Books: Fun from Hollywood

A BOOK OF MIRACLES—Ben Hecht—Viking ($2.75).

Whatever else Ben Hecht may be damned for—and blasphemy is likely to be included—he cannot be accused of writing A Book of Miracles for money. One of Hollywood's highest-paid writers (The Front Page, Let Freedom Ring, etc.), he forswore 15 months' salary to write it. (His movie salary is around $6,000 a week.) But for Hecht it was "fun writing what I want—without having Sam Goldwyn peering over my shoulder." Fun for Hecht has heretofore meant novels like Erik Dorn, Count Bruga, A Jew in Love—gaudy, swashbuckling, ranting...

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