{"product_id":"book-eura","title":"Competing with Idiots","description":"\u003cb\u003eA fascinating, complex dual biography of Hollywood's most dazzling—and famous—brothers, and a dark, riveting portrait of competition, love, and enmity that ultimately undid them both.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne most famous for having written \u003ci\u003eCitizen Kane\u003c\/i\u003e (with Orson Welles, as most recently portrayed in David Fincher's acclaimed Netflix film, \u003ci\u003eMank\u003c\/i\u003e); the other, \u003ci\u003eAll About Eve;\u003c\/i\u003e one, who only wrote screenplays but believed himself to be a serious playwright, slowly dying of alcoholism and disappointment; the other, a four-time Academy Award-winning director, auteur, sorcerer, and seducer of leading ladies, one of Hollywood's most literate and intelligent filmmakers.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eHerman Mankiewicz brought us the Marx Brothers' \u003ci\u003eMonkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup,\u003c\/i\u003e W. C. Fields's \u003ci\u003eMillion Dollar Legs,\u003c\/i\u003e wrote screenplays for \u003ci\u003eDinner at Eight, Pride of the Yankees,\u003c\/i\u003e cowrote \u003ci\u003eCitizen Kane\u003c\/i\u003e (Pauline Kael proclaimed that the script was mostly Herman's), and eighty-nine others . . . Talented, witty (Alexander Woollcott thought him \"the funniest man who ever lived,\"), huge-hearted, wildly immature, a figure of renown and success.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHerman went to Hollywood in 1926, was almost immediately successful (his telegram to Hecht back east: \"MILLIONS ARE TO BE GRABBED OUT HERE AND YOUR ONLY COMPETITION IS IDIOTS. DON'T LET THIS GET AROUND.\"), becoming one of the highest-paid screenwriters in Hollywood . . . \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJoe, eleven years younger, focused, organized, a disciplined writer, with a far more distinguished career, surpassing his worshipped older brother . . . producing \u003ci\u003eThe Philadelphia Story,\u003c\/i\u003e writing and directing \u003ci\u003eA Letter to Three Wives \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eAll About Eve, \u003c\/i\u003eboth of which won him Oscars for writing and directing (\u003ci\u003eAll About Eve\u003c\/i\u003e received a record fourteen Oscar nominations), before seeing his career upended by the spectacular fiasco of \u003ci\u003eCleopatra\u003c\/i\u003e . . . \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this large, moving portrait, meticulously woven together by the grandson of Herman, great-nephew of Joe, we see the lives of these two men--their dreams and desires, their fears and feuds, struggling to free themselves from their dark past; and the driving forces that kept them bound to a system they loved and hated.","brand":"Penguin Random House","offers":[{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":49326127415600,"sku":"BDeura","price":22.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0879\/2784\/9264\/files\/367501-eura-Square.jpg?v=1733607697","url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-eura","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}