Download or read book Fay Wray and Robert Riskin written by Victoria Riskin and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (Biography) A Hollywood love story, a Hollywood memoir, a dual biography of two of Hollywood’s most famous figures, whose golden lives were lived at the center of Hollywood’s golden age, written by their daughter, an acclaimed writer and producer. Fay Wray was most famous as the woman—the blonde in a diaphanous gown—who captured the heart of the mighty King Kong, the twenty-five-foot, sixty-ton gorilla, as he placed her, nestled in his eight-foot hand, on the ledge of the 102-story Empire State Building, putting Wray at the height of New York’s skyline and cinematic immortality. Wray starred in more than 120 pictures opposite Hollywood's biggest stars—Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper (The Legion of the Condemned, The First Kiss, The Texan, One Sunday Afternoon), Clark Gable, William Powell, and Charles Boyer; from cowboy stars Hoot Gibson and Art Accord to Ronald Colman (The Unholy Garden), Claude Rains, Ralph Richardson, and Melvyn Douglas. She was directed by the masters of the age, from Fred Niblo, Erich von Stroheim (The Wedding March), and Mauritz Stiller (The Street of Sin) to Leo McCarey, William Wyler, Gregory La Cava, “Wild Bill” William Wellman, Merian C. Cooper (The Four Feathers, King Kong), Josef von Sternberg (Thunderbolt), Dorothy Arzner (Behind the Make-Up), Frank Capra (Dirigible), Michael Curtiz (Doctor X), Raoul Walsh (The Bowery), and Vincente Minnelli. The book’s—and Wray’s—counterpart: Robert Riskin, considered one of the greatest screenwriters of all time. Academy Award–winning writer (nominated for five), producer, ten-year-long collaborator with Frank Capra on such pictures as American Madness, It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, and Meet John Doe, hailed by many, among them F. Scott Fitzgerald, as “among the best screenwriters in the business.” Riskin wrote women characters who were smart, ornery, sexy, always resilient, as he perfected what took full shape in It Happened One Night, the Riskin character, male or female—breezy, self-made, streetwise, optimistic, with a sense of humor that is subtle and sure. Fay Wray and Robert Riskin lived large lives, finding each other after establishing their artistic selves and after each had had many romantic attachments—Wray, an eleven-year-long difficult marriage and a fraught affair with Clifford Odets, and Riskin, a series of romances with, among others, Carole Lombard, Glenda Farrell, and Loretta Young. Here are Wray’s and Riskin’s lives, their work, their fairy-tale marriage that ended so tragically. Here are their dual, quintessential American lives, ultimately and blissfully intertwined.

Download or read book The Films of Fay Wray written by Roy Kinnard and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Widely acclaimed as a horror movie actress, Fay Wray is best remembered for her performances in King Kong and four other classic 1930s film thrillers, Doctor X, The Most Dangerous Game, Mystery of the Wax Museum and The Vampire Bat. Yet her film career encompassed much more than these memorable turns as a damsel in distress. Wray appeared in 77 feature films between 1925 and 1958, playing leading roles in 67 of these. Sadly, the true breadth of Wray's film career is not readily apparent today, as many of her films, including her entire silent film output, have been lost or are available only on a limited archival basis. This heavily illustrated filmography of Wray's work at last makes obvious her sizeable contribution to the film industry. It begins with an overview of her professional acting career, from her period of great demand after the making of King Kong to her gradual decline in the late 1930s. The filmography is divided into three sections that describe and discuss the complete collection of Fay Wray's films. The first section introduces Wray's early silent feature film appearances; the second covers her ?leading lady? period in popular horror thrillers and other films in the sound era; and the third covers her latter-day supporting roles. Two appendices document her work in theatrical film shorts and her television appearances. Commentary throughout also includes first-person interviews with Fay Wray.

Download or read book The Films of Fay Wray written by Roy Kinnard and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-07-11 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Widely acclaimed as a horror movie actress, Fay Wray is best remembered for her performances in King Kong and four other classic 1930s film thrillers, Doctor X, The Most Dangerous Game, Mystery of the Wax Museum and The Vampire Bat. Yet Wray appeared in 77 feature films between 1925 and 1958, playing leading roles in 67. Many of her films, including her entire silent film output, have been lost or are available only on a limited basis. This heavily illustrated filmography at last makes obvious her sizeable contribution to the film industry. After an overview of her professional acting career, the filmography is divided into three sections. The first introduces Wray's early silent feature film appearances; the second covers her "leading lady" period in popular horror thrillers and other films in the sound era; and the third covers her latter-day supporting roles. Appendices document her work in film shorts and her television appearances. Commentary throughout includes first-person interviews with Fay Wray.

Download or read book The Red Devil Battery Sign written by Tennessee Williams and published by Dramatists Play Service Inc. This book was released on 1988 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is William's symbol for the military-industrial complex and all the dehumanizing trends it represents from mindless cocktail party chatter to bribery of officials to assassination plots directed against those who won't play the game, to attempted coups by right-wing zealots.

