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What Makes Sammy Run?

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What Makes Sammy Run?

Everyone of us knows someone who runs. He is one of the symp-toms of our times—from the little man who shoves you out of the way on the street to the go-getter who shoves you out of a job in the office to the Fuehrer who shoves you out of the world. And all of us have stopped to wonder, at some time or another, what it is that makes these people tick. What makes them run?

This is the question Schulberg has asked himself, and the answer is the first novel written with the indignation that only a young writer with talent and ideals could concentrate into a manuscript. It is the story of Sammy Glick, the man with a positive genius for being a heel, who runs through New York’s East Side, through newspaper ranks and finally through Hollywood, leaving in his wake the wrecked careers of his associates; for this is his tragedy and his chief characteristic—his congenital incapacity for friendship.

An older and more experienced novelist might have tempered his story and, in so doing, destroyed one of its outstanding qualities. Compromise would mar the portrait of Sammy Glick. Schulberg has etched it in pure vitriol, and dissected his victim with a precision that is almost frightening.

When a fragment of this book appeared as a short story in a national magazine, Schulberg was surprised at the number of letters he received from people convinced they knew Sammy Glick’s real name. But speculation as to his real identity would be utterly fruitless, for Sammy is a composite picture of a loud and spectacular minority bitterly resented by the many decent and sincere artists who are trying honestly to realize the measureless potentialities of motion pictures. To this group belongs Schulberg himself, who has not only worked as a screen writer since his graduation from Dartmouth College in 1936, but has spent his life, literally, in the heart of the motion-picture colony. In the course of finding out what makes Sammy run (an operation in which the reader is spared none of the grue-some details) Schulberg has poured out everything he has felt about that place. The result is a book which the publishers not only believe to be the most honest ever written about Hollywood, but a penetrating study of one kind of twentieth-century success that is peculiar to no single race of people or walk of life.

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1941

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About the author

Budd Schulberg

83 books85 followers
Budd Schulberg (1914–2009) was a screenwriter, novelist, and journalist who is best remembered for the classic novels What Makes Sammy Run?, The Harder They Fall, and the story On the Waterfront, which he adapted as a novel, play, and an Academy Award–winning film script. Born in New York City, Schulberg grew up in Hollywood, where his father, B. P. Schulberg, was head of production at Paramount, among other studios. Throughout his career, Schulberg worked as a journalist and essayist, often writing about boxing, a lifelong passion. Many of his writings on the sport are collected in Sparring with Hemingway (1995). Other highlights from Schulberg’s nonfiction career include Moving Pictures (1981), an account of his upbringing in Hollywood, and Writers in America (1973), a glimpse of some of the famous novelists he met early in his career. He died in 2009.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 303 reviews
Profile Image for Richard Derus.
3,153 reviews2,079 followers
September 13, 2014
Book Circle Reads 82

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Everyone of us knows someone who runs. He is one of the symptoms of our times—from the little man who shoves you out of the way on the street to the go-getter who shoves you out of a job in the office to the Fuehrer who shoves you out of the world. And all of us have stopped to wonder, at some time or another, what it is that makes these people tick. What makes them run?

This is the question Schulberg has asked himself, and the answer is the first novel written with the indignation that only a young writer with talent and ideals could concentrate into a manuscript. It is the story of Sammy Glick, the man with a positive genius for being a heel, who runs through New York’s East Side, through newspaper ranks and finally through Hollywood, leaving in his wake the wrecked careers of his associates; for this is his tragedy and his chief characteristic—his congenital incapacity for friendship.

An older and more experienced novelist might have tempered his story and, in so doing, destroyed one of its outstanding qualities. Compromise would mar the portrait of Sammy Glick. Schulberg has etched it in pure vitriol, and dissected his victim with a precision that is almost frightening.

When a fragment of this book appeared as a short story in a national magazine, Schulberg was surprised at the number of letters he received from people convinced they knew Sammy Glick’s real name. But speculation as to his real identity would be utterly fruitless, for Sammy is a composite picture of a loud and spectacular minority bitterly resented by the many decent and sincere artists who are trying honestly to realize the measureless potentialities of motion pictures. To this group belongs Schulberg himself, who has not only worked as a screen writer since his graduation from Dartmouth College in 1936, but has spent his life, literally, in the heart of the motion-picture colony. In the course of finding out what makes Sammy run (an operation in which the reader is spared none of the grue-some details) Schulberg has poured out everything he has felt about that place. The result is a book which the publishers not only believe to be the most honest ever written about Hollywood, but a penetrating study of one kind of twentieth-century success that is peculiar to no single race of people or walk of life.

