Download or read book Vaudeville old new written by Frank Cullen and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 1362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Celebrities in Los Angeles Cemeteries written by Allan R. Ellenberger and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2001-05-15 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In accord with the fascination that surrounds Hollywood celebrities and the increasing popularity of celebrity grave-hunting, this book serves as a guide to the final resting places of the many celebrities who are buried in Los Angeles County, California. It is arranged by cemetery, and provides the following information for each person: age at time of death; date and place of birth; date and place of death; cause of death; obituary headline of the deceased; inscription on grave marker; location of grave; and a film that the celebrity appeared in. Includes appendices, web site information, bibliography, and index.

Download or read book Moanin Low written by Ross Laird and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1996-11-25 with total page 762 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive guide to pre-1934 female popular vocal recordings sung in English—from around the world and including all styles—this discographical study includes solos, duets, trios, and quartets composed by the great songwriters of the early 1900s (from Irving Berlin to Victor Young). The majority of the listings includes material that has not been previously published, and a large number of entries profile such prolific artists as Helen Clark and Gladys Rice, who are not in previous discographies. A special feature includes data on sound-on-disc recording made for early talking-picture musical shorts (especially by Vitaphone) that is not documented elsewhere. A comprehensive title index includes composer credits for the majority of the titles listed. The first comprehensive guide to pre-1934 female popular vocal recordings sung in English—from around the world and including all styles—this discographical study includes solos, duets, trios, and quartets composed by the great songwriters of the early 1900s (from Irving Berlin to Victor Young). The majority of the listings includes material that has not been previously published, and a large number of entries profile such prolific artists as Helen Clark and Gladys Rice, who are not in previous discographies. A special feature includes data on sound-on-disc recording made for early talking-picture musical shorts (especially by Vitaphone) that is not documented elsewhere. A comprehensive title index includes composer credits for the majority of the titles listed. Many of the records documented in this volume are by the artists who introduced these songs at this time or who performed them in the original productions of the shows or movies for which they were written. The singing styles include those of cabaret performers, music-hall and vaudeville acts. Songs for the stage, screen, and radio are also included.

Download or read book The Sound of Silence written by Michael G. Ankerich and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2011-12-14 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marion Shilling began her career as a silent film ingenue for MGM and went on to play heroines in Westerns of the 1930s. Stage actress Esther Muir made the transition from Broadway to Hollywood just as talkies became popular. Hugh Allan was a leading man in the last years of the silents only to leave the film business in 1930 because of the uncertainty surrounding his transition to sound films and his disgust with studio politics. These three performers and thirteen others (Barbara Barondess, Thomas Beck, Mary Brian, Pauline Curley, Billie Dove, Edith Fellows, Rose Hobart, William Janney, Marcia Mae Jones, Barbara Kent, Anita Page, Lupita Tovar, and Barbara Weeks) reminisce here about Hollywood and the movie business as it made the transition.

Download or read book Anita Page written by Allan R. Ellenberger and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-02-12 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anita Page (1910-2008) first captured attention near the end of the silent film era in such classics as While the City Sleeps (1928) with Lon Chaney, The Flying Fleet (1929) with Ramon Novarro, and her own favorite, Our Dancing Daughters (1928) with Joan Crawford. In a relatively short career, Page enjoyed critical acclaim. She appeared in the first full-sound movie to win Best Picture, The Broadway Melody (1929). With a foreword by her close friend, actor Randal Malone, this reference work is the first to fully detail Page's remarkable career, including a biography and a complete listing of all her films, along with her one stage appearance and her returns to the limelight in later years. Entries provide complete production information, reviews and behind-the-scenes commentary. Dozens of photos and revealing anecdotes complete a portrait of a fascinating yet underappreciated performer.