Download or read book Fay Wray 188 Success Facts Everything You Need to Know about Fay Wray written by Fred Flowers and published by Emereo Publishing. This book was released on 2014-06-11 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An updated Fay Wray interpretation. This book is your ultimate resource for Fay Wray. Here you will find the most up-to-date 188 Success Facts, Information, and much more. In easy to read chapters, with extensive references and links to get you to know all there is to know about Fay Wray's Early life, Career and Personal life right away. A quick look inside: Maurice Elvey - Biography, The Clairvoyant - Cast, Celebrity doll - Various Celebrity Dolls, Adam Had Four Sons - Cast, Arrowsmith (novel) - Film, radio and television adaptations, Dirigible (film) - Plot, Screen Directors Playhouse - Television, Isn't Life Terrible? - Cast, The Music Box - Location, The Legion of the Condemned, The Stolen Jools - Cast, as listed in end credits, The Richest Girl in the World (1934 film) - Plot, Mary Brian - Career rise, The Pride of the Family, King Kong (1933 film) - Fay Wray, H. C. McNeile - Post-war years, General Electric Theatre - Television guest stars, Street of Sin - Cast, Dolores del Rio - Silent films, Viva Villa, King Kong in popular culture - King Kong from the 1950s to the 1970s, Rudy Vallee - Radio, Damsel in distress - From Victorian melodrama to movie serials, Henry Fonda - Late career, Edward Small - Unmade Films, Tol Avery, Sinclair Lewis - Plays, Wallace Beery - Transition to sound, Wallace Beery - Selected filmography, Debbie Reynolds - Filmography, King Kong (1933 film) - Plot, Viva Villa! - Cast, Rachel Nichols (actress) - 2006-present, The Vampire Bat - Cast, The Wedding March (1928 film) - Cast, Frank Ferguson, List of American actresses - W, The Most Dangerous Game (film) - Plot, Pert Kelton - Films, King Kong (2005 film) - References to earlier versions of King Kong, and much more...

Download or read book Science Fiction Serials written by Roy Kinnard and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-08-13 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Destination Moon; George Pal's 1950 Technicolor epic, is generally cited as the first noteworthy science fiction film. Usually ignored or casually dismissed in genre histories are the serials, the low-budget chapterplays exhibited as Saturday matinee fare and targeted almost exclusively at children. Lacking stars and top-notch writers or directors, the serials went largely unnoticed and unacknowledged by either critics or by the film industry. Yet serials were financially important to the Hollywood studios, and were often free to exploit risky or outlandish subjects that producers of "distinguished" movies would not touch. Influential serials such as The Phantom Empire (1935) and Flash Gordon (1936) finally brought science fiction themes to the big screen. Those serials and 29 others are exhaustively covered in this work, which provides complete cast and credit information along with plot descriptions and historical commentary for each serial. Video distributors (if available) are also listed.

Download or read book The Making of King Kong written by George E. Turner and published by Pulp Hero Press. This book was released on 2018-09-22 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Definitive King Kong. In this updated and expanded edition, the story of Universal's 1933 classic film *King Kong* is fully told, from the biographies of its creators and the challenges in its production, to the many "gorilla" films that followed. With over 100 photos.

Download or read book King Kong written by Edgar Wallace and published by Modern Library. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The original novelization of King Kong, featuring a new introduction by Jack Thorne, the Tony-winning playwright of King Kong: Alive on Broadway, and cover art by the celebrated Olly Moss The giant primeval gorilla King Kong is one of the most recognized images in our culture. So great is the mighty Kong’s hold on the popular imagination that his story has inspired an entire cinematic universe. Now the legendary monster comes to the stage in the brand-new musical King Kong: Alive on Broadway. Beneath King Kong’s cultural significance, however, is a tense and surprisingly tender story. One cannot help but be frightened by Kong’s uncontrollable fury, be saddened over the giant’s capture, mistreatment, and exploitation by venal showmen, or sympathize with the beast’s ill-fated affection for the down-on-her-luck starlet Ann Darrow. With a foreword by Mark Cotta Vaz, the preeminent biographer of Merian C. Cooper, producer of the original 1933 classic film.

Download or read book Gideon s Trumpet written by Anthony Lewis and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-09-14 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic bestseller from a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist that tells the compelling true story of one man's fight for the right to legal counsel for every defendent. A history of the landmark case of Clarence Earl Gideon's fight for the right to legal counsel. Notes, table of cases, index. The classic backlist bestseller. More than 800,000 sold since its first pub date of 1964.