My Review: Budd Schulberg got a lot of grief for writing this "anti-Semitic" shriek of outrage at the backstabbing, grasping, greedy, hollow culture of Hollywood. Well, how else could he tell the story? The moguls of the time were almost all Jewish, and they weren't nice little yeshiva boys but street toughs with chips on their shoulders hell bent for leather to make it to the top.

Today it is a lot less true of Hollywood's power elite. Not the behavior, the Jewishness. The behavior is intact! Of this I assure you from personal experience. And people of both genders and all religious and cultural affiliations enact it there. Awful place. As one would expect from any place where there is that much money floating around. *Breathtaking* amounts of money. The greed of these people is utterly beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. "Enough" is what you say to the chauffeur you're firing who complains it's unjust.

Reading this book was a bitter and painful reliving of my education in how "no good deed goes unpunished" and I will never re-read it for that reason. But dayum! What a glorious excoriation of the moral midgets who make our movies, TV shows, and music! I am in *awe* that Schulberg got away with writing it and stayed in Hollywood! Steven Spielberg, that maker of iconically positive movies, said the book should never be made into a movie because it's too anti-movie-biz.

Guess what: It never has been. Even Ben Stiller, who wanted to star and direct, couldn't get it done when he was at his peak of fame and power.

Shows you just how true it was, is, and will remain. *shudder*
Profile Image for Guille.
830 reviews2,126 followers
December 7, 2022

“Ir por la vida con conciencia es como conducir un coche con el freno de mano puesto.”
Había oído que esta novela era una de las mejores que se habían escrito sobre los sucios entresijos del mercado del cine Hollywoodiense.
“Los tres principales productos que fabrica esta ciudad son películas, ambición y miedo.”

Había oído que el autor creó con esta novela un personaje que, como Yossarian o Holden Caulfield, acabó dando nombre a un típico tipo norteamericano, Glick, un hombre individualista y hecho a sí mismo, el trepa sin escrúpulos que va dejando un reguero de cadáveres en su camino al poder y al dinero. Había oído incluso que tal personaje tenía cierto aire de familia con Charles Foster Kane o Jay Gatsby.
“Trabaja mucho, y si no puedes trabajar mucho, sé listo; y si no puedes ser listo, llama la atención.”

Había oído hablar de la maestría de sus diálogos.
- Henry, ¿sabes lo que he estado haciendo durante las dos últimas horas
- Sí, poniéndose como una cuba.
- No, elaborando una teoría que acabará con el odio en el mundo.
- Eso es lo mismo.

Había oído que tenía frases gloriosas, de esas tan típicas del cine negro de la época.
“A mí me gusta bailar con bailarines pasables. No sé por qué pero suelen ser mejores tipos.”

Había oído hablar maravillas de otra de sus obras, El desencantado, y había oído hablar con algo menos de entusiasmo de esta otra, aunque personalmente me ha parecido una novela interesante y divertida que me hacía difícil separarme de ella.

Todo esto es cierto, pero nadie me había hablado acerca de la debilidad de su planteamiento: un buen hombre, Al Manheim, inteligente, comprometido social y políticamente, competente en su trabajo como periodista y guionista, que no puede estar más en las antípodas de Sammy Glick y de todo lo que él representa, cae en una fascinación tal con el odioso personaje que ambos llegan a hacerse amigos o algo que se le parece mucho. De esta debilidad es consciente el autor, tanto que gasta un buen puñado de páginas a lo largo de toda la novela para justificar esta extraña relación que, además, es la que hace posible que sea Manheim quién pueda contarnos la historia de Sammy y ser aquel que continuamente se hace la pregunta que da título a la novela, ¿por qué corre Sammy?, duda que le empuja a mantenerse a su lado hasta encontrar la respuesta que, desde su punto de vista, sería “la respuesta a todo”.
“Me pregunto si lo que hace que Sammy nos parezca tan fascinante es que él es el «id»… el centro de nuestros instintos básicos, que el superego viste con la ropa de la respetabilidad para mostrarlos al mundo exterior”

Sí había oído que el personaje llegó a ser tomado como modelo de conducta a seguir por su desfachatez y ambición desmedida, eran los yuppies de los 80. De hecho, no sé si buscado o no por el autor, la fascinación que ejerce el protagonista sobre su narrador y su novia, examante de Sammy, no puede ser solo fruto de la curiosidad, también hay mucho de admiración y hasta de envida, aunque se intente disfrazar de desprecio.
“…cuando él aparece modifica el aire que una respira, lo intensifica… sentía un deseo irracional de saber qué sentiría al tener dentro de mí esa imparable ambición, frenesí y violencia.”

