What Makes Sammy Run?
Good Books rating 4.21
Technical:
- ID: 92
- Added: 2025-09-02
- Updated: 2025-09-02
- ISBN: 9780679734222
- Publisher: Vintage
- Published: 1993-12-06
- Reviews: 4
The classic book that shaped two generations’ view of the movie business and introduced the archetypal Hollywood player Sammy Glick. He’s got a machete mouth and a genius for double-cross. As Budd Shulberg—author of the screenplay On the Waterfront—follows Sammy’s relentless upward progress, he creates a virtuoso study in character that manages to be hilariously appalling yet deeply compassionate. “Sammy Glick remains at the top of the Hollywood sleaze heap, a hustler nonpareil…. What Makes Sammy Run? Is still the quintessential novel about “the all-American heel.’” – Moredcai Richler, GQ
Reviews
Pull quotes
- "Sammy is always ‘running,’ and that he treats life like a race."
- "He takes advantage of a mistake Al makes to get himself ahead in the paper, damaging Al’s professional reputation."
- "Sammy continues to act without regard for the lives of others."
Pull quotes
- Everyone of us knows someone who runs.
- Schulberg has etched it in pure vitriol, and dissected his victim with a precision that is almost frightening.
- Definitely a worthy read, not just for the era in which it was written, but just as much for today.
Pull quotes
- Sammy is the embodiment of confidence and ambition, always strategic in his moves.
- Sammy's ambitions stretch beyond the confines of the newspaper office.
- At the heart of the story lies the question: What truly drives Sammy to strive so voraciously for fame and fortune?
Pull quotes
- Sammy Glick is 'running people down'; he is running 'with death as the only finish line'.
- Sammy's running is highly symbolic: he runs both literally and metaphorically.
- Manheim talks about Sammy's 'undeclared war against the world', at another about Sammy Glick's Mein Kampf.