Cary Grant's Suit

Cary Grant's Suit is a hilarious and morose invocation of a lost world. Anyone who has ever been movie-mad will relish this irrepressibly digressive, surprise-filled, exquisitely written memoir (sort of). "I certainly did," says Phillip Lopate.

Todd McEwen grew up in Southern California, so his head was hopelessly messed with by the movies. As the son of relatively normal people, Todd had no in with Hollywood, a mere thirteen miles away, yearn and try as he might.

This is a kid who loved the movies so much, he got up at 4.30 in the morning to watch Laurel and Hardy. A kid who insisted on his birthday that his father project 8mm cartoons onto the family's dining room curtains so they could be slowly parted, just like at a real cinema. This is a kid who liked to leave the movie and trudge up hundreds of dangerous iron steps to visit the lugubrious and always surprised projectionist. This is a kid who, years later, watched Chinatown over 60 times.

A love letter to old Hollywood, this is a book for anyone interested in film. Movies discussed include Blotto, The Wizard of Oz, The Three Stooges, To Catch a Thief, North by Northwest, The 39 Steps, The Trouble with Harry, and many, many more.