Pero tampoco me dijo nadie que la moraleja de la historia era traspasar la culpabilidad del individuo a la sociedad, aunque no se explique por qué su hermano o amigos del individuo, criados en el mismo ambiente y enfrentados a los mismos problemas, tomaron caminos opuestos.
“Creo que no tuviste elección. En tu caso se trataba de escoger entre ser un buen tipo y un fracasado o tal como eres ahora. No, supongo que ni siquiera pudiste escoger. El mundo decidió por ti.”

Tampoco me habló nadie de que el autor delató durante "la caza de brujas" a 17 de sus antiguos compañeros de partido.

Y yo, que soy muy sensible a las conclusiones erróneas y, aunque me pese, a este tipo de datos biográficos, no puedo evitar quitarle una estrellita que quizás mereciera.
Profile Image for Lewis Weinstein.
Author 9 books534 followers
March 7, 2018
I am about to eat serious crow. When "Sammy" was selected for my book club read, I wondered (aloud) why we should be reading an old book that could not possibly be relevant today. Oh how wrong I was!

Aside from being splendidly written, fast paced and absorbing ... the story, the quest, the always fragile success ... are totally relevant to life in America today.

Who do we know who, like Sammy Glick, is so completely absorbed in himself, who lies constantly and without remorse, and who destroys everyone and every good thing he touches? Who has built the slick facade of his unearned success on a foundation of swirling slime? Who do we know who is never happy, and never will be?

I could go on, but you get the point. Read the book. Turn on the news. It's the same story.
Profile Image for David.
Author 18 books370 followers
June 17, 2019
You might think a book written in 1941 about Hollywood would be too dated to be of interest to anyone but Hollywood historians. Wrong, baby, wrong! This modern classic is a must-read for anyone who is fascinated by Hollywood, or interested in character studies of incredibly compelling anti-heroes. In the 21st century, What Makes Sammy Run? is essentially a historical novel, but it's still a damn fine character-driven story, and let's face it, Hollywood is still crawling with Sammy Glicks.

The novel's eponymous question, "What makes Sammy run?" is asked by the narrator, Al Manheim, a reporter at a New York City paper who first meets Sammy as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed 15-year-old copy boy.


"I'll keep my ear to the ground for you, kid. Maybe in a couple of years I'll have a chance to slip you in as a cub reporter."

That was the first time he ever scared me. Here I was going out of my way to be nice to him and he answered me with a look that was almost contemptuous.

"Thanks, Mr. Manheim," he said, "but don't do me any favors. I know this newspaper racket. Couple of years at cub reporter? Twenty bucks. Then another stretch as district man. Thirty-five. And finally you're a great big reporter and get forty-five for the rest of your life. No, thanks."

I just stood there looking at him, staggered. Then...

"Hey, boy!" And he's off again, breaking the indoor record for the hundred-yard dash.


Sammy runs, runs, runs, and Al Manheim is as obsessed as he is horrified as he watches Sammy shamelessly lie, cheat, and steal (ideas) and promote himself with the unselfaware genius of the truly narcissistic. He stabs his "patron," Al, to get a newspaper column of his own, and when a young writer comes to him with a story idea, Sammy calls up a big-name Hollywood agent, having no idea just how ridiculous the thing he is doing is, and soon is saying goodbye to the Big Apple and hello to Hollywood, leaving behind his friends, his family, his cast off fiancee, and the guy who wrote the story he's now launching his career with.

Al manages to get snagged into the Hollywood writing gig himself a little later, and soon he's also making more money than he ever did as a reporter, but watching Sammy outstrip everyone. When Sammy becomes a $500-a-week writer (big money in the 30s!), he's seething with dissatisfaction because he knows some writers are making $2500 a week. When he becomes a $2500/week writer, he wants to join the inner circle of $5000/week writers. And when he joins them... well, who wants to be a mere writer, at the bottom of the Hollywood totem pole, when the big money and power comes from being a supervisor, a producer, a studio head...

Sammy keeps running, and Al is there to witness it. Sammy Glick never writes a word himself or has a single original idea, yet he manages to keep rocketing up into the big time. Al trails behind him, modestly successful, held back by his own basic decency, a trait for which Sammy mocks him contemptuously and yet makes him Sammy's confidant and the closest thing he has to a friend, since whenever Sammy does something lowdown and dirty, Al is the only one he can confide in.

Sammy's rise is the epic journey of an anti-hero. He's a louse, he's a creep, he's despicable! And as horrifically entertaining as watching the Grinch drive a lawn tractor over Smurfs.

