Download or read book Hollywood Undercover written by Ian Halperin and published by Mainstream Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A star-studded behind-the-scenes account of celebrity culture and the pursuit and perils of fame. Ian Halperin is no stranger to undercover investigations. When he posed as a model in 2001 to expose the fashion industry, his resulting book, Shut Up and Smile, sent shock waves through the trade and became an international bestseller.
Download or read book Mystery Movie Series of 1930s Hollywood written by Ron Backer and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2012-08-15 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This companion volume to Mystery Movie Series of 1940s Hollywood (McFarland, 2010) focuses on 22 series and 167 individual films, primarily released during the 1930s. It was a decade that featured some of the most famous cinema detectives of all time, among them Charlie Chan, Nick and Nora Charles, Philo Vance, Nancy Drew, and such lesser known but equally entertaining figures as Hildegarde Withers, Torchy Blane, Mr. Moto, Mr. Wong, and Brass Bancroft. Each mystery movie series is placed within its historical context, with emphasis on its source material and the changes or developments within the series over time. Also included are reviews of all the series' films, analyzing the quality and cohesiveness of the mystery plotlines. For titles based on literary sources, a comparison between the film and the written work is provided.
Download or read book Hollywood s Spies written by Laura B Rosenzweig and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2018-01-23 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The remarkable story of the Jewish moguls in Hollywood who established the first anti-Nazi Jewish resistance organization in the country in the 1930s. Finalist, Celebrate 350 Award in American Jewish Studies The 1939 film Confessions of a Nazi Spy may have been the first cinematic shot fired by Hollywood against Nazis in America, but it by no means marked the political awakening of the film industry’s Jewish executives to the problem. Hollywood’s Spies tells the remarkable story of the Jewish moguls in Hollywood who paid private investigators to infiltrate Nazi groups operating in Los Angeles, establishing the first anti-Nazi Jewish resistance organization in the country—the Los Angeles Jewish Community Committee (LAJCC). Drawing on more than 15,000 pages of archival documents, Laura B. Rosenzweig offers a compelling narrative illuminating the role that Jewish Americans played in combating insurgent Nazism in the United States in the 1930s. Forced undercover by the anti-Semitic climate of the decade, the LAJCC partnered with organizations whose Americanism was unimpeachable, such as the American Legion, to channel information regarding seditious Nazi plots to Congress, the Justice Department, the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department. Hollywood’s Spies corrects the decades-long belief that American Jews lacked the political organization and leadership to assert their political interests during this period in our history and reveals that the LAJCC was one of many covert “fact finding” operations funded by Jewish Americans designed to root out Nazism in the United States. “A remarkable tale.” —The Wall Street Journal “Expose[s] a buried story about underground plots waged by Nazis against major Hollywood figures.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
Download or read book The Hollywood Spy written by Susan Elia MacNeal and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2022-08-02 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maggie Hope is off to California to solve a crime that hits too close to home—and to confront the very evil she thought she had left behind in Europe—as the acclaimed World War II mystery series from New York Times bestselling author Susan Elia MacNeal continues. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL • “An absolute triumph . . . Maggie Hope is irresistible.”—Hilary Davidson, author of Her Last Breath Los Angeles, 1943. As the Allies beat back the Nazis in the Mediterranean and the United States military slowly closes in on Tokyo, Walt Disney cranks out wartime propaganda and the Cocoanut Grove is alive with jazz and swing every night. But behind this sunny façade lies a darker reality. Up in the lush foothills of Hollywood, a woman floats lifeless in the pool of one of California’s trendiest hotels. When American-born secret agent and British spy Maggie Hope learns that this woman was engaged to her former fiancée, John Sterling, and that he suspects her death was no accident, intuition tells her he’s right. Leaving London under siege is a lot to ask—but John was once the love of Maggie’s life . . . and she can’t say no. Maggie struggles with seeing her lost love again, but more shocking is the realization that her country is as divided and convulsed with hatred as Europe. The Zoot Suit Riots loom large in Los Angeles, and the Ku Klux Klan casts a long shadow everywhere. But there is little time to dwell on memories once she starts digging into the case. As she traces a web of deception from the infamous Garden of Allah to the iconic Carthay Circle Theater, she discovers things aren’t always the way things appear in the movies—and the political situation in America is more complicated, and dangerous, than the newsreels would have them all believe.
