Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Once in A Lifetime

Once in A Lifetime
Once in A Lifetime
Author: Moss Hart, George S. Kaufman
Book Type: Paperback
reviewed on + 813 more book reviews


This is a classic parody of the era that introduced talkies in the motion picture industry. Three out-of-work Broadway actors latch on to introduction of talking motion pictures by opening an elocution school. (Or, as Norm Crosby would put it, an electrocution school: possibly a better fit.) Teaching silent movie actors to speak is somewhat akin to retraining our worst actors to do voiceovers for animated movies. Sarcasm reigns, placing this on the farceometer somewhere between The Man Who Came To Dinner and You Cant Take It With You but hardly reaching the height of hilarity in George Washington Slept Here.