A Stone for Danny Fisher

Product Information

Kirchberg (January 1999), Elvis Presley, Richard Nixon, and the American dream, p.59, ISBN 9780786407163

To use Phyllis Bentley's terms, A Stone for Danny Fisher is almost all scene and no summary; that is to say, numerous episodes from Danny's life are presented to the reader, but there are no narrative links connecting these episodes. This technique gives a graphic urgency to the story and allows a long book to move very rapidly. The character Danny is also able to give the impression that he is neither self-centered nor self-justifying (although he is both) because he never comments on what he was doing but merely describes what he said and did. Thus the book avoids a possible sentimentality, and the technique helps the reader to focus on the theme that the evils of urban life and of the Depression have conspired to destroy what chance there might have been for happiness in the lower middle class. When Danny leaves the school grounds, three young men lure him into an alley. Their leader, Shark, wants revenge for Danny hitting his brother, the student who teased him. Danny defends himself so well that it impresses Shark, who invites Danny to join his gang. Shark then has Danny help the gang shoplift at a five-and-dime by singing " Lover Doll" to distract the customers and staff.

After leaving the club, Danny meets up with the Shark gang for his share of the nightly take. He then makes his way to the five and dime at closing time to see Nellie. Danny invites Nellie to a fictitious party in a hotel room. Finding nobody else there, Nellie starts crying in fear and leaves after admitting that she still wants to see Danny again, but not under those conditions. stars. This is a good coming-of-age-and-beyond story. In the right hands, the story could become a movie that eclipses the book. (I think there might already be a movie, but I don't know how good it is.) Although ASFDF was easy to read, I wouldn't classify it as a beach book. The story line is too dark, and Danny's predicaments and behavior are too frustrating.

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 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. This was Elvis' 4th movie, and made right before he was drafted into the Army at age 22. Although much of the movie has a "staged" feel to it, Elvis does a credible job, and his singing is featured when he gets a job in a New Orleans FrenchQuarter night spot. A somewhat young Walter Matthau, doing a decent Bogart impression, plays the heavy, Maxie Fields, who always bends the rules, often breaking them, to get his way. Carolyn Jones, who later was popular on the TV series "The Addams Family" is good as Ronnie, who belongs to Maxie but longs for Danny. Dolores Hart, who left the movies and became a nun just a few years later, was 19 here playing Nellie, the good girl that falls for Danny too. Directed by seasoned pro Michael Curtiz (Casablanca and White Christmas), King Creole is a gritty affair, unlike Elvis's later, candy-coloured, family-friendly cinematic offerings. Combining hard-edged drama, violence and tragedy with sexually charged musical numbers (just watch those women swoon), and with Presley exuding rebelliousness with every shake of his hip, King Creole is a masterpiece of the misunderstood youth genre, its star giving a perfectly nuanced, iconic performance to rival James Dean at his best.Some other reviewers have mentioned that Elvis should have done more dramatic stuff like King Creole. Maybe he should have, who knows. But I think the point should be made is that first and foremost Elvis was a singing icon, not an acting one. As were the idols of former generations Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. I don't think Elvis was willing to push himself as player in the same way they were. Neither Crosby or Sinatra also had a manager with as tight a control over them creatively as Colonel Tom Parker. Both Crosby and Sinatra got Oscars, but it was for parts that they knew they could handle and went after, especially Sinatra. Maybe Elvis in the words of another icon, knew his limitations or the Colonel did. 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've read A Stone for Danny Fisher several times over decades. When I was a kid growing up in Danny's Brooklyn I enjoyed the references to places and things and people I knew. I also enjoyed the sexy parts, though they were done more by inference and euphemism than the explicit language we're used to today. Still, any adult and most teenagers knew what was being described. 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;

This was one of the earliest film adaptations of Harold Robbins novels – the most notable of which would prove to be THE CARPETBAGGERS (1964), THE ADVENTURERS (1970) and THE BETSY (1978; which I have on VHS but have yet to watch) – but, Hollywood being Hollywood, it had its Chicago setting relocated to New Orleans; the screenplay was co-scripted by Michael V. Gazzo who was then still fresh from the Broadway success of A HATFUL OF RAIN (later filmed by Fred Zinnemann in 1957) but is nowadays perhaps best-known for his Oscar-nominated performance in THE GODFATHER PART II (1974). Meanwhile, Mr. Fisher finds employment as a pharmacist in a local drug store, but his boss, Mr. Primont—who reluctantly hired Mr. Fisher after his boss made him do so—constantly demeans Mr. Fisher out of retaliation, much to Danny's embarrassment. This situation makes it easier for Danny to go against his father's wishes and accept Charlie's job offer. When Danny becomes a hit at the King Creole, Maxie tries to hire him. Danny declines his offer out of loyalty to Charlie. 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. 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.His 1952 novel, A Stone for Danny Fisher, was adapted into a 1958 motion picture King Creole, which starred Elvis Presley.

Elvis Presley was a hugely influential performer with one of the most distinctive singing voices of anybody. He embarked on a film career consisting of 33 films from 1956 to 1969, films that did well at the box-office but mostly panned critically (especially his later films) and while he was a highly charismatic performer he was never considered a great actor. Presley later indicated that of all the characters he portrayed throughout his acting career, the role of Danny Fisher in King Creole was his favorite. To make the film, Presley was granted a 60-day deferment from January to March 1958 for beginning his military service. Location shooting in New Orleans was delayed several times by crowds of fans attracted by the stars, particularly Presley. 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.

A Stone For Danny Fisher is a brutal coming-of-age story covering both The Great Depression and WWII eras. Danny Fisher is a sensitive, likable Jewish boy who, when his family falls on hard times, discovers that he not only has a natural talent for fighting but also for the clever manipulation of everyone close to him. But Danny is too clever for his own good, and has a serious tragic flaw that always propels his happiness just out of his reach.