In a list of now-forgotten great American directors, Mitchell Leisen would be right on top (together with Rouben Mamoulian and Gregory La Cava).

His films are seldomly seen; none of them is available on DVD and some of the best, like "Hold Back the Dawn", one of the best melodramas ever done, and the Kurt Weill musical adapation "Lady in the Dark", do not exist even in VHS.

Therefore, this book would always have at least the merit of drawing attention to this great director. I don't know of any other book written about him.

It is a good book, focusing on his films and including an interesting interview. The photo selection is also quite good.

So, if you want to discover an almost-forgotten director who I believe deserves a place in American Cinema alongside people like George Cukor and Leo McCarey, this book is an excellent way to start.

Then try and see as many of his movies as you can.

Dorothy Lamour was one of the most popular stars of the 1940s and 1950s. She immortalized the sarong, and wore one in most of her films. Her biography is a fantastic look into the life of this luminous screen personality.

Throughout the book, Dorothy Lamour is completely honest about very personal events and struggles in her life. The best part of the book is about the behind the scenes on her films. It's great to hear about her relationships with other Hollywood stars. The photographs are sparkling and many are from her own personal collection!

This book is a must for any Lamour fan, or for a fan of the Golden Age of the Movies. This book is a classic, and I must say that I really enjoyed reading it!

A critical study of the great Hope-Crosby-Lamour Road Movies is long overdue - but this does not even begin to fit the bill.

Low on facts and thin on substance, the book seems more like a student's essay than a real study of the films. The author seems content that a quick overview of scenes from each film is enough to comprise an in-depth discussion, and constantly repeats himself, often putting the exact same paragraph within a couple of pages (Who was the proof reader for this book? ....).

When the book attempts to be critical (which it rarely does) it falls flat on it's face. The idea that The Road To Hong Kong is the least of the series purely due to it's Space Travel plot, - meaning it is less based in reality than the other films - is totally flawed.

To sum up - a potentially great book is scuppered by repetitious prose, little new information or research and very weak arguments. ....

Oh well, nice try - hopefully someone will do the series justice one day...

A disappointment. Although the author deservedly credits Dorothy Lamour as an important part of the star combo for this series, he seems to have very little knowledge about her own illustrious non-Road career. Indeed, his bio chapter on her seems little more than paraphrasing James Robert Parish's chapter on her in the old 70s book The Paramount Pretties. And there is regrettably little fresh information for fans of the movies, who no doubt know everything mentioned here. At least he could have included some rare reviews to these pictures.

I did enjoy this book, I must admit, yet the 47.99 price tag seems a bit hefty for a book that is a pretty superficial overview of the Road Films. The fimographies at the end do not list the cameo and unbilled performances of the three stars in each others' films (which is easy to research). All in all, the result was disappointing for this truly sparkling era of Hollywood production.