Time movie critic Schickel repeatedly refers to what he calls ``the illimitable promise of Brando's youth," as demonstrated by his roles in A Streetcar Named Desire , The Wild One and On the Waterfront . For the author's generation, which ``came of age in the years immediately after the Second World War," Brando represented ``something of what we aspired to be: rude and sensitive, inarticulate but painfully aware--living oxymorons, if you will." Refreshingly spare about the actor's tangled personal life, Schickel, however, is at pains to defend Brando's disappointing career since the '50s. The tone is set at the beginning of the book in an unctuous open letter to Brando (``I've often wondered, did you read Camus, too?") and leads Schickel to ridicule Truman Capote for his revealing 1957 profile of Brando as well as the New Yorker for publishing it. Only when considering Brando's ``work" in the '80s does Schickel come to the conclusion that many reached years earlier: Brando's appearances had become ``edged by contempt for both his craft and his public." Photos not seen by PW . (Aug.) Library Journal One of these two coffee-table books pays homage to "The Sexiest Man of the 20th Century;" the other, though affectionate, tries to make sense of the poor choices made by probably the most influential actor of the last part of the century. From milkman to movie star, from Tommy Connery to Sir Sean, McCabe's treatment of Sean Connery is an homage to a life that was virtually invented. Casting about as a laborer, Connery was able to parlay his good looks into some modeling and acting roles. He shunned formal education and acting classes and instead spent ten years reading voraciously, watching, and listening, developing his voice and movement, and studying Marlon Brandon's acting techniques. Though he acted steadily, the film world really didn't know what to do with him; he was a new kind of actor. Then along came Bond--James Bond--and the rest is cinematic history. At 70, Connery is probably hotter than ever. This is not the case for Marlon Brando. Schickel, film critic for Time magazine, here revises and updates his 1991 book of the same name (LJ 7/91. o.p.), which now appears in a completely new format with additional text and pictures. It is no wonder that Connery studied Brando's acting techniques, as Brando has long been hailed as one of the world's greatest actors. But age has not been as kind to him as to Connery. Not only have Brando's looks faded, but, as Schickel reveals in his discussion of the actor's poor choices and self-destructive tendencies, Brando is a deeply troubled man.  Da Capo Press 1-56025-291-X / 9781560252917
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