Boffo Offo

I read Peter Bart's Boffo!. He looks at unexpected show biz successs stories throughout the last century.

It's a good subject. Many, perhaps most great success on stage and screen start out as odd projects that no one expects to be big. Almost all go through tremendous difficulties before they make it to their final form.

Furthermore, as I've said before, failure is the norm. It's the hits that need explanation.

Unfortunately, Bart isn't the man to tell the story. He's worked for Variety (the book offers a Variety-inspired POV) and for Paramount, so you figure he'd be the man. But his short chapters rarely capture the spirit of invention behind the shows, and he rarely adds much to what's already known about the story-behind-the-story.