Download or read book The Flash Gordon Serials 1936 1940 written by Roy Kinnard and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-05-20 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flash Gordon, Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, the most expensive and popular movie serials ever made, have been favorites of movie and comic fans for decades. The original 1936 serial, designated a cultural treasure, was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry in 1996. Arranged in a chapter-by-chapter format conforming to the structure of the three original serials, the work provides full cast and crew information, plot synopses, and production notes for all 40 episodes. The work also has a wealth of background information and 159 photographs, along with comments from cast members interviewed--Buster Crabbe, Jean Rogers, and Carroll Borland. Appendices provide an overview of the serial Buck Rogers (1939), select filmographies for 50 of the most prominent Flash Gordon cast and crew, and a complete list of the serials' film and television remakes.

Download or read book Six Screenplays written by Robert Riskin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 772 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Screenwriter Robert Riskin (1897-1955) was a towering figure even among the giants of Hollywood's Golden Age. Known for his unique blend of humor and romance, wisecracking and idealism, Riskin teamed with director Frank Capra to produce some of his most memorable films. Pat McGilligan has collected six of the best Riskin scripts: Platinum Blonde (1931), American Madness (1932), It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Lost Horizon (1937), and Meet John Doe (1941). All of them were directed by Capra, and although Capra's work has been amply chronicled and celebrated, Riskin's share in the collaboration has been overlooked since his death. McGilligan provides the "backstory" for the forgotten half of the team, indispensable counterpoint to the director's self-mythologizing autobiography--and incidentally the missing link in any study of Capra's career. Riskin's own career, although interrupted by patriotic duty and cut short by personal tragedy, produced as consistent, entertaining, thoughtful, and enduring a body of work as any Hollywood writer's. Those who know and love these vintage films will treasure these scripts. McGilligan's introduction offers new information and insights for fans, scholars, and general readers.

Download or read book Fay Wray and Robert Riskin written by Victoria Riskin and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2019 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The daughter of the actress best known for "King Kong" and the screenwriter for "It Happened One Night" presents a dual memoir that describes her parents' lives and work, her father's collaborations with Frank Capra, and his early death.

Download or read book The Films of Douglas Sirk written by Tom Ryan and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2019-05-23 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Best known for powerful 1950s melodramas like All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind, The Tarnished Angels, and Imitation of Life, Douglas Sirk (1897–1987) brought to all his work a distinctive style that led to his reputation as one of twentieth-century film’s great directors. Sirk worked in Europe during the 1930s, mainly for Germany’s UFA studios, and then in America in the 1940s and ’50s. The Films of Douglas Sirk: Exquisite Ironies and Magnificent Obsessions provides an overview of his entire career, including Sirk’s work on musicals, comedies, thrillers, war movies, and westerns. One of the great ironists of the cinema, Sirk believed rules were there to be broken. Whether defying the decrees of Nazi authorities trying to turn film into propaganda or arguing with studios that insisted characters’ problems should always be solved and that endings should always restore order, what Sirk called “emergency exits” for audiences, Sirk always fought for his vision. Offering fresh insights into all of the director’s films and situating them in the culture of their times, critic Tom Ryan also incorporates extensive interview material drawn from a variety of sources, including his own conversations with the director. Furthermore, his enlightening study undertakes a detailed reconsideration of the generally overlooked novels and plays that served as sources for Sirk’s films, as well as providing a critical survey of previous Sirk commentary, from the time of the director’s “rediscovery” in the late 1960s up to the present day.

Download or read book Fay written by William Wegman and published by Hyperion. This book was released on 1999-11-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With family photos, video and film stills, and studio photos never before published, Fay captures the collaborative spirit and amazing artistic outpouring of Wegman and his extraordinary companion. Their relationship spanned ten years during which time Fay became as well known to the art world as her canine predecessor, Man Ray. Motherhood brought Fay new concerns and Wegman a wealth of new characters. In 1989 she was joined in the studio by three of her puppies. What followed was a flowering of dramatic roles for Fay and her offspring in a wide range of books and videos for children.

Download or read book King Kong Is Back written by David Brin and published by Benbella Books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ** COMPLETELY UNAUTHORIZED ** Kong fans will go bananas over this collection of essays on one of film's most powerful and evocative figures. Experts in the fields of race, gender, evolution, special effects, and film explore the legend of King Kong from every angle in this study of the magical and unparalleled original film. From Why has King Kong affected the American consciousness so profoundly? to What does the story say about race, gender, and sexuality? and Why have the sequels failed to re-create the original's allure?, the essayists examine all aspects of this landmark film and its impact on society, culture, and media. Insights into the new version, due out this year by acclaimed Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, are also included.

Download or read book The Dawn of Technicolor 1915 1935 written by James Layton and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Traces the first two decades of the Technicolor Corporation and the development of its two-color motion picture process, using such resources as corporate documents, studio production files, contemporary accounts, and unpublished interviews. Includes annotated filmography of all two-color Technicolor titles produced between 1915 and 1935"--

Download or read book The Hollywood Beauties written by James Robert Parish and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: