy to work with either. Wasn't apparently much for hiding his views of people, one sample of which concerning an editor assigned for a while to his book:
"....always seemed thoroughly undistinguished because of his relentlessly pusillanimous behavior and habitual lack of candor while doing [publisher's] venal bidding." [p. 295].
Disclaimer: I got interested in this, after seeing it mentioned in a newspaper column, partly because I have an interest in the world of publishing but also because we know the author tangentially -- overlapping the period covered by this book my wife and I were in same department in graduate school as the author's ex-wife. I remember meeting him a couple times and knowing he was working on a Capra bio, though I wasn't aware of how bad a slog the process became.
All of which is to say that your experience of the book might be quite different if you come to it with a stronger interest than mine in the underlying topic of Capra-ology. I know who Capra is, and I've seen "It's a Wonderful Life", but that's about it. Didn't have any pre-existing view of his politics or persona to be debunked, nor any position on "auteurist" views of the role of directors in movies, and so on.
Broadens it out some to consider the economics of freelance writing as compared to his later career writing books on the side of a position as university professor, but mostly focused on the one saga.
Excellent writer, and he really immerses you in the twists and turns of who is a double agent, who is BSing him about "fair use" standards because they don't like what he's revealing about Capra's politics or Capra's informing on colleagues during the "Red Scare", etc., who is secretly aligned against him, etc.
On the other hand......I'd have been curious to hear the other side's take. He's very candid about his own rough edges, but I did find myself occasionally thinking "if someone slow-walks getting back to you about the editing process after you turn in a 1600-page+ draft and embrace the conflicts enough that you have other people place calls for you, require real-time coaching from your spouse on keeping tone constructive when you are on the phone, and accuse them of conspiracies, there's more than one possible explanation."
To be clear, he certainly makes a compelling case that he was getting hosed, just saying he doesn't sound easy to work with either. Wasn't apparently much for hiding his views of people, one sample of which concerning an editor assigned for a while to his book:
"....always seemed thoroughly undistinguished because of his relentlessly pusillanimous behavior and habitual lack of candor while doing [publisher's] venal bidding." [p. 295].
Disclaimer: I got interested in this, after seeing it mentioned in a newspaper column, partly because I have an interest in the world of publishing but also because we know the author tangentially -- overlapping the period covered by this book my wife and I were in same department in graduate school as the author's ex-wife. I remember meeting him a couple times and knowing he was working on a Capra bio, though I wasn't aware of how bad a slog the process became.
All of which is to say that your experience of the book might be quite different if you come to it with a stronger interest than mine in the underlying topic of Capra-ology. I know who Capra is, and I've seen "It's a Wonderful Life", but that's about it. Didn't have any pre-existing view of his politics or persona to be debunked, nor any position on "auteurist" views of the role of directors in movies, and so on.
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