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icepixieThis wound up being much shorter than I anticipated because as the book went on, it stopped being bad in an entertaining way, and devolved into run-of-the-mill dullness. There was some kind of murder mystery involving about ten Russian spies, and at the end, someone was arrested for murdering someone else, but I lost track of who was who in the flurry of Mikhails and Marinas.
Speaking of murder, Baxt's version of Ginger continued to be someone whom I wouldn't mind doing in. Every time I thought he had reached the saturation point of ditzy actress traits, he managed to add another. GAH.
The TV special at least became marginally less faily once they decided to give up the Rasputin/Alexandra angle and just have Fred and Ginger dance around as themselves.
Still, despite the descent into dullsville for the plot, there is still sentence-level absurdity to document. Observe:
Ginger had commented once that the woman belonged on the seat of a tractor--or else lifting one. (58)
I couldn't help but notice that every single woman in this book was portrayed in an unflattering light, while nine out of ten men got described as handsome, dashing, intelligent, etc. etc. Oh, GBaxt, why so fail?
Irritatingly, he decided to have Fred and Ginger repeatedly refer to each other by their original last names in order to indicate their close friendship. What it really did was serve as an excuse for Baxt to cackle, "LOOK, I READ A BOOK! AREN'T I SMART?!" rather than actually spend any time on characterization.
From the department of redundancy department: "I think if there are any candidates for spies in this company, those two are your likely candidates." (63) This book obviously didn't get any kind of editing whatsoever; it's riddled with outright typos in addition to dumb but grammatically correct writing.
Intrigue occurs. Despite having obviously swallowed reference books on Hollywood trivia, Baxt apparently didn't look up anything relating to Russian culture or language. He has her Russian lover address a woman named Nina as "Ninavitch." OW.
"Nikolai Vanoff," said Hurok, pleased that the group were hanging on to his every word, "was a sexual mechanic. No!" He raised an index finger for emphasis. "He was an engineer!"
Fred was thinking of shouting "Encore!" but decided this was no time for frivolity. (80)
...that isn't even funny. Fail, fail, fail.
"I wouldn't if I were you," said Fred. "Hospitals are enema territory." (83)
I am a connoisseur of bad puns, and this one is too bad for my tastes. OW, MY BRAIN.
"Ginger, you're talking to yourself," said Fred.
"It's the only time I have an intelligent conversation. Fred, listen to me." Her voice darkened. "There's skullduggery afoot."
"With a line like that, you should be twirling a mustache."
"I don't have a mustache and I hope to God I never develop one like some ladies we both know." (83)
It's the gratuitous things like this that make me want to slap both this version of Ginger and Baxt.
Plot stuff happens. I don't care. We come to a scene where various characters are discussing cleavage, for some reason I can't recall. Someone says, "Once on a drive to Santa Ana with a very well-endowed girlfriend, I said I was famished and from that very vicinity she produced a ham on rye with a gherkin very neatly wrapped in wax paper." (89)
EW.
...or other gossip columnists he knew she serviced, such as...an Israeli writer who went by the pseudonym Dear Abie. (89)
OW OW OW.
"So Prince Youssepoff, [Rasputin's] self-appointed executioner, shot him a few times."
"Bang bang bang," said Ginger.
"I believe he was shot four times," said Varonsky.
"Bang," added Ginger, very pleased with herself. (101)
You think she's a bubblehead. WE GET IT, BAXT.
The man also proves he can't do math by claiming WWII ended "fifteen years ago," when the book is set in 1953. UM.
Yes, yes, thought Hazel, her heart belongs to da da. (111)
Shoot me. Shoot me now.
Villon waved a hand at him impatiently by way of telling him to put a cork in it. (113)
Try to parse the extra prepositional phrase in that sentence. I'll wait.
Hazel paraphrased the famous Rhett Butler line, "Frankly, my dears, she didn't seem to give a damn." (124)
Because the target audience of a SERIES OF MURDER MYSTERIES INVOLVING HOLLYWOOD GOLDEN AGE CELEBRITIES wouldn't be able to remember the line.
"She met a violinist who[,] after fiddling around, wooed and won her and spirited her away to Hollywood." (125)
Actually, shoot the author.
"You could hide a motorcycle in that cleavage. It's a wonder she doesn’t keel over when she pirouettes." (132)
D:
The clerk, who bore a slight resemblance to the character actor Hans Conried (135)
CONGRATULATIONS! YOU MUST WIN TRIVIAL PURSUIT A LOT!
I love how he has someone describe Fred, Ginger, and Lela to another character, and where Fred is identified by his dancing and Lela by her right-wing politics, Ginger's description is given over entirely to names and personalities of her husbands. FAIL.