Al's obsessive quest to find out what makes Sammy run eventually leads him back to the Jewish New York ghetto where Samuel Glickstein grew up, and then back to Hollywood after being temporarily exiled for his participation in the struggle of the Writers' Guild against the big studios, where he witnesses Sammy's final triumph: marriage to the heiress of one of the Wall Street men who finances the studio, elevation to studio head, being feted and brown-nosed by all, and still, of course, running.


I thought of all the things I might have told him. You never had the first idea of give-and-take, the social intercourse. It had to be you, all the way. You had to make individualism the most frightening ism of all. You act as if the world is just a blindfold free-for-all. Only the first time you get it in the belly you holler brotherhood. But you can't have your brothers and eat them too. You're all alone, pal, all alone. That's the way you wanted it, that's the way you learned it. Sing it, Sammy, sing it deep and sad, all alone and feeling blue, all alone in crowded theaters, company conventions, all alone with twenty of Gladys's girls tying themselves into lewd knots for you. All alone in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, with power and with Harringtons till death parts you from your only friend, your worst enemy, yourself.


Almost as interesting as the story is the historical background behind the novel and the author. Budd Schulberg was a "Hollywood prince," son of B.P. Schulberg, a founding member of the AMPA and a producer for the big Hollywood studios. Budd Schulberg grew up among a Who's Who of Hollywood in the 30s and 40s, so when he wrote What Makes Sammy Run?... it made a splash. A big ugly splash. Louis B. Mayer himself called for Schulberg's exile from Hollywood, and Schulberg heard from his own father those immortal words: "You'll never work in this town again."

Much of the acrimony was over the character of Sammy Glick, whom Schulberg insisted was not based on any one person but a composite of Hollywood personalities and anecdotes he had heard over the years, yet apparently most of Hollywood thought they knew who Sammy "really" was.

However, perhaps the real grievance was what's just a subplot in the novel, the attempted unionization of the Hollywood writers' guild. Schulberg was called a Red because of his sympathetic portrayal of an event that was still remembered bitterly by the major studios decades later.

The edition of the book I read included an afterword by the author, written in 1989, 50 years after the original publication of his novel. Besides containing more amusing anecdotes and name-dropping (apparently John Wayne himself was one of those who never forgave Schulberg for siding with the unions, and the two of them nearly had a fistfight in Mexico), Schulberg observes that when the novel first came out, and over the next couple of decades, Sammy was viewed with fear and loathing, a sleazy anti-hero who is the personification of Hollywood's id. Yet in the 80s, young film and writing students started coming up to him and praising Sammy as an inspiration, a role model for ambitious career advancement! Schulberg, still a liberal after all these years, was appalled.

And thus Sammy Glick is not only a fascinating anti-hero, a brilliant portrayal of a rags-to-riches narcissist, but also a textbook case of an author's creation who runs out of control, taking on a meaning and significance his creator never intended.

Highly recommended!
Profile Image for Ben Loory.
Author 4 books711 followers
June 29, 2008
a book about an asshole, narrated by a dickhead.
Profile Image for Dave.
3,206 reviews379 followers
January 28, 2024
What Makes Sammy Run? (1941) is a novel about the dirty underside of Hollywood and also about the dog-eat-dog world of climbing the ladder to success that some people find themselves doing? As a psychological study, it is fascinating. Sammy Glick starts out as a poor teenager from the lower east side of Manhattan, but from the very first time that Al Manheim meets Sammy, he realizes he met someone different, someone who in the battle for survival of the fittest is the fittest and will climb over whoever he needs to just to get where he is going. This includes stealing articles and ideas, taking credit for someone else's work, talking to the boss behind his supervisor's back. At every stage, seemingly without a conscience, Sammy has the world by the balls with utter confidence that he will rise to the top and the fools he passes by in the slow lane of life are not to be pitied. The action eventually moves to Hollywood where (and this was published in 1941 at the height of Hollywood glamour) the dog eat dog world becomes even more evident and how, in the end, no one has anyone else's back.
Profile Image for Andy.
Author 15 books141 followers
December 18, 2010
Plans to film “What Makes Sammy Run?” have been bandied around for decades, but the movie has already been made more or less via another Budd Schulberg story, “A Face In The Crowd”, i.e. boy-meets-girl as casualties of an arrogant, greedy media climbing monster. Anyone who has enjoyed films like “The Player”, “The Bad And The Beautiful” or “Barton Fink” will have a great time reading this, and Schulberg never runs out of great dialogue.

