"Sequels are whores' movies," William Goldman writes without apparent irony in Which Lie Did I Tell?, his sequel to 1983's Adventures In The Screen Trade, an informative and scabrously funny account of his career in Hollywood that's become a touchstone for would-be screenwriters. Like most sequels, Which Lie Did I Tell? delivers much of the same, only more: candid behind-the-scenes production stories, a window into the process of writing his scripts, samples and commentary from exemplary screenwriters, and generous servings of cantankerous bile. The key difference between the two books, other than the diminishing returns expected from a sequel, is the quality of Goldman's film output. Before Adventures In The Screen Trade was published, he'd penned Oscar-winning scripts for Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid and All The President's Men; in the years since, his name has been attached to such bloodless fare as Maverick, Absolute Power, and The General's Daughter. So while Goldman still makes an expert instructor on the nuts and bolts of Hollywood screenwriting, he's also become an insufferable old crank, beaten down by cynicism and compromise. Some of his barbs are well-placed, especially when they relate directly to his own experience. He's not afraid to blame stars for allowing their egos to wreak irreparable havoc on his scripts, namely Memoirs Of An Invisible Man (with which Chevy Chase wanted to explore "the loneliness of invisibility") and The Ghost And The Darkness (which gave Michael Douglas' enigmatic character a full backstory). But when Goldman launches into bitter asides about directors with no vision and the inept critics who overvalue them, Which Lie Did I Tell? becomes hyperbolic and false, a failed attempt to champion the denigrated screenwriter by ignoring film history. In this vein, his most compelling example is also his weakest: He re-prints the famous crop-dusting sequence in Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest, which was detailed shot-by-shot in Ernest Lehman's script. It's a good argument for Lehman, a brilliant writer, but Hitchcock only worked with him on one other occasion (the less memorable Family Plot), and his distinct authorial stamp is plastered on every film he ever made. The same can't be said of Goldman himself, who would probably be hard-pressed to locate the connection between Butch Cassidy and The General's Daughter, not to mention his uncredited doctoring jobs. By the time Goldman gets around to a tasteless deconstruction of Alan Pakula's obituary, robbing him of virtually any credit for directing All The President's Men, Which Lie Did I Tell? has devolved into a conspicuous case of sour grapes.