Download or read book Mack Sennett s Fun Factory written by Brent E. Walker and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2010-01-13 with total page 673 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a comprehensive career study and filmography of Mack Sennett, cofounder of Keystone Studios, home of the Keystone Kops and other vehicles that showcased his innovative slapstick comedy. The filmography covers the more than 1,000 films Sennett produced, directed, wrote or appeared in between 1908 and 1955, including casts, credits, synopses, production and release dates, locations, cross-references of remade stories and gags, footage excerpted in compilations, identification of prints existing in archives, and other information. The book, featuring 280 photographs, also contains biographies of several hundred performers and technical personnel connected with Sennett.

Download or read book Marie Dressler written by Matthew Kennedy and published by McFarland. This book was released on 1999 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early in the century, Marie Dressler was hailed as one of America's finest comics, with a 20-year string of Broadway and vaudeville successes including The Lady Slavey, Miss Prinnt, Higgledy Piggledy, The Man in the Moon, and Tillie's Nightmare. She starred with Charlie Chaplin in the first ever feature-length comedy Tillie's Punctured Romance and later in Min and Bill for which she won an Academy Award. A brilliant comedienne in body, timing, inflection and reactions, her talents far exceeded the expectations of slapstick, and her movies earned sums far greater than those of Garbo, or Harlow, or even Gable. This work examines Dressler's life from vaudeville to talkies. Based on extensive research and interviews with Dressler's surviving friends, co-stars and colleagues, including Maureen O'Sullivan, Jackie Cooper and Anita Page, it details her public and personal successes and failures. A listing of her stage appearances, vocal recordings and films is included.

Download or read book Merchant Vessels of the United States including Yachts written by and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 1534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Jewish American Literature written by Jules Chametzky and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2001 with total page 1264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of Jewish-American literature written by various authors between 1656 and 1990.

Download or read book Comic Venus written by Kristen Anderson Wagner and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-05 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the social and historical significance of women’s contributions to American silent film comedy. For many people the term "silent comedy" conjures up images of Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp, Buster Keaton's Stoneface, or Harold Lloyd hanging precariously from the side of a skyscraper. Even people who have never seen a silent film can recognize these comedians at a glance. But what about the female comedians? Gale Henry, Louise Fazenda, Colleen Moore, Constance Talmadge—these and numerous others were wildly popular during the silent film era, appearing in countless motion pictures and earning top salaries, and yet their names have been almost entirely forgotten. As a consequence, recovering their history is all the more compelling given that they laid the foundation for generations of funny women, from Lucille Ball to Carol Burnett to Tina Fey. These women constitute an essential and neglected sector of film history, reflecting a turning point in women's social and political history. Their talent and brave spirit continues to be felt today, and Comic Venus: Women and Comedy in American Silent Film seeks to provide a better understanding of women's experiences in the early twentieth century and to better understand and appreciate the unruly and boundary-breaking women who have followed. The diversity and breadth of archival materials explored in Comic Venus illuminate the social and historical period of comediennes and silent film. In four sections, Kristen Anderson Wagner enumerates the relationship between women and comedy, beginning with the question of why historically women weren't seen as funny or couldn't possibly be funny in the public and male eye, a question that persists even today. Wagner delves into the idea of women's "delicate sensibilities," which presumably prevented them from being funny, and in chapter two traces ideas about feminine beauty and what a woman should express versus what these comedic women did express, as Wagner notes, "comediennes challenged the assumption that beauty was a fundamental component of ideal femininity." In chapter three, Wagner discusses how comediennes such as Clara Bow, Marie Dressler, and Colleen Moore used humor to gain recognition and power through performances of sexuality and desire. Women comedians presented "sexuality as fun and playful, suggesting that personal relationships could be fluid rather than stable." Chapter four examines silent comediennes' relationships to the modern world and argues that these women exemplified modernity and new womanhood. The final chapter of Comic Venus brings readers to understand comediennes and their impact on silent-era cinema, as well as their lasting influence on later generations of funny women. Comic Venus is the first book to explore the overlooked contributions made by comediennes in American silent film. Those with an interest in film and representations of femininity in comedy will be fascinated by the analytical connections and thoroughly researched histories of these women and their groundbreaking movements in comedy and stage.

