Download or read book Engulfed written by Bernard F. Dick and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-09-22 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Double Indemnity (1944) to The Godfather (1972), the stories behind some of the greatest films ever made pale beside the story of the studio that made them. In the golden age of Hollywood, Paramount was one of the Big Five studios. Gulf + Western's 1966 takeover of the studio signaled the end of one era and heralded the arrival of a new way of doing business in Hollywood. Bernard F. Dick reconstructs the battle that reduced the studio to a mere corporate commodity and traces Paramount's devolution from freestanding studio to subsidiary—first of Gulf + Western, then of Paramount Communications, and currently, of Viacom-CBS. Dick portrays the new Paramount as a paradigm of today's Hollywood, where the only real art is the art of the deal. In modern Hollywood, former merchandising executives find themselves in charge of production on the assumption that anyone who can sell a movie can make one. CEOs exit in disgrace from one studio, only to emerge in triumph at another. Corporate raiders vie for power and control, purchasing and selling film libraries, studio property, television stations, book publishers, and more. The history of Paramount is filled with larger-than-life people, including Billy Wilder, Adolph Zukor, Sumner Redstone, Shari Redstone, Sherry Lansing, Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and more.
Download or read book Paramount s Rise and Fall written by Alex van der Tuuk and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first complete examamination of Paramount Records - the label that introduced Ma Rainey, Charley Patton, Skip James, and other blues greats to the world - and the company that produced it.
Download or read book Infamous Players written by Peter Bart and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2011-05-09 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1967, Peter Bart, then a young family man and rising reporter for the New York Times, decided to upend his life and enter the dizzying world of motion pictures. Infamous Players is the story of Bart's whirlwind journey at Paramount, his role in its triumphs and failures, and how a new kind of filmmaking emerged during that time. When Bart was lured to Paramount by his friend and fellow newcomer, the legendary Robert Evans, the studio was languishing, its slate riddled with movies that were out of touch with the dynamic sixties. By the time Bart left Paramount, in 1975, the studio had completed a remarkable run, with films such as The Godfather, Rosemary's Baby, Harold and Maude, Love Story, Chinatown, Paper Moon, and True Grit. But this new golden era at Paramount was also fraught with chaos and company turmoil. Drugs, sex, runaway budgets, management infighting, and even the Mafia found their way onto the back lot, making Paramount surely one of the most unpredictable, even bizarre, studios in the history of the movie industry. Bart reflects on Paramount's New Hollywood era with behind-the scenes details and insightful analysis; here too are his fascinating recollections of the icons from that time: Warren Beatty, Steve McQueen, Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Francis Ford Coppola, Roman Polanski, and Frank Sinatra, among others. For over four decades, first on the inside as a studio executive and later as the longtime editor in chief of Variety, Peter Bart has viewed Hollywood from an incomparable vantage point. The stories he tells and the lessons we learn from Infamous Players are essential for anyone who loves movies.
Download or read book Hollywood Cocktails written by The Coastal Kitchen, and published by Cider Mill Press. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hollywood Cocktails is a true toast to Hollywood and the film industry! Paramount Pictures, the oldest Hollywood studio in operation, has released countless award-winning and box office-busting movies that have spanned the age of cinema, from the medium’s silent advent to talkies, color, and CGI blockbusters. In this book, you’ll find: More than 100 cocktails inspired by over 100 iconic films A collection of film facts Detailed recipes that guarantee you’ll never again be wondering what to drink or watch Focusing on iconic films all released by Paramount Pictures, Hollywood Cocktails is a gorgeously illustrated book of star power filled with all things that will delight movie buffs and mixologists alike!
Download or read book Caster written by Elsie Chapman and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Avatar: The Last Airbender meets Fight Club in this action-packed fantasy about a secret, underground magic fighting tournament. If the magic doesn't kill her, the truth just might.Aza Wu knows that real magic is dangerous and illegal. After all, casting killed her sister, Shire. As with all magic, everything comes at a price. For Aza, it feels like everything in her life has some kind of cost attached to it. Her sister had been casting for money to pay off Saint Willow, the gang leader that oversees her sector of Lotusland. If you want to operate a business there, you have to pay your tribute. And now with Shire dead, Aza must step in to save the legacy of Wu Teas, the teahouse that has been in her family for centuries.When Aza comes across a secret invitation, she decides she doesn't have much else to lose. She quickly realizes that she's entered herself into an underground casting tournament, and the stakes couldn't be higher. Real magic, real consequences. As she competes, Aza fights for her life against some very strong and devious competitors.When the facts about Shire's death don't add up, the police start to investigate. When the tributes to Saint Willow aren't paid, the gang comes to collect. When Aza is caught sneaking around with fresh casting wounds, her parents are alarmed. As Aza's dangerous web of lies continues to grow, she is caught between trying to find a way out and trapping herself permanently.