Profile Image for AC.
1,799 reviews
December 2, 2023
Published in 1941, at the ripe old age of 27, with Bennett Cerf (whom Schulberg had gotten to know and had impressed walls still at Dartmouth), this book is a brilliant, dissection and anatomy of the American dream, as the corruption has spread throughout it like a cancer by the end of the Depression. It all already shows the influence of the postwar realism, and of the techniques of method acting which had already emerged in certain circles as early as Lee Strasberg’s Group Theater, founded in 1931. The first two chapters, on Sammy’s youth, are still a little stiff. But once the book gets going, it is unputdownable. A great American novel.
Profile Image for Richard Knight.
Author 6 books61 followers
January 20, 2014
A criticism not only of Hollywood moguls but also of ruthless ambition, What Makes Sammy Run? is a landmark work from the 40s that turned out to be hauntingly prescient. Sammy's stab you in the back to ahead mentality represents America, and this book makes for an interesting Hollywood story that is relatable in every aspect of modern day business. You may even have a Sammy Glick in your life, which is scary to say the very least.

The story centers on the aforementioned Glick, and it's told from the perspective of somebody Glick walks over to get ahead, which paints an interesting story unlike the naive narrator from The Great Gatsby. In this book, the protagonist, Al Manheim, knows Sammy is slime and you get to see his outlook on the ambitious character. It makes for fascinating narration. In his climb to the top, Sammy screws over anybody and everybody (But they're all Jewish people like himself, which the author, Budd Schulberg, made sure of), making him a pretty repugnant character. That said, he's not one-dimensional, and you even start to feel sorry for him since he can't help himself. Some might even see him as a non-violent sociopath, taking his licks and accepting them if it means it will further his barreling career.

If I have only one complaint with the book, it's that the ending comes rather abruptly for my taste. That said, the book is enjoyable and has well thought out characters and excellent pacing. If you love movies, and more importantly, the story behind making movies, then you should definitely read this book. Maybe you'll uncover for yourself just what makes Sammy run.

Profile Image for Jon Boorstin.
Author 9 books58 followers
March 1, 2014
He knows whereof he speaks. It's remarkable that he had the perspective to write this book as a young man, having grown up at the center of power in Hollywood. A smart and empathetic assessment of the state of the business he was steeped in from birth. Movies aren't the center of the culture, as they were then, before television, much less the web. If the Sammy Glicks of the world are now hustling Apps, only the details have changed.

Profile Image for John Mccullough.
572 reviews44 followers
August 6, 2014
Sammy is the little guy, the one you miss seeing, who you forget about. But he is ruthless. And he is running. Always running. Schulberg provides us a chilling portrait of fairyland - where the movies aremade. A very, very good read.
Profile Image for Nick Burdick.
181 reviews2 followers
January 10, 2017
Tight, succinct writing. Schulberg is a master storyteller who doesn't waste a word. He knows how to stick to a theme. This moral cautionary tale about a Hollywood writer consumed by his ambition should be a textbook for good writing.
Profile Image for Youssef Khouili.
71 reviews1 follower
December 26, 2022
Mr. know-it-all unscrupulous Sammy is going places and seems to have it all with only making ruses! An opportunistic parasite hustler who's only after money even at the price of destroying others' lives. Why kindness? Why legitimacy when you can make money easily without much effort? Sammy believes legitimate ways of making money are unnecessary when others can do it for us, why bothering ourselves?

"I wonder what emotions he did have", he doesn't care about others' emotions as long as he's making money out of it.
Profile Image for Jamie Donovan.
188 reviews6 followers
May 20, 2021
A wonderful satire and critique of the American dream, and the category of 'hustlers' that are willing to destroy all their social ties in reward for monetary success. Still super relevant, especially with the weird millennial grind culture of today. The prose runs fluidly between fast plot and thoughtful reflection. I especially liked the Al - Kit dynamic, and how that was used as a way to show us how we are secretly all fascinated with the Sammy Glicks of the world. A top recommend for book club by Maz!
Profile Image for Writer's Relief.
548 reviews251 followers
July 13, 2018
Hollywood is a very different place today than it was in the 1930s. Back then, the studio system was in full force, stars were essentially slaves to their studios, and a few major movie moguls ran Hollywood. Budd Schulberg’s father, B.P. Schulberg, was the head of Paramount, so the author had a lot to draw from when he wrote his 1941 debut "What Makes Sammy Run?"

