''Kiss Kiss Bang Bang'' (1968) is
Pauline Kael's second collection of reviews from 1965 through 1968, compiled from numerous magazines including ''
The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'', ''
Holiday
A holiday is a day set aside by custom or by law on which normal activities, especially business or work including school, are suspended or reduced. Generally, holidays are intended to allow individuals to celebrate or commemorate an event or t ...
'', ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', ''
Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy ...
'', ''
Mademoiselle'', ''
The New Republic
''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...
'', ''
McCall's
''McCall's'' was a monthly American women's magazine, published by the McCall Corporation, that enjoyed great popularity through much of the 20th century, peaking at a readership of 8.4 million in the early 1960s. It was established as a small-f ...
'', and ''
Vogue
Vogue may refer to:
Business
* ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine
** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine
** ''Vogue China'', ...
''. It features her review of ''
The Sound of Music
''The Sound of Music'' is a musical with music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the 1949 memoir of Maria von Trapp, ''The Story of the Trapp Family Singers''. S ...
'', which she notoriously dubbed "The Sound of Money," sparking outrage from loyal readers of ''McCall's''. This is erroneously considered to be the reason why she was fired from her short-lived position as their film critic.
'THE SOUND OF MUSIC'; Kael's Fate - New York Times
/ref> The book also features a smaller collection of synopses (as opposed to full-length reviews) of little-known movies, some of which are also printed in Kael's ''5001 Nights at the Movies
''5001 Nights at the Movies: A Guide from A to Z'', first published in 1982, is a book compiling passages of film critic Pauline Kael's reviews from the silent era to the early 1980s. They were originally written for ''The New Yorker''’s 'Goings ...
''.
In her note on the title which begins the book, Kael asserts that these words are "perhaps the briefest statement imaginable of the basic appeal of movies. This appeal is what attracts us, and ultimately what makes us despair when we begin to understand how seldom movies are more than this." The title itself is a reference to the character of James Bond
The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors hav ...
, who was often referred to as ''Mr Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang'' in international markets; the original theme song for the 1965 Bond film '' Thunderball'' was to have had this title.
The book is now out-of-print in the United States, but is still published in the United Kingdom by the independent publishing company Marion Boyars Publishers.
Contents
The book is divided into five sections, titled:
:I) Trends;
:II) The Making of '' The Group'';
:III) Reviews, 1965-1967;
:IV) Careers;
:V) The Movie Past.
References
1968 non-fiction books
Books of film criticism
Books about film
Little, Brown and Company books
Books by Pauline Kael
American non-fiction books
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