Download or read book Marie Dressler written by Betty Lee and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-04-23 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " She was homely, overweight, and over the hill, but there was a time when Marie Dressler outdrew such cinema sex symbols as Garbo, Dietrich, and Harlow. To movie audiences suffering the hardships of the Great Depression, she was Everywoman, and in the early 1930s her charming mixture of pathos and comedy packed movie theaters everywhere. In the early days of the century, Dressler was constantly in the headlines. She took up the cause of the "ponies" in the chorus lines, earning them better pay and benefits. She played in productions organized to raise money for the women's suffrage movement. And during World War I she claimed she sold more liberty bonds than any other individual in the United States. Dressler was an astute observer of public mood and taste. When she was lucky enough to find work in the newly minted Hollywood talkies, she grabbed the brass ring with fierce enthusiasm, even making three films in the year before her death, when she was so sick she had to rest between scenes on a sofa just out of camera range. The two-hundred-pound actress's remarkable stage presence captivated audiences even though her roles were not Hollywood beauties. She played tough, practical characters such as the old wharf rat in Anna Christie (1930), the waterfront innkeeper in Min and Bill (1931) -- for which she won the Academy Award for best actress -- the aging housekeeper in Emma (1932), and the title role in Tugboat Annie (1933). She spoke honestly to her audiences, and troubled people in the comforting darkness of the Depression-era movie theaters embraced her as one of themselves.

Download or read book Exhibitors Daily Review written by and published by . This book was released on 1926 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book MGM written by Tino Balio and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-14 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The winner of the 2019 Peter C. Rollins Book Award This is the first comprehensive history of MGM from its origins in 1905 to the present. Following a straightforward chronology corresponding to specific periods of film industry history, each chapter describes how successive managements adjusted their production strategies and business practices in response to evolving industrial and market conditions. As the production subsidiary of the Loew’s Inc. theatre chain, MGM spent lavishly on its pictures and injected them with plenty of star power. The practice helped sustain MGM’s preeminent position during the heyday of Hollywood. But MGM was a conservative company and watched as other studios innovated with sound and widescreen, adjusted to television, and welcomed independent producers. By the 1960s, the company, sans its theatre chain, was in decline and was ripe for a takeover. A defining moment occurred in 1969, when Kirk Kerkorian, a Las Vegas entrepreneur, made a successful bid for the company. There followed a tumultuous thirty-six-year period when Kerkorian bought and sold MGM three times. Meanwhile, MGM never regained its former status and has functioned as a second-tier company to this day. Focusing on MGM’s top talent – such as Louis B. Mayer, Irving Thalberg, David O. Selznick, and Arthur Freed; directors King Vidor and Vincente Minnelli; and stars of the screen Greta Garbo, Judy Garland, Clark Gable, and Mickey Rooney – and award-winning films, this book highlights the studio’s artistic achievements and status within the industry.

Download or read book Motion Picture Herald written by and published by . This book was released on 1927 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Thrills Untapped written by Michael R. Pitts and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2019-01-10 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Giving deserved attention to nearly 150 neglected films, this book covers early sound era features, serials and documentaries with genre elements of horror, science fiction and fantasy, from major and minor studios and independents. Full credits, synopses, critical analyses and contemporary reviews are provided for The Blue Light, The Cat Creeps, College Scandal, Cosmic Voyage, The Dragon Murder Case, The Haunted Barn, Lost Gods, Murder in the Red Barn, The New Gulliver, Return of the Terror, Seven Footprints to Satan, S.O.S. Iceberg, While the Patient Slept, The White Hell of Pitz Palu and many others.

