Here are a couple of examples of an interesting sub-genre of movie books – the ‘behind the scenes’ making of….

The Live And Let Die book, unusually, does seem to have been authored by Roger Moore himself (albeit probably with the help of a ghost-writer). It is an interesting personal journal of his journey becoming Bond and shooting his first 007 movie, told with no little self-deprecating humour, and featuring a good set of photos from the movie.

The Creation Of King Kong is more typical in that the author of these types of books is usually a mid-level production/crew member, or a writer authorised to tag along for the filming. Frankly, these books are usually only interesting when the movie itself turns out to be a total disaster, which is to some extent the case with the 1976 version of King Kong. It did decent business at the time, but is largely derided now – principally because its combination of ‘man in a monkey suit’ and a much-hyped but barely functional’ life size’ mechanical robot were so pathetic compared to the fabulous stop-motion effects in the 1933 original.

I did have a few more of these types of books, but seem to have lost the copies. I had a great one about the making of mega-disaster Heaven’s Gate, another about the flop adaptation of The Bonfire Of The Vanities, and a third about execrable sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic.

The fun to be had with each of these is watching a car-crash slowly unfold of spiralling budgets, manic script rewrites, director and actor egos run riot, and the creeping realisation of utter failure as the finished movie crashes out into the world to universal derision!