Such Mad Fun: Ambition and Glamour in Hollywood’s Golden Age

LOCAL AUTHOR

It’s a classic Hollywood struggle: the battle between the role of the career woman against the role of wife and mother, the glamour girl versus the professional. Now imagine that your mother lived out those roles, those battles, at the beginning of Hollywood’s golden age. That was Robin Cutler’s discovery when he started going through his mother’s things after her death. Such Mad Fun is the end result.

In this part-biography, part-snapshot of insider Hollywood history, Cutler takes us through the life of Jane Hall, a young writer who scaled the ladder of success and bucked traditional gender roles as a female screenwriter in the ’30s and ’40s.

The book is a little slow to get going, bogged down by familial connections and cliches, but once Jane makes it to Hollywood and begins her career, the story picks up. From her time working alongside F. Scott Fitzgerald and peeking in on the troubled shoot of The Wizard of Oz to palling around with Hollywood icons, Jane comes to life, often in her own words, thanks to Cutler’s extensive research.

Although the book could do with some streamlining, Cutler’s thoroughness is understandable. After all, this isn’t any old biography…it’s a tribute.