Download or read book Fanny Brice written by Herbert G. Goldman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1993-10-07 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I've done everything in the theatre except marry a property man," Fanny Brice once boasted. "I've acted for Belasco and I've laid 'em out in the rows at the Palace. I've doubled as an alligator; I've worked for the Shuberts; and I've been joined to Billy Rose in the holy bonds. I've painted the house boards and I've sold tickets and I've been fired by George M. Cohan. I've played in London before the king and in Oil City before miners with lanterns in their caps." Fanny Brice was indeed show business personified, and in this luminous volume, Herbert G. Goldman, acclaimed biographer of Al Jolson, illuminates the life of the woman who inspired the spectacularly successful Broadway show and movie Funny Girl, the vehicle that catapulted Barbra Streisand to super stardom. In a work that is both glorious biography and captivating theatre history, Goldman illuminates both Fanny's remarkable career on stage and radio--ranging from her first triumph as "Sadie Salome" to her long run as radio's "Baby Snooks"--and her less-than-triumphant personal life. He reveals a woman who was a curious mix of elegance and earthiness, of high and low class, a lady who lived like a duchess but cursed like a sailor. She was probably the greatest comedienne the American stage has ever known as well as our first truly great torch singer, the star of some of the most memorable Ziegfeld Follies in the 1910s and 1920s, and Goldman covers her theatrical career and theatre world in vivid detail. But her personal life, as Goldman shows, was less successful. The great love of her life, the gangster Nick Arnstein, was dashing, handsome, sophisticated, but at bottom, a loser who failed at everything from running a shirt hospital to manufacturing fire extinguishers, and who spent a good part of their marriage either hiding out, awaiting trial, or in prison. Her first marriage was over almost as soon as it was consummated, and her third and last marriage, to Billy Rose, the "Bantam Barnum," ended acrimoniously when Rose left her for swimmer Eleanor Holm. As she herself remarked, "I never liked the men I loved, and I never loved the men I liked." Through it all, she remained unaffected, intelligent, independent, and, above all, honest. Goldman's biography of Al Jolson has been hailed by critics, fellow biographers, and entertainers alike. Steve Allen called it "an amazing job of research" and added "Goldman's book brings Jolson back to life indeed." The Philadelphia Inquirer said it was "the most comprehensive biography to date," and Ronald J. Fields wrote that "Goldman has captured not only the wonderful feel of Al Jolson but the heartbeat of his time." Now, with Fanny Brice, Goldman provides an equally accomplished portrait of the greatest woman entertainer of that illustrious era, a volume that will delight every lover of the stage.

Download or read book The New Biographical Dictionary of Film written by David Thomson and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2010 with total page 1090 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomson (independent scholar), writing of The Biographical Dictionary of Film (aka A Biographical Dictionary of the Cinema, 1975 edition), described it as "a personal, opinionated, and obsessive biographical dictionary of the cinema." Thirty-five years and several editions later, that description still holds true of this expanded work. The new dictionary summarizes salient facts about its subjects' lives and discusses their film credits in terms of the quality of the filmmakers' work. In ambition it has competitors, including Leslie Halliwell's various editions of Halliwell's Filmgoers Companion (12th ed., 1997) and Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies, edited by John Walker (4th ed., rev. and updated, 2006), which cover films and technical terms (categories not included in Thomson's), but whose entries are neutral and exceedingly brief. Additionally, Francophile Richard Roud's edited Cinema: A Critical Dictionary: The Major Filmmakers (2 v., 1980) is as passionate a work as Thomson's, but narrower in scope, with entries written by various experts, rather than only by Roud. Finally, the multivolume magnum opus The International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers (4th ed., 2000, ed. by T. Pendergast and S. Pendergast; 2nd ed., ed. by N. Thomas, v. 1, CH, May'91; 1st ed., ed. by C. Lyon, v.1-2, CH, Jan'85, v.3, CH, Apr'87, v.4-5, CH, Jun'88) covers everything--films, directors, actors, writers, and production artists--with generous, measured, scholarly entries and lavish illustrations. However, it looms large and heavy, unlike the handy one-volume work by Thomson. Arguably, Thomson's work, for its scope, is the most fun, the most convenient, and the most engaging title. All libraries supporting people interested in film should buy it. It will get lots of use and provide very good value for the money. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. General Readers; Lower-division Undergraduates; Upper-division Undergraduates; Graduate Students; Researchers/Faculty; Professionals/Practitioners. Reviewed by C. Hendershott.