Download or read book The Joker written by Matthew Manning and published by Universe. This book was released on 2011-10-11 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the character of the Joker and his significance as the quintessential villain.

Download or read book Joe E Brown written by Wes D. Gehring and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-12-24 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a young boy in the depths of the 1890s depression, Joe E. Brown had a job: making faces at the firemen on passing coal-burning trains so they would throw coal at him. As a child he also worked as a circus acrobat and newsboy. His inventiveness and spunk helped his family get through hard times but also fueled his fascination with entertainment, and he built up a repertoire of rubber-faced expressions and funny antics that would make his stage and screen work memorable. Baseball was a favorite pursuit in his life and thus a recurring theme in his films and skits. In this biography--the first on one of the top film comedians of the 1930s--the reader learns of Joe's challenging childhood and how it prepared him for later screen roles, and how his love of baseball translated into screen successes. His early career in vaudeville is discussed, his work as a Broadway comedian in the Roaring Twenties, his road to movie stardom, and how he parlayed his love of sports into big hits like 1930's Elmer the Great. The year 1935 gets its own chapter; its films are considered the pinnacle of Brown's career, including Alibi Ike, Bright Lights and A Midsummer Night's Dream. The final chapters reveal what happened after he left Warner Bros., including the bittersweet 1940s, when he entertained troops around the globe while mourning a son lost to the war. The book concludes with a comprehensive filmography of his features from 1928 to 1963.

Download or read book Film Clowns of the Depression written by Wes D. Gehring and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-11-21 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1930s are routinely considered sound film's greatest comedy era. Though this golden age encompassed various genres of laughter, clown comedy is the most basic type. This work examines the Depression decade's most popular type of comedy--the clown, or personality comedian. Focusing upon the Depression era, the study filters its analysis through twelve memorable pictures. Each merits an individual chapter, in which it is critiqued. The films are deemed microcosmic representatives of the comic world and discussed in this context. While some of the comedians in this text have generated a great deal of previous analysis, funnymen like Joe E. Brown and Eddie Cantor are all but forgotten. Nevertheless, they were comedy legends in their time, and their legacy, as showcased in these movies, merits rediscovery by today's connoisseur of comedy. Even this book's more familiar figures, such as Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers, are often simply relegated to being recognizable pop culture icons whose work has been neglected in recent years. This book attempts to address these oversights and to re-expose the brilliance and ingenuity with which the screen clowns contributed a comic resiliency that was desperately needed during the Depression and can still be greatly appreciated today. The films discussed are City Lights (1931, Chaplin), The Kid From Spain (1932, Cantor), She Done Him Wrong (1933, Mae West), Duck Soup (1933, Marx Brothers), Sons of the Desert (1933, Laurel and Hardy), Judge Priest (1934, Will Rogers), It's a Gift (1934, W.C. Fields), Alibi Ike (1935, Brown), A Night at the Opera (1935, Marx Brothers), Modern Times (1936, Chaplin), Way Out West (1937, Laurel and Hardy), and The Cat and the Canary (1939, Bob Hope).

Download or read book Clown Prince of Hollywood written by Bob Thomas and published by McGraw-Hill Companies. This book was released on 1990 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the life and career of the influential producer, shares the impressions of those who worked with him, and surveys Warner Brothers films.

Download or read book Reagan written by Bob Spitz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 913 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times bestselling biographer Bob Spitz, a full and rich biography of an epic American life, capturing what made Ronald Reagan both so beloved and so transformational. More than five years in the making, based on hundreds of interviews and access to previously unavailable documents, and infused with irresistible storytelling charm, Bob Spitz's REAGAN stands fair to be the first truly post-partisan biography of our 40th President, and thus a balm for our own bitterly divided times. It is the quintessential American triumph, brought to life with cinematic vividness: a young man is born into poverty and raised in a series of flyspeck towns in the Midwest by a pious mother and a reckless, alcoholic, largely absent father. Severely near-sighted, the boy lives in his own world, a world of the popular books of the day, and finds his first brush with popularity, even fame, as a young lifeguard. Thanks to his first great love, he imagines a way out, and makes the extraordinary leap to go to college, a modest school by national standards, but an audacious presumption in the context of his family's station. From there, the path is only very dimly lit, but it leads him, thanks to his great charm and greater luck, to a solid career as a radio sportscaster, and then, astonishingly, fatefully, to Hollywood. And the rest, as they say, is history. Bob Spitz's REAGAN is an absorbing, richly detailed, even revelatory chronicle of the full arc of Ronald Reagan's epic life - giving full weight to the Hollywood years, his transition to politics and rocky but ultimately successful run as California governor, and ultimately, of course, his iconic presidency, filled with storm and stress but climaxing with his peace talks with the Soviet Union that would serve as his greatest legacy. It is filled with fresh assessments and shrewd judgments, and doesn't flinch from a full reckoning with the man's strengths and limitations. This is no hagiography: Reagan was never a brilliant student, of anything, and his disinterest in hard-nosed political scheming, while admirable, meant that this side of things was left to the other people in his orbit, not least his wife Nancy; sometimes this delegation could lead to chaos, and worse. But what emerges as a powerful signal through all the noise is an honest inherent sweetness, a gentleness of nature and willingness to see the good in people and in this country, that proved to be a tonic for America in his time, and still is in ours. It was famously said that FDR had a first-rate disposition and a second-rate intellect. Perhaps it is no accident that only FDR had as high a public approval rating leaving office as Reagan did, or that in the years since Reagan has been closing in on FDR on rankings of Presidential greatness. Written with love and irony, which in a great biography is arguably the same thing, Bob Spitz's masterpiece will give no comfort to partisans at either extreme; for the rest of us, it is cause for celebration.