Download or read book Hollywood s Detectives written by F. Mason and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-12-15 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of Hollywood detectives has often overlooked the B-Movie mystery series in favour of hard-boiled film. Hollywood's Detectives redresses this oversight by examining key detective series of the 1930s and 1940s to explore their contributions to the detective genre.
Download or read book Onscreen and Undercover written by Wesley Britton and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2006-10-30 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wes Britton's Spy Television (2004) was an overview of espionage on the small screen from 1951 to 2002. His Beyond Bond: Spies in Fiction and Film (2004) wove spy literature, movies, radio, comics, and other popular media together with what the public knew about actual espionage to show the interrelationships between genres and approaches in the past century. Onscreen and Undercover, the last book in Britton's Spy Trilogy, provides a history of spies on the large screen, with an emphasis on the stories these films present. Since the days of the silent documentary short, spying has been a staple of the movie business. It has been the subject of thrillers, melodramas, political films, romances, and endless parodies as well. But despite the developing mistrust of the spy as a figure of hope and good works, the variable relationship between real spying and screen spying over the past 100 years sheds light on how we live, what we fear, who we admire, and what we want our culture—and our world—to become. Onscreen and Undercover describes now forgotten trends, traces surprising themes, and spotlights the major contributions of directors, actors, and other American and English artists. The focus is on movies, on and off camera. In a 1989 National Public Radio interview, famed author John Le Carre said a spy must be entertaining. Spies have to interest potential sources, and be able to draw people in to succeed in recruiting informants. In that spirit, Wes Britton now offers Onscreen and Undercover.
Download or read book Movie Mayhem written by Franklin W. Dixon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-01-03 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hardy Boys need to protect movie star Anya Archer from attackers who want to blow up everyone at the Big Apple Awards.
Download or read book Under and Alone written by William Queen and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2007-06-26 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1998, William Queen was a veteran law enforcement agent with a lifelong love of motorcycles and a lack of patience with paperwork. When a “confidential informant” made contact with his boss at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, offering to take an agent inside the San Fernando chapter of the Mongols (the scourge of Southern California, and one of the most dangerous gangs in America), Queen jumped at the chance, not realizing that he was kicking-starting the most extensive undercover operation inside an outlaw motorcycle gang in the history of American law enforcement. Nor did Queen suspect that he would penetrate the gang so successfully that he would become a fully “patched-in” member, eventually rising through their ranks to the office of treasurer, where he had unprecedented access to evidence of their criminal activity. After Queen spent twenty-eight months as “Billy St. John,” the bearded, beer-swilling, Harley-riding gang-banger, the truth of his identity became blurry, even to himself. During his initial “prospecting” phase, Queen was at the mercy of crank-fueled criminal psychopaths who sought to have him test his mettle and prove his fealty by any means necessary, from selling (and doing) drugs, to arms trafficking, stealing motorcycles, driving getaway cars, and, in one shocking instance, stitching up the face of a Mongol “ol’ lady” after a particularly brutal beating at the hands of her boyfriend. Yet despite the constant criminality of the gang, for whom planning cop killings and gang rapes were business as usual, Queen also came to see the genuine camaraderie they shared. When his lengthy undercover work totally isolated Queen from family, his friends, and ATF colleagues, the Mongols felt like the only family he had left. “I had no doubt these guys genuinely loved Billy St. John and would have laid down their lives for him. But they wouldn’t hesitate to murder Billy Queen.” From Queen’s first sleight of hand with a line of methamphetamine in front of him and a knife at his throat, to the fearsome face-off with their decades-old enemy, the Hell’s Angels (a brawl that left three bikers dead), to the heartbreaking scene of a father ostracized at Parents’ Night because his deranged-outlaw appearance precluded any interaction with regular citizens, Under and Alone is a breathless, adrenaline-charged read that puts you on the street with some of the most dangerous men in America and with the law enforcement agents who risk everything to bring them in.
Download or read book Hardboiled in Hollywood written by David E. Wilt and published by Popular Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers the film careers of five screenwriters, who were crime and mystery writers for the famous Black mask pulp magazine. Also shows how these five writers applied their pulp writing expertise to the movies.
