Who the Devil Made It: Conversations with ...

The title comes from an exchange between filmmakers Howard Hawks and Peter Bogdanovich. Asked which directors he preferred, Hawks replied, "I liked almost anybody that made you realize who in the devil was making the picture." Hawks is talking about distinctive directorial personality, about movies that bear the stamp of a filmmaker's character. This book collects 16 interviews Bogdanovich conducted with some of the best directors working in the golden age of Hollywood. All of them, from the famous--Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, Chuck Jones, and Hawks himself--to the lesser known but equally wonderful Leo McCarey, George Cukor, Josef von Sternberg, and Edgar G. Ulmer--had a remarkable and inimitable style. In their interviews, they provide insight into their craft and a view of Hollywood's golden age that is informative, anecdotal, and often hysterically funny.