The book is a collection of interviews of 16 movie directors that the author knew, and, as a bonus, he discusses the scandals and tribulations of his own life and career in the book’s introduction. The interviews were done at various times between the 1960s and the 1990s; many were previously published as magazines articles. Several of the directors did work in silent films. If you have an interest in movies, the book should be broadly entertaining. Some of the directors' life stories, their revelation of how certain famous scenes were shot, their complaints about their producers and heads of studios, and their stories about actors are often both interesting and amusing.

Did you know that Lana Turner was originally cast to play the lead in Anatomy of a Murder, but she refused to wear a pair of slacks that the director, Otto Preminger, had selected? Preminger told her agent that if she didn’t like it, she could turn the picture down. Preminger said that she probably thought he was bluffing, but the role went to Lee Remick.

Howard Hawks, while discussing Barbary Coast (1935), commented that it was the first time he had used Walter Brennan, and told the story that a man came up to him in tears after the movie’s preview and said that he didn’t know how to thank Hawks. Hawks didn’t know who he was until Brennan took out his teeth. He had never seen him except in makeup and Brennan was playing (and often played) characters who were older than he was.

The directors interviewed are Allan Dwan, Raoul Walsh, Fritz Lang, Josef von Sternberg, Howard Hawks, Leo McCarey, George Cukor, Alfred Hitchcock, Edgar G. Ulmer, Otto Preminger, Joseph H. Lewis, Chuck Jones, Don Siegel, Frank Tashlin, Robert Aldrich, and Sidney Lumet.