Michael Curtiz is the best director most people have never heard of. Yet until now nobody has taken up the case for Curtiz in a soup-to-nuts biography. The good news is that Alan Rode's massive book is exhaustively researched, well written and frequently witty. [Curtiz] amassed a body of work without parallel at a great movie studio [Warner Bros.]. His films are his best advocate of that, but Alan Rode's book is a close second.
~Wall Street Journal
Rode's book is entertaining and informative as it takes measure of a director who has received less credit than he deserves.
~Shepherd Express
Rode's evenhanded, impressively researched, engrossing book amply conveys its subject's 'incandescent mania for filmmaking.'
~Film Comment
[The book is] spry and confident, pulsing with tasty quotes and catchy proseanecdotes, side-shots, insights, ironies. An abundant, 698-page, six-course meal.
~Hollywood Elsewhere
In the impressive and entertaining new book Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film, author Alan K. Rode illustrates why Curtiz has been undervalued for so many years. I can't imagine a more thorough account of any director's life and work. I devoured this book and give it my highest recommendation.
~Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
Alan K. Rode's Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film is engaging from the start and doesn't let up. With a sure hand, good research and a knack for amusing ironies, author Rode really brings Curtiz to life. Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film puts Alan K. Rode in with today's best writers on film. The book is a keeper that will go on the 'read again soon' shelf.
~CineSavant
This biography (the first about Curtiz) is thorough and vastly entertaining.
~Roundup Magazine
After years of neglect and even scorn, [director] Michael Curtiz is finally getting some respect. Michael Curtiz: A Life in Films [is] a thoroughly researched biography by Alan K. Rode.
~Los Angeles Times
With thorough knowledge of film history, telling anecdotes, and interviews, the author illuminates Curtiz's colorful career while also providing insightful portraits of actors, writers, and studio heads. Highly recommended.
~Library Journal
[This] book is so thorough, and so richly detailed. It would seem that Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film is impossible to top, just like the director's best work. This book is an absolute must for libraries, research centers, and anyone interested in films and filmmakers.
~James L. Neibaur Books Blog
Rode isn't here to bury Curtiz or to unconditionally praise him but to convey a fully rounded portrait of a highly complex—even contradictory—personality who made his mark. To that end, he has succeeded admirably. A Life in Film is so thoroughly, assiduously researched that it's hard to fathom a more comprehensive, or compelling, biography of Michael Curtiz than this.
~YES! Weekly
Rode's research into the director's films is quite impressive.
~History News Network
A treat for classic film buffs who have waited a long time for a book-length biography on this director.
~Ann Blyth blog
It's a serious, critically acclaimed survey of the director's long career. Some in Hollywood loved [Curtiz]; some hated him. But one thing's for sure—without him, Hollywood would have been a much less interesting place.
~Beverly in Movieland blog
I have never read a more interesting, thoroughly researched study of a director, ever. Never once does the author get bogged down by his meticulous research. Rode is such a good writer that his narrative flows and his very readable style makes all the information easy to absorb. He has written a terrific biography that should be a model for film historians. His impeccable research is coupled with fine knowledge and writing ability. He really sets the bar high and I am in awe of his achievement.
~Classic Images
Film historian Alan K. Rode, in his massive and hugely enjoyable biography, describes the decisive role his subject played in a host of much-loved films—Captain Blood (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945)—and lets Curtiz's work do most of the arguing.
~Sight & Sound
Rode's 600-page biography on Curtiz is a must-read for anyone who enjoys great books and Hollywood history. [This] book is a masterwork. Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film isn't just one of the best biographies, it's one of the best books about Old Hollywood.
~Journeys in Classic Film
A magnificent biography.
~New York Review of Books
Michael Curtiz: A Life In Film is the definitive, comprehensive story of one of Hollywood's greatest filmmakers. This effortless read is full of rich details about Curtiz's career in Europe before Warner Brothers brought him to the US in the mid-1920s. There is never a dull moment in the 600-plus pages.
~Times Quotidian
Michael Curtiz is a meticulously researched, clear-eyed, and comprehensive look at the director's career.... Rode's style is highly readable and easily captures the quirks and humor as well as the drama and antagonism of many behind-the-scenes moments. It is an enlightening assessment of a life spent entirely thinking about and making movies.
~Betsy McLane, CineMontage
Alan K. Rode's intensely personal biography provides the reader with a complete, well-researched, comprehensive, and critical career study of a brilliant yet complicated artist. A wonderful read and an accurate source for future reference, Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film is thoroughly satisfying, highly intelligent, and a delicious, rich dessert for any serious lover of film and film history. Indulge.
~Stephen Michael Shearer, author of Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life
A superbly researched, highly compelling account of one of cinema's most gifted and underrated directors, Rode provides a vivid description of Curtiz's personality and working methods. It is difficult if not impossible to imagine a more complete account of his life.
~Steven C. Smith, author of A Heart at Fire's Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann
Finally! In Alan K. Rode's deeply researched and compelling biography, Michael Curtiz gets long overdue recognition as one of the cinema's greatest storytellers. Casablanca is merely the most renowned of the man's many masterpieces, and Rode does the director justice by leaving no stone unturned in his examination of Curtiz's life and career. This book is a significant addition, and at times a valuable corrective, to existing scholarship on Hollywood, the studio system, and the auteur theory. Bravo!
~Eddie Muller, author and Turner Classic Movies host
