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"Depending on who you believe, Edmund Goulding either died from a heart attack or by suicide in 1959 following a depraved life of bisexual adventurism."

-- Lawrence Russell on Nightmare Alley

Alas, the rest of the piece doesn't live up to the first line.

Date: 2007-12-15 06:58 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kalimac.livejournal.com
My problem with this hook is that the clauses "in 1959" and "following a depraved life of bisexual adventurism" keep looking as if they want to be dependent on the phrase "by suicide" - in other words that the alternative death by heart attack was neither in 1959 nor following a depraved life of etc etc. But I don't think that's what the author meant. Possibly a comma after "suicide" would have helped.

And nowhere in the piece does he even mention (except in the header credits) the author of the novel the film is based on, whose life and death were equally weird.

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