"What Makes Sammy Run?" is narrated by newspaper columnist-turned-screenwriter Al Manheim, who is working for a newspaper in New York when he meets a young whippersnapper named Sammy Glick. Eager, ambitious, and ruthless, Manheim quickly develops an admiration and disgust for the young man. Over the following years, Manheim (and the reader) witness Sammy Glick lying, double-crossing, and steamrolling over almost everyone who comes his way in order to reach the top of the Hollywood food chain. While Sammy is unappealing, sociopathic, and downright cruel to his friends and loved ones—his rise to prominence is darned entertaining to read. He isn’t known as “the all-American heel” for nothing.

It’s no surprise that Schulberg, who would go on to write the screenplay for On the Waterfront, writes dialogue that crackles with wit, elegance, and intensity. While reading it, it’s almost like watching a screwball comedy from the 1930s with fast-paced dialogue and clever repartee. But underneath the sparkling writing, there is a touch of the philosophical. The title comes from Al Manhein’s constant questioning of “what makes Sammy run?” As we learn more about Sammy’s life, we gradually learn what he was running away from all those years, and the result is perhaps more universal than we’d like to acknowledge.

There are a few politically incorrect epithets used throughout the book owing to the date of its publication. But for anyone who wants to dive into a world that doesn’t exist anymore, or who wants a great portrayal of Old Hollywood, "What Makes Sammy Run?" is highly recommended.
Profile Image for Max.
50 reviews16 followers
February 16, 2009
Schulberg hits on something really archetypal here. He chronicles the rise of fictional film mogul who's part C. F. Kane and part Howard Hughes, from the perspective of a narrator who's part Salieri and part Nick Carraway. And it's pretty amazing, actually. On one level, it's a sharp dissection of a 40s insider Hollywood: a takedown of what was wrong with the studio system. But then it becomes more: a portrait of Jewish angst and hardship at the turn of the century. But really, it's an absorbing read simply because the characters are so fascinating. Sammy Glick might seem like a cliche, but he feels real. And the whole thing shines with the crackling dialogue of a great period screenplay. No surprise-- Schulberg went on to write "On the Waterfront" and "A Face in the Crowd."
Profile Image for Kingshuk Mukherjee.
33 reviews42 followers
June 14, 2016
Having followed Ryan Holiday's work over the years, this book was mentioned quite favorably many times. I can't believe it took me this long to get around to reading it. I devoured the book in one sitting.

It's a fantastic story and an incredibly insightful peek into the ambitious mind. I found myself thinking that the tactics Glick used can be applied without screwing people over while still getting ahead. I also found myself being reminded of Robert Greene's 48 Laws, for this book illustrated many of those laws perfectly. A case can be made for this book as being similar to Great Gatsby since it's all about the American dream, but I found this a far more compelling tale.