Download or read book William Powell written by Roger Bryant and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-12-09 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Actor William Powell is perhaps best known for his roles as charming Nick in The Thin Man films and blustery Clarence Day in Life with Father. As diverse as those characters are, they don't begin to reveal the full scope of talent demonstrated by one of Hollywood's most intelligent leading men. Elegant, witty and dignified, Powell created accessible and human characters in a great variety of roles. His talent was such that Powell has a large and growing fan base 50 years after his last film was released, evidenced by the popularity of DVD rereleases and the frequent appearance of his films on cable television. The focus of this book is Powell's work in more than 90 films, from the silent era to the age of CinemaScope, woven into the dramatic and touching story of the actor's life. It begins by leaping into how Powell and actress Myrna Loy were launched to stardom as husband and wife Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man. The next chapter sets the stage for the baby Powell's entry into the world in 1892 and details his childhood and upbringing. Following chapters trace Powell's journey into the film industry, his early career as a popular villain, and his transition to talkies in the late 1920s aided by his stage training. The book details his work at Warner Bros., which turned him into a leading man, and his years of stardom at MGM. The book describes turning points in Powell's life--the death of lover Jean Harlow, a 21-month hiatus from films while the actor battled cancer, and a new leap to the top in Life with Father. Concluding chapters detail another flurry of films and the actor's retirement. A filmography lists Powell's films from 1922 to 1955, including those believed to be lost.
Download or read book The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott written by Adam Barkman and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2013-03-08 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott, edited by Adam Barkman, Ashley Barkman, and Nancy Kang, brings together eighteen critical essays that illuminate a nearly comprehensive selection of the director’s feature films from cutting-edge multidisciplinary and comparative perspectives. Chapters examine such signature works as Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Thelma and Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000), Hannibal (2001), Black Hawk Down (2001), and American Gangster (2007). This volume divides the chapters into three major thematic groups: responsibility, remembering, and revision; real, alienated, and ideal lives; and gender, identity, and selfhood. Each section features six discrete essays, each of which forwards an original thesis about the film or films chosen for analysis. Each chapter features close readings of scenes as well as broader discussions that will interest academics, non-specialists, as well as educated readers with an interest in films as visual texts. While recognizing Scott’s undeniable contributions to contemporary popular cinema, the volume does not shy away from honest and well-evidenced critique. Each chapter’s approach correlates with philosophical, literary, or cultural studies perspectives. Using both combined and single-film discussions, the contributors examine such topics as gender roles and feminist theory; philosophical abstractions like ethics, honor, and personal responsibility; historical memory and the challenges of accurately rendering historical events on screen; literary archetypes and generic conventions; race relations and the effect of class difference on character construction; how religion shapes personal and collective values; the role of a constantly changing technological universe; and the schism between individual and group-based power structures. The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott assembles the critical essays of scholars working in the fields of philosophy, literary studies, and cultural studies. An international group, they are based in the United States, Canada, Argentina, Italy, Greece, Korea, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. The guiding assumption on the part of all the writers is that the filmmaker is the leading determiner of a motion picture’s ethos, artistic vision, and potential for audience engagement. While not discounting the production team (including screenwriters, actors, and cinematographers, among others), auteur theory recognizes the seminal role of the director as the nucleus of the meaning-making process. With Scott an active and prolific presence in the entertainment industry today, the timeliness of this volume is optimal.
Download or read book Motion Pictures written by University of California, Los Angeles. Library and published by Boston : G. K. Hall. This book was released on 1976 with total page 814 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Catalog of Copyright Entries Part 1 C Group 3 Dramatic Composition and Motion Pictures New Series written by Library of Congress. Copyright Office and published by . This book was released on 1946 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Race and Arab Americans Before and After 9 11 written by Amaney Jamal and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2008-02-27 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing the rich terrain of Arab American histories to bear on conceptualizations of race in the United States, this groundbreaking volume fills a critical gap in the field of U.S. racial and ethnic studies. The articles collected here highlight emergent discourses on the distinct ways that race matters to the study of Arab American histories and experiences and asks essential questions. What is the relationship between U.S. imperialism in Arab homelands and anti-Arab racism in the United States? In what ways have the axes of nation, religion, class, and gender intersected with Arab American racial formations? What is the significance of whiteness studies to Arab American studies? Transcending multiculturalist discourses that have simply added on the category “Arab-American” to the landscape of U.S. racial and ethnic studies after the attacks of September 11, 2001, this volume locates September 11 as a turning point, rather than as a beginning, in Arab Americans’
Download or read book Saying It With Songs written by Katherine Spring and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-11 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hollywood's conversion from silent to synchronized sound film production not only instigated the convergence of the film and music industries but also gave rise to an extraordinary period of songs in American cinema. Saying It With Songs considers how the increasing interdependence of Hollywood studios and Tin Pan Alley music publishing firms influenced the commercial and narrative functions of popular songs. While most scholarship on film music of the period focuses on adaptations of Broadway musicals, this book examines the functions of songs in a variety of non-musical genres, including melodramas, romantic comedies, Westerns, prison dramas, and action-adventure films, and shows how filmmakers tested and refined their approach to songs in order to reconcile the spectacle of song performance, the classical norms of storytelling, and the conventions of background orchestral scoring from the period of silent cinema. Written for film and music scholars alike as well as for general readers, Saying It With Songs illuminates the origins of the popular song score aesthetic of American cinema.
