The Wicked Wit of the West! by Irving Brecher as told to Hank Rosenfeld

If you are like me, the first thing that comes to your mind when you saw the author of this book was "Who the $%&* is Irving Brecher?" Well, it turns out that he is one of the wittiest writers in Hollywood that you never knew existed. He wrote several screenplays, two for the Marx Brothers (At the Circus and Go West), and was influential in the early career of Milton Berle.

He was also the creator the radio show The Life of Riley, one of the classics of yesteryear. In essence, he was the behind-the-scenes man in Hollywood in the 30's and 40's. He ran into some trouble with the McCarthy Red Scare and the right-wingers who fingered him and other leftists in the 50's, but he did manage to get back in the good graces after that unfortunate period in history.

And he was funny. (I say was, because he was not fortunate enough to survive to see the printing of his autobiography, having died late last year.) The stories and anecdotes here are, for the most part, laugh out loud hilarious. Only when Brecher gets on his soap box about politics does it bog down, but that is rare in this book.

I rate it 7 stars.