A Stone for Danny Fisher

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Mom wasn't privy to the audiobook, but I found that the narrator's enactment of a woman crying, especially Nellie, really grated on my nerves! I love a good character-driven novel, but I just couldn't connect with any of them in this book! Author Harold Robbins introduces his main character, Danny Fisher, who stole my heart as a youngster, but as he grew into his later teenage years as well as into manhood, he really annoyed me with his disrespectful attitude, selfishness and arrogance. He lost any redeeming qualities he had as a boy for me;

Although Robbins is more a writer of incident than image, he can be wonderfully effective at important turning points in the story by presenting a minor detail of life in a way that suggests the whole direction of the story. For example, when Danny's mother does learn that milk service will be discontinued, she sits down in front of the open icebox. "Whatever cold was left in it would escape," Robbins writes, "but somehow it didn't matter. She didn't have the strength to get up and close the door. . , . She stared into the almost empty icebox until it seemed to grow larger and larger and she was lost in its half-empty, half-cold world."

The novel was adapted (albeit loosely) by screenwriters Herbert Baker and Michael V. Gazzo as the 1958 movie King Creole for Elvis Presley, co-starring Walter Matthau and Carolyn Jones and directed by Michael Curtiz. Although liberally seasoned with explicit violence, A Stone for Danny Fisher stops the sex scenes just short of the graphic. In doing so in this book Robbins shows himself to be a remarkably astute judge of the threshold of reader arousal. This technique also suits the material well because Danny lives so naturally in a world of eroticism (and violence). The image of the girl next door purposely walking around naked in her bedroom to tease him is an emblem for the life he leads when he grows up — the pleasures of life are always just within sight — daring him to risk the disappointment of actually reaching for them. I confess that I had trouble relating to or caring about Danny much. Perhaps 20-something men would have an easier time of it. the fellow isn't a bad actor. Of course, he's nothing at all sensational and the Academy Award isn't in danger, but there are Hollywood habitues who've gotten by for years with less ability. In fact, given the normal amount of the more painstaking type of direction, it is entirely possible that Mr. Wiggle-hips could develop into a really competent actor. As long, however, as he can continue to attract audiences in present proportions there's little need in worrying with drama schools. [29]

I cheated and read the ending first, and it is not as happy as in "King Creole", where Danny continues his success. Instead he gets a stone in a cemetery, so to speak. But a little before that, he also becomes a father, if I understand it correctly. Guess I have to start from the beginning. Born as Harold Rubin in New York City, he later claimed to be a Jewish orphan who had been raised in a Catholic boys home. In reality he was the son of well-educated Russian and Polish immigrants. He was reared by his pharmacist father and stepmother in Brooklyn. Danny's beloved dog dies as soon as his family moves and his childhood dies along with it. From that point, Danny finds hate and love, and kindness and meanness. Plenty of meanness. He finds himself torn between loyalty and betrayal, his own and others, throughout the rest of the novel.The movie version homes in on the tension between the father, a cold [ citation needed], withdrawn figure and barely successful pharmacy employee and his son, a rebellious teenager whose failures in high school are largely a passive-aggressive response to his father, masking the need for the patriarch's approval. Variety declared that the film "Shows the young star [Presley] as a better than fair actor". [21] Howard Thompson of The New York Times also gave a favorable review: King Creole' has Elvis, little Else ... But He's Quite Sufficient". The Florence Times. Vol.99, no.105. July 14, 1958. p.11 . Retrieved November 7, 2011. The film was released on VHS by Paramount Pictures in 1986. [32] In 2000, it was re-released on DVD with remastered sound and image, featuring the original theatrical trailer. [33] On April 21, 2020, it was released on Blu-ray for the first time as part of the Paramount Presents label. During the May of 1959 Mexican premiere at Américas Cinema in Mexico City, a riot started when according to the local newspapers 600 teenagers broke into the theater without paying the admission fee. The crowd occupied the balcony area and destroyed the seats, while they threw lit papers and debris to the attendants. As some women tried to leave the premises, they were stripped by the rioters. The group was reported to be a mixture of university students and other locals that joined. The anti-riot police arrived to the scene where they scattered the crowd, while no arrests were made. [18] Writer Parménides García Saldaña later recounted the incident on his article "El Rey Criollo", in which he detailed the presence of gangs and their harassment of the women in attendance. [19] Critical reception [ edit ]

The Spectator, however, criticized the relationship of Presley's character with his love interests: SPOILERS FOLLOW. Danny's first scrape in this movie comes in the morning before his last day of school, cleaning up at a night spot, two men are bothering Ronnie, so he breaks a bottle for defense, and gets her into a taxi and out of there. At school some guys tease him for kissing her and Danny punches him out. The school decides to fail him again, no graduation! Discouraged he vows to get a job, he's had enough of school. After a few years, the Fishers have lost their house and are living in a cramped apartment in the city. Danny continues to box, much against his father's wish, and dates a young Italian Catholic woman, Nellie Petito, much to the chagrin of his mother. Danny's boxing skills attract the attention of hoodlums, and he is offered a large sum of money to lose the Golden Gloves championship, a fight he could win easily and which would bring him professional fame as well as, he hopes, his father's acceptance.

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That said, I’ve known some successful genre writers who assumed that being “literary” meant that they should overwrite. And that’s a helluva mess, too.

After he had written the three novels Never Love a Stranger (1948), A Stone for Danny Fisher, and 79 Park Avenue (1955), Robbins came to see them as forming a trilogy which he calls The Depression in New York. These are parallel stories involving different characters but all illustrating the struggle for survival of the lower middle classes during the Depression.Wallis, Hal B.; Higham, Charles (1980). Starmaker: The Autobiography of Hal Wallis. Macmillan Pub. Co. ISBN 978-0-02-623170-1. Before filming began, Curtiz was convinced that Presley would be a "conceited boy", but after a few weeks of working together, he described Presley as a "lovely boy" who would go on to be a "wonderful actor". [9] Presley, after seeing an early copy of the finished film, thanked Curtiz for giving him the opportunity to show his potential as an actor; he would later cite Danny Fisher as his favorite role of his acting career. Fourteen days after the completion of King Creole, Presley was officially inducted into the U.S. Army. [5] Reception [ edit ] Advertisement in Modern Screen (Aug 1958)