Download or read book The National Union Catalog Pre 1956 Imprints written by and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 782 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Stars and Silhouettes written by Joceline Andersen and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Extensive account of the cameo’s production history and how audiences affirm their mastery of celebrity culture. Stars and Silhouettes: The History of the Cameo Role in Hollywood traces the history of the cameo as it emerged in twentieth-century cinema. Although the cameo has existed in film culture for over a century, Joceline Andersen explains that this role cannot be strictly defined because it exists as a constellation of interactions between duration and recognition, dependent on who is watching and when. Even audiences of the twenty-first century who are inundated by the lives of movie stars and habituated to images of their personal friends on screens continue to find cameos surprising and engaging. Cameos reveal the links between our obsession with celebrity and our desire to participate in the powerful cultural industries within contemporary society. Chapter 1 begins with the cameo’s precedents in visual culture and the portrait in particular—from the Vitagraph executives in the 1910s to the emergence of actors as movie stars shortly after. Chapter 2 explores the fan-centric desire for behind-the-scenes visions of Hollywood that accounted for the success of cameo-laden, Hollywood-set films that autocratic studios used to make their glamorous line-up of stars as visible as possible. Chapter 3 traces the development of the cameo in comedy, where cameos began to show not only glimpses of celebrities at their best but also of celebrities at their worst. Chapter 4 examines how the television guest spot became an important way for stars and studios to market both their films and stars from other media in trades that reflected an increasingly integrated mediascape. In Chapter 5, Andersen examines auteur cameos and the cameo as a sign of authorship. Director cameos reaffirm the fan’s interest in the film not just as a stage for actors but as a forum for the visibility of the director. Cameos create a participatory space for viewers, where recognizing those singled out among extras and small roles allows fans to demonstrate their knowledge. Stars and Silhouettes belongs on the shelf of every scholar, student, and reader interested in film history and star studies.
Download or read book Who Owns the Media written by Benjamin M. Compaine and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2000-07-13 with total page 629 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This long-awaited third edition analyzes corporate ownership of major media, including television, film, on-line, and print, and includes primary influences, government's roles, and key criteria for evaluating the current state of media ownership.
Download or read book To Be an Actress written by Yiman Wang and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2024-06-25 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Between 1919 and 1961, pioneering Chinese American actress Anna May Wong established an enduring legacy that encompassed cinema, theater, radio, and American television. Born in Los Angeles, yet with her US citizenship scrutinized due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, Wong—a defiant misfit—innovated nuanced performances to subvert the racism and sexism that beset her life and career. In this critical study of Wong's cross-media and transnational career, Yiman Wang marshals extraordinary archival research and a multifocal approach to illuminate a lifelong labor of performance. Viewing Wong as a performer and worker, not just a star, To Be an Actress adopts a feminist decolonial perspective to speculatively meet her as an interlocutor while inviting a reconsideration of racialized, gendered, and migratory labor as the bedrock of the entertainment industries.
Download or read book Plunkett s Entertainment and Media Industry Almanac written by Jack W. Plunkett and published by Plunkett Research, Ltd.. This book was released on 2007 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The electronic age is bringing sweeping changes to entertainment and media of all kinds, including publishing, broadcasting and film. Multimedia, the Internet and other digital media outlets for entertainment and information are being refined at a rapid rate. Media giants are merging and making big acquisitions. This book covers these exciting developments and provides profiles on hundreds of leading firms in film, radio, television, cable, new media, and publishing of all types including books, magazines and newspapers. It contains thousands of contacts for business and industry leaders, industry associations, Internet sites and other resources. You'll get in-depth profiles of nearly 400 of the world's top Entertainment & Media firms: our own unique list of companies that are the leaders in this field. Here you'll find complete profiles of the hot companies that are making news today, the largest, most successful corporations in all facets of the Entertainment and Media Business, from broadcasters to film production companies, casino operators to theme park companies, publishers of books and magazines to video game designers, and much more. Our corporate profiles include executive contacts, growth plans, financial records, address, phone, fax and much more. This innovative book offers unique information, all indexed and cross-indexed more for each firm! Our industry analysis section provides an exceptional discussion of business and market trends. The book includes statistical tables covering revenues for several industry sectors.
Download or read book The Quest For Graham Greene written by W. J. West and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: W.J. West has unearthed and pieced together all-new material regarding Graham Greene, which sheds light into the darker regions of Greene's personal, religious, financial, and international affairs. Based on information gleaned from private archives and a cache of letters belonging to thriller writer Rene Raymond (known to his reading public as James Hadley Chase) West exposes, among other information, the reasons behind Greene's sudden, self-imposed exile from England. What the Chase letters show is that Greene and Chase shared the same tax consultant and that the two men, along with Charlie Chaplin and Noel Coward, became unwittingly embroiled in a tax evasion and fraud operation scandal with roots in the Hollywood mafia. Through further investigation, West also uncovers the origins of Greene's literary ambitions and his obsession with Catholicism, as well as new discoveries concerning Greene's crucial mental breakdown as a teenager. West also reveals more information on Greene's involvement with espionage, M16, and his ties with Kim Philby.