I will read this one again, and next time with a pen and sticky tabs.
Profile Image for Andrei Alupului.
46 reviews9 followers
August 15, 2008
"A grand book, utterly fearless and with a great deal of beauty side by side with the most bitter satire." Right on, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Profile Image for George K..
2,544 reviews344 followers
August 30, 2021
Ο Μπαντ Σούλμπεργκ ήταν από τους Οσκαρικούς σεναριογράφους του κλασικού Χόλιγουντ και ένας πολύ καλός συγγραφέας. Το "Τι κυνηγάει τον Σάμι;" είναι με διαφορά το πιο γνωστό και πολυδιαβασμένο βιβλίο του, το οποίο είναι και από τα κλασικότερα και καλύτερα μυθιστορήματα που έχουν να κάνουν με τον απατηλό κόσμο του Χόλιγουντ. Ο συγγραφέας αποτυπώνει με τον πιο ρεαλιστικό και έντονο τρόπο το Χόλιγουντ της δεκαετίας του '30, δείχνοντας στους αναγνώστες την αληθινή του πλευρά, η οποία δεν είναι και τόσο όμορφη και φωτεινή. Αφηγητής της ιστορίας είναι ο Αλ Μάνχαϊμ, ένας αρθρογράφος και μετέπειτα συγγραφέας και σεναριογράφος, που μας εξιστορεί την άνοδο του Σάμι Γκλικ, ενός εβραιόπουλου, που από τα κατώτερα στρώματα της ζωής βρέθηκε στο ρετιρέ του Χόλιγουντ, όντας ένας ξεδιάντροπος αριβίστας και οπορτουνιστής, που εκμεταλλεύτηκε κάθε ευκαιρία και κάθε αφελή φουκαρά και που μπορεί να πει κανείς ότι πάτησε επί πτωμάτων για να βρεθεί εκεί που βρέθηκε. Ο Σάμι Γκλικ είναι ο ορισμός του αντιήρωα, είναι ένας τύπος που μισείς αλλά που ενδόμυχα θαυμάζεις για τους τρόπους που βρίσκει ώστε να φτάσει στην κορυφή. Αν μη τι άλλο, υπήρχαν, υπάρχουν και θα υπάρχουν πολλοί Σάμι Γκλικ εκεί έξω, όχι μόνο στον κόσμο του θεάματος, αλλά παντού. Όσον αφορά τη γραφή, είναι πολύ καλή, οξυδερκής και αρκετά κυνική, με λιτές περιγραφές σκηνικών και καταστάσεων, καθώς και με ιδιαίτερα φυσικούς διαλόγους. Ναι, το βιβλίο μου άρεσε πάρα πολύ, το βρήκα εξαιρετικά ενδιαφέρον και με τον τρόπο του συναρπαστικό, αλλά εγώ είμαι από αυτούς που απολαμβάνουν τις κλασικές αμερικάνικες ιστορίες, όπως και τις ρεαλιστικές και ολίγον τι σκοτεινές ιστορίες που έχουν να κάνουν με το παλιό Χόλιγουντ, οπότε δεν ξέρω αν ταιριάζει με όλα τα αναγνωστικά γούστα. Όσον αφορά το μέλλον μου με το έργο του συγγραφέα, άμεσα θα προμηθευτώ το μοναδικό άλλο βιβλίο του που έχει μεταφραστεί στα ελληνικά (το αυτοβιογραφικό "Κινούμενες εικόνες"), όντας βέβαια απογοητευμένος από το γεγονός ότι δεν έχουν μεταφραστεί άλλα μυθιστορήματά του, όπως τα κλασικά "The Disenchanted" και "The Harder They Fall" (αυτό έχει γίνει και ταινία).
Profile Image for Noah Goats.
Author 8 books26 followers
March 26, 2021
I'm not sure that "run" is the right word to describe what Sammy does. He is a shover, a pusher, a person who steps on the man in behind him as the climbs over the person in front. He uses and discards people, he takes credit that isn't his, he manipulates and backstabs. He is a terrible human being and a fascinating character. I've known a Sammy or two in my life, although none of them were quite and perfectly Sammy as the fictional one.

Budd Schulberg grew up in Hollywood. His father was one of the founders of the movie industry in America and Shulberg (who insisted that Sammy is not modeled after any one person) was able to study the Sammy-like sleazebags who infested Hollywood back then, and presumably today as well. I recently read Schulberg's memoir of his early life, and it was fun to see how he repurposed his actual experiences to create this story. (Not that reading anything else by the author is necessary to enjoy this novel.)

What Makes Sammy Run has a tight plot, authentic Hollywood atmosphere, a lot to say about subjects like greed and ambition, and a memorable antihero at it's heart. It's a good read.
Profile Image for Ankush GK.
59 reviews10 followers
April 14, 2021
Didn't know what to expect from this. This is a story of a guy(Sammy) who is so engrossed in making it big in life, that he fails to acknowledge how his actions are affecting those around him. The story is told from the perspective of his friend(Al) whose life takes a big blow upon Sammy's entry, and his quest to decipher Sammy begins. Cannot believe this was written in the 1940s, set in Hollywood, and how most of the mindset and scenarios remain true to this day.
Profile Image for Mae.
13 reviews
July 18, 2023
The Great Gatsby… but instead of New York it’s Hollywood, and instead of being WASPy it’s Jewish, and Sammy is chasing more than just a woman…

It’s partly about the foundations of the screen writer’s union, so a super relevant read for right now with the strike!!!

5 stars for excellent storytelling, but more importantly a strong woman character.
Profile Image for Erik Golbiw.
118 reviews
January 11, 2022
Absolutely fabulous look at humanity. There are Glicks everywhere - But often, you have to dig deep enough to understand how they became who they are.
Profile Image for Marc Gerstein.
543 reviews161 followers
November 19, 2017
Imagine novels can talk and The Great Gatsby says: “All right, no more Mr. Nice Guy.” The result could be What Makes Sammy Run.

Narrator Al Manheim, a run-of-the-mill drama critic for a New Your newspaper introduces us to Sammy Glick, a teenage copy boy who wants to rise. Al swats him aside briskly, no surprise given Sammy’s irritating personality and the absence of any apparent talent. Bad move. really bad move.

Since when did a outsized ego and lack of talent stand in the way of success! Actually, reading this book might lead one to believe those are the two most important ingredients to success. And its not as if looking around at the real world would paint a different picture. I know it. You know it. We all know it. We’ve all seen it. And we’ve all bemoaned it at one time or another.

