A Splurch in the Kisser

With one of the longest and most controversial careers in Hollywood history, Blake Edwards is a phoenix of movie directors, full of hubris, ambition, and raving comic chutzpah. His rambunctious filmography remains an artistic force on par with Hollywood's greatest comic directors: Lubitsch, Sturges, Wilder. Like Wilder, Edwards's propensity for hilarity is double-helixed with pain, and in films like Breakfast at Tiffany's, Days of Wine and Roses, and even The Pink Panther, we can hear him off-screen, laughing in the dark. And yet, despite those enormous successes, he was at one time considered a Hollywood villain. After his marriage to Julie Andrews, Edwards's Darling Lili nearly sunk the both of them and brought Paramount Studios to its knees. Almost overnight, Blake became an industry pariah, which ironically fortified his sense of satire, as he simultaneously fought the Hollywood tide and rode it. Employing keen visual analysis, meticulous research, and troves of interviews and production files, Sam Wasson delivers the first complete account of one of the maddest figures Hollywood has ever known.

Acknowledgments
Matters of Introduction
Prologue: Breaking In, 1922-1955
BLAKE BEGINS, 1955-1959
Bring Your Smile Along (1955)
He Laughed Last (1956)
Mister Cory (1957)
This Happy Feeling (1958), The Perfect Furlough (1959)
BLAKE BUILDS, 1959-1962
Operation Petticoat (1959)
High Time (1960)
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Experiment in Terror (1962)
Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
BLAKE BLOSSOMS, 1963-1968
The Pink Panther (1964)
A Shot in the Dark (1964)
The Great Race (1965)
What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966)
Gunn (1967)
The Party (1968)
BLAKE BURNS, 1968-1974
Darling Lili (1970)
Wild Rovers (1971), The Carey Treatment (1972)
The Tamarind Seed (1974)
PANTHER PICTURES (BLAKE BANKS)
Sellers Lives: Return of the Pink Panther (1975)
The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)
Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978)
Sellers Lives On: Trail of the Pink Panther (1982)
Curse of the Pink Panther (1983)
Son of the Pink Panther (1993)
BLAKE BOOMS, 1979-1982
"10" (1979)
S.O.B. (1981)
Victor/Victoria (1982)
BLAKE BREAKS, 1983-1988
The Man Who Loved Women (1983)
Micki + Maude (1984)
A Fine Mess (1986)
That's Life! (1986)
Blind Date (1987)
Sunset (1988)
BLAKE BOWS, 1989-1991
Skin Deep (1989)
Switch (1991)
Epilogue: Making Out, October 24, 1993
Appendix: Filmography
Appendicitis: How to Make a Blake Edwards Movie
Notes
Recommended Reading
Index