<DIV><p><I>Edmund Goulding&rsquo;s Dark Victory: Hollywood&rsquo;s Genius Bad Boy</I> is the first biography ever written about this eccentric genius of early-twentieth-century filmmaking. Goulding (1891&ndash;1959) was by turns a writer, producer, composer, and actor, but it is as a director that he made an indelible impression. He is most remembered today as the director of <I>Grand Hotel</I>, the great Event Movie of the Depression. At the dawn of sound, he wrote the story for the Academy Award&ndash;winning musical <I>The Broadway Melody </I>and collaborated memorably with Gloria Swanson and Joseph Kennedy for <I>The Trespasser</I>. He excelled at anti-war drama (<I>White Banners</I>, <I>The Dawn Patrol</I>, <I>We Are Not Alone</I>), fantastic Bette Davis weepies (<I>Dark Victory</I>, <I>The Old Maid</I>, <I>The Great Lie</I>), lilting romantic dramas (<I>The Constant Nymph</I>, <I>Claudia</I>), big-budget literary adaptations (<I>The Razor&rsquo;s Edge</I>), and even film noir (<I>Nightmare Alley</I>). The London-born Goulding was a complicated and contradictory man whose notorious orgies, bisexuality, drinking, and drug addictions were whispered about in Hollywood for years. Yet his well-crafted plots and compelling characters set a new standard in American cinema and had a profound influence on the future of filmmaking.</p></DIV>