ABOUT THE CONQUEROR (1956) : TO KILL THE DUKE by Sam Moffie When I posted about The Conqueror a few weeks back, I told you about a novel whose plot revolved around a plot Russian spies, initiated by Stalin, and that was planned to occur at the time of the filming of The Conqueror. Its title : To Kill The Duke. Its author : Sam Moffie. I had the pleasure of finishing reading this novel last night, and I cannot tell you enough how great it is. Its funny, clever, well written and incredibly well documented. At the point that its very hard - I should say impossible - to tell fact from fiction in many scenes. When Stalin, Howard Hughes, Dick Powell, John Wayne and other real life characters speak, it is done in a way that fits their real personality so well that you forget all might not be true. And its often terribly funny - when not tragic because the end of the story we all know : death by cancer for half of the cast and crew. Nevertheless, some scenes and chapters have so great dialogue that they could be easily adapted into a stage play. Chapter II, Book One, involving Stalin and his team of spies during one of his film festival is the best example of that. Sam Moffie has a cinematographic eye, he writes his paragraphs as a diretor would stage his scenes. And as I said, though I have a European vision of the book, I feel that it deals in a very clever way about issues that are not only the ones of the Cold War and the powers in place at that time. Many of the issues he adresses are still relevant if not even burning issues. Plus, at the end of the book, youll learn more about the fate of the members of the cast and crew of The Conqueror - our friend Jack N. Young included. And while reading the book, youll always imagine Jack somewhere on the set, performing daredevil stunts, partying and bonding with the rest of the team and sand skiing in Southern Utah !
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 15:16:31 +0000
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