Book Review-----ENEMIES, A LOVE STORY: AN ORAL HISTORY OF SISKEL & EBERT by Josh Schollmeyer

I remember the moment clearly....I was spending the night with my Grandparents in their big home in South St Louis. I was about 10 years old and I knew that after they went to sleep, I had control of the television. In 1980, there weren't as many channels as there are now, so I opened the TV Guide and saw that at 10pm on Channel 9 (PBS) there was a show called Sneak Previews. With my other choices being the local news telecasts, I opted to watch SNEAK PREVIEWS thinking I might see some cool Coming Attractions since at that time the trailers were my favorite part of going to the movies. Instead, it turned out to be a Movie Review program with two of Chicago's leading film critics battling it out over what they both believed to be the best or worst things about current theatrical releases. As I have said in earlier blogs, I was a very strange child. I was always on top of what movies were showing where and what the current releases were. So watching these two men discuss movies and movie stars that I was familiar with was fascinating to me. I was immediately hooked on this show and these two odd men with very strong opinions. SNEAK PREVIEWS became a regular weekly watch for me from that point on. I also bought a lot of the year end Roger Ebert volumes containing each of his movie reviews for that year. I read those reviews like I was reading Twain or Dickens...cover to cover. I followed Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert through all of their different titled TV Shows up until Siskel's unfortunate death at a much too young age. After that, I lost interest. Watching Ebert with others just didn't hold the magic that was present with Siskel. So I was anxious to read ENEMIES, A LOVE STORY: AN ORAL HISTORY OF SISKEL & EBERT by Josh Schollmeyer. This is a short fascinating book that chronicles how these two met and how the original PBS Show was conceived and produced. Siskel & Ebert didn't like each other and on camera together they could barely tolerate each other. But what they did have is a mutual respect for one another. They both knew that they made the other possible and took good care of their professional relationship, even if their personal one was non-existent. The book is told through several of the producers and directors of all of their Shows and takes you past Siskel's death, through Ebert's cancer treatment, and into the present day when Ebert continues to write incredible reviews even though he is no longer able to speak. Siskel & Ebert were as much a part of my childhood and teenage life as dating and getting a driver's license. This was a fun book to read and after finishing it, I spent a few hours on YouTube watching my two favorite movie critics dissect some of my favorite films once again.