Nick Pinkerton
BECAUSE THE MAKING OF EVERY single motion picture has its uphill battles and its moments of high drama, and because a film can reflect its times in fascinating ways, a book about the making of John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy (1969) could very well be a compelling read, even though the movie itself is as phony as its central hustler Joe Buck’s cowboy credentials. That the United States is the land of the sham is part of the film’s hammered-home point, and to emphasize this Schlesinger lingers attention on the garish billboards and urban signage that posh visiting European filmmakers often 
“Who is Curtis Harrington, and what other films has he made?” This was asked by an audience member after a screening of Harrington’s What’s the Matter with Helen? , a drolly macabre thriller about two middle-aged women operating a dance school in ’30s Los Angeles. In Nice Guys Don’t Work in Hollywood, Harrington sets down this query as evidence of his fated obscurity—though the filmmaker’s anecdote-rich posthumously published autobiography goes some ways toward answering both questions, and will hopefully earn his work recognition from a new audience. Charles Willeford’s Cockfighter was first obscurely released in 1962, later revised in ’72 for hardcover and excerpted in Sports Illustrated, prompting incensed reader mail about its SPCA-baiting subject matter. Now, thanks to the Brooklyn-based PictureBox, Willeford’s unsentimental and funny bloodsport drama is in print again.