Download or read book Manhood in Hollywood from Bush to Bush written by David Greven and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A struggle between narcissistic and masochistic modes of manhood defined Hollywood masculinity in the period between the presidencies of George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. David Greven's contention is that a profound shift in representation occurred during the early 1990s when Hollywood was transformed by an explosion of films that foregrounded non-normative gendered identity and sexualities. In the years that have followed, popular cinema has either emulated or evaded the representational strategies of this era, especially in terms of gender and sexuality. One major focus of this study is that, in a great deal of the criticism in both the fields of film theory and queer theory, masochism has been positively cast as a form of male sexuality that resists the structures of normative power, while narcissism has been negatively cast as either a regressive sexuality or the bastion of white male privilege. Greven argues that narcissism is a potentially radical mode of male sexuality that can defy normative codes and categories of gender, whereas masochism, far from being radical, has emerged as the default mode of a traditional normative masculinity. This study combines approaches from a variety of disciplines—psychoanalysis, queer theory, American studies, men's studies, and film theory—as it offers fresh readings of several important films of the past twenty years, including Casualties of War, The Silence of the Lambs, Fight Club, The Passion of the Christ, Auto Focus, and Brokeback Mountain.
Download or read book Undercover Asian written by Leilani Nishime and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2014-01-30 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this first book-length study of media images of multiracial Asian Americans, Leilani Nishime traces the codes that alternatively enable and prevent audiences from recognizing the multiracial status of Asian Americans. Nishime's perceptive readings of popular media--movies, television shows, magazine articles, and artwork--indicate how and why the viewing public often fails to identify multiracial Asian Americans. Using actor Keanu Reeves and the Matrix trilogy, golfer Tiger Woods as examples, Nishime suggests that this failure is tied to gender, sexuality, and post-racial politics. Also considering alternative images such as reality TV star Kimora Lee Simmons, the television show Battlestar Galactica, and the artwork of Kip Fulbeck, this incisive study offers nuanced interpretations that open the door to a new and productive understanding of race in America.
Download or read book Arresting Cinema written by Karen Fang and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-11 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Ridley Scott envisioned Blade Runner's set as "Hong Kong on a bad day," he nodded to the city's overcrowding as well as its widespread use of surveillance. But while Scott brought Hong Kong and surveillance into the global film repertoire, the city's own cinema has remained outside of the global surveillance discussion. In Arresting Cinema, Karen Fang delivers a unifying account of Hong Kong cinema that draws upon its renowned crime films and other unique genres to demonstrate Hong Kong's view of surveillance. She argues that Hong Kong's films display a tolerance of—and even opportunism towards—the soft cage of constant observation, unlike the fearful view prevalent in the West. However, many surveillance cinema studies focus solely on European and Hollywood films, discounting other artistic traditions and industrial circumstances. Hong Kong's films show a more crowded, increasingly economically stratified, and postnational world that nevertheless offers an aura of hopeful futurity. Only by exploring Hong Kong surveillance film can we begin to shape a truly global understanding of Hitchcock's "rear window ethics."