"Now who would want to kill either Fred or Ginger?" (153)
No one, as a matter of fact. This line was inserted entirely to manufacture tension in a book where none exists.
She had rummaged in her cleavage and found a handkerchief (155)
If anyone's cleavage is vast enough that she would have to rummage in it to find something, she has some serious problems.
Malke's coughing had died like the stalling motor of a Mack truck. (156)
Points for specificity?
"Tell me, my darling: do I taste any different now that I am an heiress?" (159)
...*facepalm*
There were those who suspected Hurok deliberately mangled the English language when Mae was present to give her the pleasure of correcting him. Little did he know she found correcting his speech tiresome. (160)
So do I. Soooo do I.
"Boy, them there commies..." (161)
I have a feeling Baxt's mental image of Ginger includes bare feet, overalls, and a corncob pipe, and features a ramshackle house down in a holler.
"Of course everybody in Russia knows Rasputin was a sexual pervert, but Americans know very little about him so we'll have to treat his perverted side delicately." (165)
D: D: D:
Luba Nafka suddenly pirouetted into their midst wearing a white tutu. She halted with practiced precision in front of Fred.
"You like it?" she asked coquettishly.
"Tutu divine, now get into a leotard and make it snappy." (165-6)
I don't think I can take much more of this. Thank God there's only thirty pages left.
Stuff happens, and then we come to a scene where two Russian murderers are speeding away from the cops in a car. They choose this moment to have the following conversation:
"I shall convince them I was a poor innocent young girl duped into espionage!"
"You might have been poor but you were never innocent. You knew exactly what you were getting into, my little pirogen...["]
"Pirogen!" she exclaimed, "how I wish I had some! I am starving to death!" (187)
Because this is obviously the time and place to express a longing for potato-filled pasta balls. I'm sure Bonnie and Clyde discussed recipes for sweet potato pie as they were racing away from bank heists.
Her statement was followed by a sigh so heavy that had it fallen in Mikhail's lap it might have fractured his knee. (191)
Make it stop. I beg you.
Oh, look, it finally stopped!
I think I may have to burn this book. Preferably before the terrible writing infects me; on the back cover, there's a quotation from someone at the LA Times that reads, "Baxt knows his show-business history and scatters names like an anthologist in a stiff wind."
...what does that even mean? Oh, God. The bad prose is catching! RUN AWAAAAAAAAY!!!
Speaking of murder, Baxt's version of Ginger continued to be someone whom I wouldn't mind doing in. Every time I thought he had reached the saturation point of ditzy actress traits, he managed to add another. GAH.
The TV special at least became marginally less faily once they decided to give up the Rasputin/Alexandra angle and just have Fred and Ginger dance around as themselves.
Still, despite the descent into dullsville for the plot, there is still sentence-level absurdity to document. Observe:
Ginger had commented once that the woman belonged on the seat of a tractor--or else lifting one. (58)
I couldn't help but notice that every single woman in this book was portrayed in an unflattering light, while nine out of ten men got described as handsome, dashing, intelligent, etc. etc. Oh, GBaxt, why so fail?
Irritatingly, he decided to have Fred and Ginger repeatedly refer to each other by their original last names in order to indicate their close friendship. What it really did was serve as an excuse for Baxt to cackle, "LOOK, I READ A BOOK! AREN'T I SMART?!" rather than actually spend any time on characterization.
From the department of redundancy department: "I think if there are any candidates for spies in this company, those two are your likely candidates." (63) This book obviously didn't get any kind of editing whatsoever; it's riddled with outright typos in addition to dumb but grammatically correct writing.
Intrigue occurs. Despite having obviously swallowed reference books on Hollywood trivia, Baxt apparently didn't look up anything relating to Russian culture or language. He has her Russian lover address a woman named Nina as "Ninavitch." OW.
"Nikolai Vanoff," said Hurok, pleased that the group were hanging on to his every word, "was a sexual mechanic. No!" He raised an index finger for emphasis. "He was an engineer!"
Fred was thinking of shouting "Encore!" but decided this was no time for frivolity. (80)
...that isn't even funny. Fail, fail, fail.
"I wouldn't if I were you," said Fred. "Hospitals are enema territory." (83)
I am a connoisseur of bad puns, and this one is too bad for my tastes. OW, MY BRAIN.
"Ginger, you're talking to yourself," said Fred.
"It's the only time I have an intelligent conversation. Fred, listen to me." Her voice darkened. "There's skullduggery afoot."
"With a line like that, you should be twirling a mustache."