Are you one of the gazillions who wondered how Hillary Clinton could lose an election to Donald Trump? Read this and wonder no more. During the time I was reading, I heard a podcast in which Tina Brown complained that HC’s being a woman got in the way of her being evaluated for who she really was. Uh, no! This isn’t the occasion to discuss gender politics except to point out that most people, male and female, fail to be appreciated for who they are unless . . . well, read What Makes Sammy Run.

What I appreciate most about this particular approach to this character study is the relationship between author Bud Schulberg and his anti-hero protagonist. It would have been so easy for Schulberg to have written in a sneering judgmental way. And his first-person narrator sure as heck tries to be just that — in fact Manheim’s contempt for Sammy is over the top and frequently (almost monotonously) stated. But, but, but . . . neither author nor narrator are every really able to be completely all in on their contempt. They walk a thin tightrope and manage to keep from falling.

Definitely a worthy read, not just for the era in which it was written, but just as much for today.
Profile Image for Jessica.
634 reviews5 followers
August 13, 2016
What Makes Sammy Run tells the story of Sammy Glick, a man with boundless ambition and no morals to stand in his way. It is told from the point of view of Al Manheim, who watches Sammy's meteoric rise with anger, jealousy and awe. It has come to be one of the classic "Hollywood Novels" portraying Hollywood at its worst and most truthful, and as someone who works and lives in Hollywood, a lot of what Schulberg was trying to convey still remains true to this day. The book got a lot of criticism for being anti-semitic, but I don't see it that way. Sammy is a money hungry, story spinner who happens to be Jewish. There are a lot of Jewish characters in the book, and they are not all greedy "Shylocks", but a whole range of personalities, as is the case in life.

I think I liked this book because I could relate to its setting, although not necessarily to its characters. It moves at a brisk pace, with biting dialogue and straightforward prose. It reads like an insightful character study of the unscrupulously ambitious Hollywood executive. However, the story doesn't really seem to sustain itself. Eventually the narrator's obsession with the question "what makes Sammy run?" reads more as a desperate fixation than an interesting story point. Most people who have read this have said "we all know a few Sammy Glicks", and I agree with that, which means that we shouldn't find Sammy's behavior all that shocking, or even novel. I found the book to be enjoyable, but when compared with other Hollywood classics like The Player and The Day of the Locusts, I would definitely put it at the bottom of the pile.



Profile Image for Slagle Rock.
241 reviews
April 11, 2020
This is sort of a quasi-fictional literary exposé of mid-Century Hollywood with a great deal of moralizing by a first-person narrator. The story is, on the surface, all about the antagonist -a.k.a. Sammy – and his rise from being a Lower East Side punk to being a successful Hollywood producer. Sammy will stop at nothing and backstab just about anyone to get where he’s going but much of the book’s interest is in Manheim’s stated efforts to process Sammy’s motivation and compare it with his own. Beyond that, there are also the implications of Manheim’s unstated actions and behavior to consider. He does not approve of the way Sammy leads his life but nevertheless stays close to him professionally and is, in fact, so fascinated by him, that he is able to record the account that, we the readers, understand to be the book in our hands. In short, Manheim comes off as a bit holier-than-thou. This book is interesting for its 1930s look at the entertainment business in Hollywood and New York, for the book’s fictional characters co-occupy the world of real-life producers, writers and stars. Be ready for a Depression-era examination of perennially hot-button issues like race, religion, ethnicity and social class; modern readers might be put off here but I got through OK, keeping in mind the book’s 1941 copyright. On a related note, I appreciated the strong female role of Kit, who is a screen writer, labor organizer and confidant to Manheim.
Profile Image for Thomas J. Hubschman.
Author 13 books20 followers
October 13, 2009
Good stuff. Great perennial American character, like Gatsby.

A good example, though, of what Pritchett said about psychology being reduced to motivation in contemporary literature. The narrator is obsessed with finding out, well, what makes Sammy run--and run over so many people as he does so.

I admire Schulberg if for no other reason than his old-fashioned attitude that there is more to write about than one's own ethnic group. Waterfront (the novel) could have been written by an Irish-Catholic from Hoboken, e.g. And Sammy would be a great creation if he were Hindu or Zoroastrian.
Profile Image for Catherine.
87 reviews12 followers
December 20, 2021
really enjoyed how the story slowly filled in the gaps, answering “what makes Sammy run?”.

Sammy is not the best person, not entirely moral, but when you read more and more about his childhood and upbringing. It doesn’t make his actions permissible, but it does make them make sense.

well written.
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