Download or read book Pimp Reflection of My Life written by Noble Dee and published by Author House. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In our society today, although used out their original contexts, the words Pimp and Pimpin have been embraced whole-heartedly by todays hip hop generation and frequently used in slang to describe a motif of a newly set standard of flamboyant living. However, in his debut release, Donald Ray Lavan (AKA Noble Dee) provides the true definition of both words, separating the real and the facts from the faade and the fiction of todays controversial terminology. Best of all, he describes in very minute details, what the Game (Pimpin) was like for him in his era the 1960s to Y2K (The New Millienium). In this tell all non-fiction: Noble Dee illustrates, in a very blaxploitation mannerhis personal existence in the game. Not only does he exploit his successes, he also exposes the very grim details of the life; both in tones whereas you the reader bask in his glory, and share his pains; the pain of possibly regret in the life that he cherished for almost four calendar decades. Wholeheartedly, Noble Dee expresses how his own glorification of the game, indirectly allured his first born daughter into a position to be manipulated and exploited by pimps, just as he had manipulated and exploited so many daughters throughout his 35 years plus career. Not since Robert Beck revealed to the masses the vivid street Realities of a Pimps Life in his book Pimp: The Story of My Life By Iceberg Slim has the entrenching truth behind the lifestyle-termed pimpin been exposed to this degree. Thus, the primary title Pimp:Reflections of My Life. www.JumpInterstateN.biz
Download or read book Hollywood the Pentagon and Washington written by Jean-Michel Valantin and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hollywood and the Pentagon: on one side a great industry, 'the makers of dreams', on the other the US Defence department. What relations unify these two potent symbols of American power? This extensive analysis of mainstream Hollywood movies lifts the lid on the interdependence between these two institutions. The movie industry is exposed as a key protagonist in the US strategy debate through the production of films on national security across many genres, from comedy to thriller, from sci-fi to war movies. This timely book also explores prevailing ideas on the lsquo;threatrsquo; to homeland USA that is put forward by the national security network, a threat that is seen as the justification for and legitimization of Americarsquo;s military operations and strategic choices. This book reveals how in the last 20 years there has been a consistent collaboration between these two industries: enormous contracts have been exchanged between the studios and the defence department. It shows how Hollywood is completely penetrated by the ideological and political thinking of Washington, which in turn appears to be directly inspired by the productions of Hollywood.
Download or read book Unmasked written by Ian Halperin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-07-20 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In late December 2008, Ian Halperin told the world that Michael Jackson had only six months to live. His investigations into Jackson's failing health made headlines around the globe. Six months later, the King of Pop was dead. Whatever the final autopsy results reveal, it was greed that killed Michael Jackson. Friends and associates paint a tragic picture of the last years and days of his life as Jackson made desperate attempts to prepare for the planned concert series at London's 02 Arena in July 2009. These shows would have earned millions for the singer and his entourage, but he could never have completed them, not mentally, and not physically. Michael knew it and his advisors knew it. Anyone who caught even a fleeting glimpse of the frail old man hiding beneath the costumes and cosmetics would have understood that the London tour was madness. Why did it happen this way? After an intense five year investigation, New York Timesbestselling author Ian Halperin uncovers the real story of Michael Jackson's final years, a suspenseful and surprising thriller.
Download or read book Mean Moody Magnificent written by Christina Rice and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the early 1950s, Jane Russell (1921--2011) should have been forgotten. Her career was launched on what is arguably the most notorious advertising campaign in cinema history, which invited filmgoers to see Howard Hughes's The Outlaw (1943) and to "tussle with Russell." Throughout the 1940s, she was nicknamed the "motionless picture actress" and had only three films in theaters. With such a slow, inauspicious start, most aspiring actresses would have given up or faded away. Instead, Russell carved out a place for herself in Hollywood and became a memorable and enduring star. Christina Rice offers the first biography of the actress and activist perhaps most well-known for her role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Despite the fact that her movie career was stalled for nearly a decade, Russell's filmography is respectable. She worked with some of Hollywood's most talented directors -- including Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh, Nicholas Ray, and Josef von Sternberg -- and held her own alongside costars such as Marilyn Monroe, Robert Mitchum, Clark Gable, Vincent Price, and Bob Hope. She also learned how to fight back against Howard Hughes, her boss for more than thirty-five years, and his marketing campaigns that exploited her physical appearance. Beyond the screen, Rice reveals Russell as a complex and confident woman. She explores the star's years as a spokeswoman for Playtex as well as her deep faith and work as a Christian vocalist. Rice also discusses Russell's leadership and patronage of the WAIF foundation, which for many years served as the fundraising arm of the International Social Service (ISS) agency. WAIF raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, successfully lobbied Congress to change laws, and resulted in the adoption of tens of thousands of orphaned children. For Russell, the work she did to help unite families overshadowed any of her onscreen achievements. On the surface, Jane Russell seemed to live a charmed life, but Rice illuminates her darker moments and her personal struggles, including her empowered reactions to the controversies surrounding her films and her feelings about being portrayed as a sex symbol. This stunning first biography offers a fresh perspective on a star whose legacy endures not simply because she forged a notable film career, but also because she effectively used her celebrity to benefit others.
Download or read book Hollywood s Cold War written by Tony Shaw and published by Univ of Massachusetts Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the role of American filmmakers in the ideological struggle against communism