"I don't have a mustache and I hope to God I never develop one like some ladies we both know." (83)
It's the gratuitous things like this that make me want to slap both this version of Ginger and Baxt.
Plot stuff happens. I don't care. We come to a scene where various characters are discussing cleavage, for some reason I can't recall. Someone says, "Once on a drive to Santa Ana with a very well-endowed girlfriend, I said I was famished and from that very vicinity she produced a ham on rye with a gherkin very neatly wrapped in wax paper." (89)
EW.
...or other gossip columnists he knew she serviced, such as...an Israeli writer who went by the pseudonym Dear Abie. (89)
OW OW OW.
"So Prince Youssepoff, [Rasputin's] self-appointed executioner, shot him a few times."
"Bang bang bang," said Ginger.
"I believe he was shot four times," said Varonsky.
"Bang," added Ginger, very pleased with herself. (101)
You think she's a bubblehead. WE GET IT, BAXT.
The man also proves he can't do math by claiming WWII ended "fifteen years ago," when the book is set in 1953. UM.
Yes, yes, thought Hazel, her heart belongs to da da. (111)
Shoot me. Shoot me now.
Villon waved a hand at him impatiently by way of telling him to put a cork in it. (113)
Try to parse the extra prepositional phrase in that sentence. I'll wait.
Hazel paraphrased the famous Rhett Butler line, "Frankly, my dears, she didn't seem to give a damn." (124)
Because the target audience of a SERIES OF MURDER MYSTERIES INVOLVING HOLLYWOOD GOLDEN AGE CELEBRITIES wouldn't be able to remember the line.
"She met a violinist who[,] after fiddling around, wooed and won her and spirited her away to Hollywood." (125)
Actually, shoot the author.
"You could hide a motorcycle in that cleavage. It's a wonder she doesn’t keel over when she pirouettes." (132)
D:
The clerk, who bore a slight resemblance to the character actor Hans Conried (135)
CONGRATULATIONS! YOU MUST WIN TRIVIAL PURSUIT A LOT!
I love how he has someone describe Fred, Ginger, and Lela to another character, and where Fred is identified by his dancing and Lela by her right-wing politics, Ginger's description is given over entirely to names and personalities of her husbands. FAIL.
"Now who would want to kill either Fred or Ginger?" (153)
No one, as a matter of fact. This line was inserted entirely to manufacture tension in a book where none exists.
She had rummaged in her cleavage and found a handkerchief (155)
If anyone's cleavage is vast enough that she would have to rummage in it to find something, she has some serious problems.
Malke's coughing had died like the stalling motor of a Mack truck. (156)
Points for specificity?
"Tell me, my darling: do I taste any different now that I am an heiress?" (159)
...*facepalm*
There were those who suspected Hurok deliberately mangled the English language when Mae was present to give her the pleasure of correcting him. Little did he know she found correcting his speech tiresome. (160)
So do I. Soooo do I.
"Boy, them there commies..." (161)
I have a feeling Baxt's mental image of Ginger includes bare feet, overalls, and a corncob pipe, and features a ramshackle house down in a holler.
"Of course everybody in Russia knows Rasputin was a sexual pervert, but Americans know very little about him so we'll have to treat his perverted side delicately." (165)
D: D: D:
Luba Nafka suddenly pirouetted into their midst wearing a white tutu. She halted with practiced precision in front of Fred.
"You like it?" she asked coquettishly.
"Tutu divine, now get into a leotard and make it snappy." (165-6)
I don't think I can take much more of this. Thank God there's only thirty pages left.
Stuff happens, and then we come to a scene where two Russian murderers are speeding away from the cops in a car. They choose this moment to have the following conversation:
"I shall convince them I was a poor innocent young girl duped into espionage!"
"You might have been poor but you were never innocent. You knew exactly what you were getting into, my little pirogen...["]
"Pirogen!" she exclaimed, "how I wish I had some! I am starving to death!" (187)
Because this is obviously the time and place to express a longing for potato-filled pasta balls. I'm sure Bonnie and Clyde discussed recipes for sweet potato pie as they were racing away from bank heists.
Her statement was followed by a sigh so heavy that had it fallen in Mikhail's lap it might have fractured his knee. (191)
Make it stop. I beg you.
Oh, look, it finally stopped!
I think I may have to burn this book. Preferably before the terrible writing infects me; on the back cover, there's a quotation from someone at the LA Times that reads, "Baxt knows his show-business history and scatters names like an anthologist in a stiff wind."
...what does that even mean? Oh, God. The bad prose is catching! RUN AWAAAAAAAAY!!!
