the specific cultural work theater has done within and

beyond Native communities in North America.

—Maria F. Brandt

Monroe Community College

RediscoveringMordecai Gorelik: Scene

Design and theAmericanTheatreAnne Fletcher. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University

Press, 2009.

Pioneer scene designer, Mordecai ‘‘Max’’ Gorelik(1899–1990) immigrated with his family from Russia to

New York City in 1905. Upon graduation from thePratt Institute, he planned to become a book illustra-

tor. However, after attending his first Broadway pro-duction of Tolstoy’s Redemption (1918) and viewingRobert Edmond Jones’ designs for the show, Gorelik

decided to pursue stage work. He became a mentee toJones, considered to be the father of American scene

design, and served apprenticeships with other scenedesigners such as Lee Simonson, Norman Bel Geddes,

and Serge Soudekine. The first show Gorelik designedon Broadway was John Howard Lawson’s Processional

in 1925, and the last was Katherine Morrill’s A Distant

Bell in 1960.

Although Gorelik is remembered as the principal

designer for the Group Theater, during his career healso worked for other production companies such as

the New Playwrights, Provincetown Players, the The-ater Collective, the Theater Guild, the Theater of Ac-

tion, the Theater Union, and the Yiddish Art Theater.Some of the Group Theater’s productions he designed

included Sidney Kingsley’s Men in White, winner ofthe 1934 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and Golden Boy

(1937), Rocket to the Moon (1938), and Night Music

(1940), all penned by Clifford Odets. He met Bertolt

Brecht and designed The Mother for the Theater

Union in 1935 and, consequently, became an advocate

for Epic Theater. Gorelik later designed the Broadway

productions of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons (1947) and

Michael Gazzo’s A Hatful of Rain (1957).

Fletcher, who is an associate professor of theater atSouthern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC), has

written the first full-length treatment of Gorelik. Di-vided into fourteen brief chapters, Rediscovering Mo-

rdecai Gorelik: Scene Design and the American

Theatre examines Gorelik’s career and his develop-ment as an aesthetic. Fletcher writes that he ‘‘entered

the field of American stage design when it was in itsinfancy’’ (1), and in the book she ‘‘explore[s] Gorelik’s

career as it parallels developments in the Americantheatre across the twentieth century, and . . . point[s] to

patterns in his thinking, artistry, and life’’ (9). Al-though the book’s primary focus is Gorelik’s career

during the 1920s and 1930s, the author also discussesother significant events in Gorelik’s life, such as hisGuggenheim fellowship that resulted in the publica-

tion of his landmark theater text in 1940, New Theatres

for Old, his years after he left Broadway, and his stint

as a theater faculty member at SIUC.

While researching the book, Fletcher corresponded

with Gorelik for two years and was allowed access tohis diaries. She also drew upon the primary documents

in the Mordecai Gorelik collection which is housed atSIUC. Resources in this collection include his originaldesigns, correspondence, and research materials.

Fletcher’s use of these primary resources greatly en-hances the text and provides the reader with direct

access to his observations and opinions. The book hasan extensive bibliography, notes, and numerous color

as well as black and white illustrations of Gorelik’sdesigns. Two appendices contain a Gorelik chronology

and his apprenticeships to 1928. In sum, Rediscovering

Mordecai Gorelik: Scene Design and the American

Theatre is a solid piece of scholarship and would be avaluable resource for readers interested in Americanscene design and American theater history in the

twentieth century.

—Camille McCutcheon

University of South Carolina Upstate

Some Like ItWilder: The Life and

Controversial Films of BillyWilderGene D. Phillips. Lexington: The University Press of

Kentucky, 2010.

