Movies Out There Suck? Read a Book 2

How good movies, or bad ones for that matter, even get made is the question at the heart of the delightful and instructive "I'll Be in My Trailer: The Creative Wars Between Directors and Actors,"

It's a compendium of interviews with, well, directors and actors by veteran reporter Craig Modderno and filmaker Joihn Badham ("Saturday Night Fever," "Stakeout"), as well as hundreds of illustrative anecdotes culled from Modderno's knowledge of film lore and Badham's own experience.

To fully disclose, Craig is a pal and I went for a ride in John's Beemer convertible once. But reading their book is a treat whether you know these guys or not.

In helpfully titled chapters such as "Trainwreck #5: Cast the Producer's Girlfriend," Badham explains how to get out of a directing commiment you know you can't make work (in this case, 30-year-old Diana Ross as the six-year-old lead in "The Wiz"; he cleverly got fired by insisting that it all be shot from the diva's point-of-view, so you never have to see her onscreen).

Director Mark Rydell chimes in with a funny story about how not to commit career suicide that involves blowing up at superstar John Wayne on the set of "The Cowboys," then killing a bottle of tequila with the tough-as-nails hombre rather than the expected getting killed by him. It all concluded with a hilarious bathroom joke.

Not funny, but enlightening, is the way notoriously grumpy director John Frankenheimer explains how he reasoned out a fruitful working relationship with even more infamouly difficult Frank Sinatra to make their masterpiece "The Manchurian Candidate."

Whether laughing at outlandish Hollywood behavior or discovering ways to truly deal with some of these people is your bag, "I'll Be in My Trailer" is rewarding reading. Directors are certain to learn some new tricks. And actors will surely be using them against them.