Greene's stint as a film critic was relatively short-lived, but somewhat legendary and still fodder for oft-quoted gems. His high literary status has given him cred, for one thing. For another, he operated during some of the peak years of Hollywood's golden age, so the films he covered were sometimes significant ones, though his often razor-sharp critiques of slick tripe unworthy of his attention also are fun and fascinating. The most notorious of his reviews, however, is regrettably missing from this collection: that of the John Ford-directed Shirley Temple opus, "Wee Willie Winkie." It's actually not a half-bad film, and Greene says as much in his 1938 review, but not before he penned some of the most discomfiting and dark observations ever to be seen in print. He basically accused Temple's male audiences of being middle-aged pedophiles, of Temple being a prepubescent tart who knew what she was doing when she shook her well-rounded ass, and 20th-Century Fox of child exploitation and kiddie-porn peddling. It's a real eye-popping and disturbing bit of prose, partly for where Greene's mind had to go to write it. Luckily we can read this review on the internet, and I assume it's not in the book because, even as of this writing, Temple is still alive and the article was judged libelous in its time; Greene and the magazine had to pay up big when Temple sued them, so much so that the magazine that printed the review folded from bankruptcy. Greene even had to leave the country for awhile. Darker truths in the land of the good ship lollipop were not going to be tolerated, especially from a lowly movie reviewer.
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INTRO AND OPENING REVIEWS (1935):
Reading these erudite, witty, devastating and masterfully written and observed reviews makes one realize how far the art of film reviewing has fallen. There seems to be nothing that Greene does not know, and thus his reviews are exemplars of the proper use of wider context; of the place not just of movies as movies or as art or entertainment, but their place in the world. Greene appreciates the messy over the properly crafted, the small poetic moment and the happy accident. His review of a documentary about the BBC becomes a critique of society at large: "At enormous expense from its steel pylon at Daventry the BBC supplies din with the drinks at sundown."
That fucking ROCKS!
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This is best taken in little snippets. I think this will be my toilet read for the foreseeable future...

!

May I quote a bit of his critique of Olivier as Heathcliff: "This Heathcliff would never have married for revenge (Mr Olivier's nervous, breaking voice belongs to balconies and Verona and romantic love)..."

Everyone who ever tries to write should read, to see how well description of plot can be done - and how impossible it is to do it as well. The only rival to his plot summaries are the plots Henry James tells to himself in his Journals. Also, for both - an example of how fiction becomes truth (I write as one who always writes truth, but never could write fiction).
sample:
“pioneers build their city, racketeers build gambling halls; pioneers though outnumbering gunmen a hundred to one, are all old men with Bibles, old ladies sewing shirts for the little ones, the little ones themselves, poor widows, and a few mortality types; straight-shooting cowboy is asked to become sheriff, refuses, sees child killed, accepts, cleans up.”

Or
“- the heavy decorative gun-holsters and the ten-gallon hats, the wooden sidewalks and the saloons, the double-crossing sheriff, the corrupt judge, the fine old man with white whiskers and the girl in gingham, and the final “slug feast’ among the toppling gas-lamps.”
That's it - there's nothing more to say about Westerns.

This is, to me, one of the best books of film reviews ever - on the same pinnacle that I place Pauline Kael's 5001 NIGHTS AT THE MOVIES (or any of her books of reviews) or AGEE ON FILM. They're all out of print or eBook, which I believe is a crime against intelligent reviewing - can't some publisher put all these people's work out electronically, at least, so we can enjoy it again?

THE PLEASURE DOME covers Twentieth Century novelist/screenwriter Graham Greene's (THE THIRD MAN, THE QUIET AMERICAN, OUR MAN IN HAVANA) career as a film critic from the early Thirties to the early Forties - during which time he also wrote the novels A GUN FOR SALE (turned into the film THIS GUN FOR HIRE), BRIGHTON ROCK and CONFIDENTIAL AGENT. His reviews are often brief but trenchant, with observations about acting styles, novel adaptations, and problems regarding the creative value of "super-productions". If you can find this book used, buy it - if you're a serious lover of classic movies, you'll love this book.

I fully assumed that this book would bore me to tears. Who wants to read several hundred film reviews from the ‘30s and ‘40s! I HAD to because I’m reading everything written by Graham Greene in chronological order during this Pandemic year – and this book was next in line. Collected and edited by John Russell Taylor, it was published in London in 1972 by Secker & Warburg.
tI began, as any good, orderly reader should, with the new four-page introduction by Greene himself and was instantly enchanted with his warm, low-key and wide-ranging comments: “How, I find myself wondering, could I possibly have written all those reviews? And yet I remember opening the envelopes, which contained the gilded cards of invitation, for the morning Press performances (mornings when I should have been struggling with Bright Rock and The Power and The Glory) with a sense of curiosity and anticipation.” Then, with typical Greeneien comment, continues: “These films were an escape…”
tReading the book was not only an interesting look at Greene’s mind, as he watched film and film and then wrote up his reviews, but, for me, it was also a history lesson of those early days of the film, well before my time. Because “movies” were forbidden in my home in Iowa (we were fundamentalist Christians and not only films were forbidden, but also alcohol, tobacco, euchre cards, dancing, and an assortment of other things that might cause us to “stumble” or be a “stumbling-block” to others), I missed all the movies of the ‘40s and ‘50s, with the exception of “Song of the South” (Tales of Uncle Remus), which, for some reason, my brother was able to take me to see when he came home from college after serving in World War II. But, that was the last film – until I went to see “Splendor in the Grass” in 1961, after I had graduated from college, a hiatus of 15 years, 15 important years for the development of the film.
tThus, reading Greene’s reviews were like looking back on the lost days of my childhood, things I only heard of or about, but never saw or experienced. From “The Bride of Frankenstein,” “My Man Godfrey,” “Young Mr. Lincoln,” The Marx Brothers at the Circus,” and “You Can’t Take it With You” to “The Garden of Allah,” “The Oklahoma Kid” and “The Wizard of Oz,” it was all new stuff.
tGreene told me about (and criticized the work of) all the great names I heard about: Greta Garbo, Fred Astaire, James Cagney, Lionel Barrymore, Bette Davis, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Wallace Beery, Eddie Cantor, Charlie Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich, Loretta Young, Mae West, Spencer Tracy, Ray Milland, Lily Pons, Maureen O’Hara, Dick Powell, Tyrone Power, George Raft, Edward G. Robertson.
tBy the time I left fundamentalism and started watching movies in earnest, these actors were either gone or only appearing in bit parts, in which they seemed like historical oddities.
tReading the reviews, it is fascinating to see Greene’s own evolution. As he himself says: “I had regretted the silent films when the talkies moved in and I had regretted black and white when Technicolor washed across the screen. So today, watching the latest socially conscious serious film of Monsieur Godard, I sometimes long for these dead thirties, for Cecil B. de Mille and his Crusaders, for the days when almost anything was likely to happen.”