Born in 1906, Samuel Wilder—nicknamed Billy byhis mother—served his apprenticeship in Germany be-

fore signing a contract with Columbia Pictures in 1934.He began his Hollywood career as a screenwriter

352 The Journal of American Culture � Volume 33, Number 4 � December 2010

working with Charles Brackett on comedies such as

Ninotchka (1939), Midnight (also 1939), and Ball of

Fire (1941). Wilder made his directorial debut in 1941,

and in a career lasting four decades he was responsible

for classics such as Double Indemnity (1944), Sunset

Boulevard (1950), Some Like It Hot (1959), and The

Apartment (1960). Although his career went into de-

cline after 1970 he still managed to produce such pop-

ular successes as The Front Page (1974), with Jack

Lemmon and Walter Matthau (making their second

film for him as a double-act after The Fortune Cookie

[1966]).

In Gene Phillips’ comprehensive biography, Wilder

emerges as something of a perfectionist, who firmlybelieved that the script was the most important ele-ment in any film. He could be autocratic, even down-

right cruel to actors who departed from the scriptwithout his authorization. Following his heart attack

in 1964, Peter Sellers left the cast of Kiss Me, Stupid

(1964), claiming that his ‘‘creative side [. . .] couldn’t

accept the sort of conditions under which the work [onWilder’s film] could be carried out’’ (273). James Ca-

gney described Wilder as ‘‘overtly bossy—full of noise,a pain’’ (256). However, there were other actors such as

Matthau who considered Wilder a director ‘‘from theold school, where every shot is preplanned. He doesn’twaste time covering a scene from multiple angles.’’

Mostly Wilder managed to shoot his films on time andunder budget—unless he was working with Marilyn

Monroe. Phillips offers a detailed account of the trou-bled production history of Some Like It Hot, when

Monroe appeared ‘‘pilled out’’ on set. Her then hus-

band Arthur Miller described Wilder as ‘‘a bastard,’’

whose autocratic manner further increased Monroe’s

insecurities (222). None of this was reflected in the fin-

ished product, as Some Like It Hot proved a box-office

sensation.

Some Like It Wilder provides an exhaustive guide

to Wilder’s complete oeuvre as a writer and a director.Production histories are carefully reconstructed from a

variety of sources, followed by detailed analyses ofeach film. Sadly we do not learn much about Wilder’s

life off-screen; nor do we find out why the directorwas such an autocrat on set. Perhaps Phillips might

have fruitfully compared Wilder’s approach with thoseof other teutonic emigres such as Von Stroheim orZinnemann. Nonetheless, the book makes a convinc-

ing case for identifying Wilder as one of the most

penetrating, if somewhat cynical, commentators on

American culture in the mid-twentieth century, focus-ing in particular on issues such as the relationship be-

tween the media and society (Ace in the Hole, The

Front Page), the obsession with getting ahead (The

Apartment), and the nature of stardom (Sunset Bou-

levard, Kiss Me, Stupid).

—Laurence Raw

BaSkent University

The Cambridge Companion to the

BeatlesKenneth Womack. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2009.

The amount of scholarship on the Beatles is assubstantial and diverse as the band’s repertoire itself;

however, The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles

(ed. Kenneth Womack) provides a unique and wide-

ranging scholarly introduction to the history, culture,musical contributions, and long-lasting international

effects of Beatlemania. This collection of essays con-sists of thirteen chapters divided into three parts—

Background, Works, and History and Influence—but the overlap of these themes within each essay issignificant.

Part I is divided between two chapters. The first is aprehistory of the band, its temporary and more per-

manent members, and its early repertoire; the secondprovides an overview of the Beatles as recording ar-

tists. Beginning with Part II, the chapters take on amore chronological bent, moving album by album

through the Beatles’ oeuvre from Rubber Soul throughAbbey Road and the end, and covering themes ranging

from personal to sociocultural to lyrical analyses. The

last part of this section is devoted to postcareer misc-

ellanea, including the development of Apple Records,

the artists’ post-Beatles musical careers, and a music

theoretical analysis of phrase rhythm. Part III culmi-

nates with analyses of the lasting legacies of the Beatles

as musical group, cultural force, and multigenerational

commercial phenomenon.

Although such a volume must by necessity recover

much familiar ground, this compendium providessome new areas of insight, particularly in terms of

353Book Reviews