"Hollywood," to my mind, has a couple of flaws: one minor, the other major. Kanin introduces a great number of characters in his memoirs. The reflective reader, wanting to refer to some of them who have stuck in his mind, is bound to find the lack of an index a nuisance. Second, a much more serious flaw, I think, is Kanin's apparent compulsion neurosis to write on and on and on about Samuel Goldwyn, who brought him, aged 24, to California to learn the business; i.e., to become, after proper training, an associate producer. But Kanin kept pestering Goldwyn to let him direct a picture, a screen test, anything; Goldwyn kept telling him not to be silly. These controversies sparked a series of shouting matches that went on for about a year. Kanin finally obtained a release from his seven-year contract, got a directing assignment from R.K...