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51 F A L L Q 3 I S S U E B O O K R E V I E W Night," those convictions were front and center, but Wells shows that Jewison labored to add a sociopolitical context even to a relative piece of fluff like "The Thomas Crown Affair." "Jewison insisted that [Crown] was an agent of the coun- terculture: robbing bank vaults was a more effective blow against 'the man' than picketing in the streets, because it hit the banks and insurance companies where it hurt," writes Wells, whose phys- ical description of Jewison circa the late 1960s — he donned a pinkie ring, beaded necklace, and, "in a certain mood, he wore a denim jacket over a bare chest" — perhaps suggests his subject was too eager to get with the times. Yet, as fashions and fads changed, Jewison's faith that films could be both entertaining and edifying never left him. "Norman feels very strongly about having the social things in his pictures but not wanting to fail because he gets on a soap-box about it," Ashby said of his mentor. While not every Jewison film connected with audiences — and some, like the Goldie Hawn-Burt Reynolds vehicle "Best Friends" (1982) or the Whoopi Goldberg- Gerard Depardieu fantasy "Bogus" (1996), appear to be more nakedly commercial undertakings — on balance, the director successfully steered clear of projects he regarded as insignificant. As a consequence of Wells's thoroughgoing and sympathetic approach, in which all of Jewison's films are given a fair hearing, one is reminded of a number of unheralded or underrated films that merit rediscovery, including "In Country" (1989), with Bruce Willis as a Vietnam veteran, and "Only You" (1994), which channels the director's "Moonstruck" side. H i s p e n u l t i m a t e f i l m — " T h e H u r r i c a n e" ( 1 9 9 9), s ta r r i n g D e n z e l Washington as boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, who was wrongfully convicted of murder — was in some ways a Jewison film par excellence: thoughtful, urgent, and compelling. The director seemed to have agreed, describing "The Hurricane" as "the best film I ever made." In 1999, Jewison was honored by the Academy with its Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, though he had two more films up his sleeve: "Dinner with Friends" (2001) and "The Statement" (2003). Wells draws extensively from materi- al in Jewison's papers, which are held in collections at the University of Toronto and the Wisconsin Historical Center, but, synthesizing his sources, he never lets the book become bogged down in minutiae. This is that rare biography both exhaustive and highly readable. No film is given short shrift (not even the trivial ones), and no element of the process — from Jewison's "dance" to try to persuade studio bosses of a proj- ect's merits to the final film's eventual release — is overlooked. The contours of Jewison's life — including a seemingly peripatetic nature that led him to flee Los Angeles for England at one point — are well sketched, and the book brims with well-chosen nuggets. We learn about a fascinating casting "what if " when the director almost secured Sean Connery, rather than McQueen, to star in "The Thomas Crown Affair," as well as the fate of the horse that belonged to the lead character Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof": "Concerned that Tevye's horse might yet end up at the glue factory, Jewison arranged for a small monthly sum to be sent to a farmer near Lekenik who had SEE PAGE 55 READ UP: Jewison (right) confers with his editor Hal Ashby in the late 1960s. P H O T O : W I S C O N S I N H I S T O R I C A L S O C I E T Y