Download or read book The Hollywood Story written by Joel Waldo Finler and published by Wallflower Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fully revised and updated edition of an award-winning classic traces the history of Hollywood from the silent era to the present day. The Hollywood Storycomprehensively covers every aspect of movie-making in America, taking in nickelodeans, drive-ins and multiplexes; the transition from silent to sound, black and white to color; the relationships of producers, directors, stars and technicians; and the function and output of the studios - their major hits and most expensive flops.

Download or read book The Joker written by Robert Moses Peaslee and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2015-02-26 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Along with Batman, Spider-Man, and Superman, the Joker stands out as one of the most recognizable comics characters in popular culture. While there has been a great deal of scholarly attention on superheroes, very little has been done to understand supervillains. This is the first academic work to provide a comprehensive study of this villain, illustrating why the Joker appears so relevant to audiences today. Batman's foe has cropped up in thousands of comics, numerous animated series, and three major blockbuster feature films since 1966. Actually, the Joker debuted in DC comics Batman 1 (1940) as the typical gangster, but the character evolved steadily into one of the most ominous in the history of sequential art. Batman and the Joker almost seemed to define each other as opposites, hero and nemesis, in a kind of psychological duality. Scholars from a wide array of disciplines look at the Joker through the lens of feature films, video games, comics, politics, magic and mysticism, psychology, animation, television, performance studies, and philosophy. As the first volume that examines the Joker as complex cultural and cross-media phenomenon, this collection adds to our understanding of the role comic book and cinematic villains play in the world and the ways various media affect their interpretation. Connecting the Clown Prince of Crime to bodies of thought as divergent as Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche, contributors demonstrate the frightening ways in which we get the monsters we need.

Download or read book Batman Three Jokers 2020 1 written by Geoff Johns and published by DC Comics. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirty years after Batman: The Killing Joke changed comics forever, Three Jokers reexamines the myth of who, or what, The Joker is and what is at the heart of his eternal battle with Batman. New York Times bestselling writer Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok, the writer/artist team that waged the “Darkseid War” in the pages of Justice League, reunite to tell the ultimate story of Batman and The Joker! After years of anticipation starting in DC Universe: Rebirth #1, the epic miniseries you’ve been waiting for is here: find out why there are three Jokers, and what that means for the Dark Knight and the Clown Prince of Crime. It’s a mystery unlike any Batman has ever faced! Thirty years after Batman: The Killing Joke changed comics forever, Three Jokers reexamines the myth of who, or what, The Joker is and what is at the heart of his eternal battle with Batman. New York Times bestselling writer Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok, the writer/artist team that waged the “Darkseid War” in the pages of Justice League, reunite to tell the ultimate story of Batman and The Joker! After years of anticipation starting in DC Universe: Rebirth #1, the epic miniseries you’ve been waiting for is here: find out why there are three Jokers, and what that means for the Dark Knight and the Clown Prince of Crime. It’s a mystery unlike any Batman has ever faced!

Download or read book Boys Life written by and published by . This book was released on 1997-02 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Boys' Life is the official youth magazine for the Boy Scouts of America. Published since 1911, it contains a proven mix of news, nature, sports, history, fiction, science, comics, and Scouting.

Download or read book The Joker 2021 6 written by James Tynion IV and published by DC Comics. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After barely surviving in the jungles of Belize, The Joker flees to Europe! Jim Gordon pursues the madman, but the seeds of doubt begin to sprout...if The Joker didn’t gas Arkham Asylum, who did? And what’s the next move for Vengeance, daughter of Bane? Backup: Punchline’s takeover of Blackgate Penitentiary continues as her most insidious goal becomes clear: find a woman she used to call her friend in her college days and make her pay for her betrayal. On the outside, Harper Row tries to pull her brother, Cullen, back from the brink of Jokerized radicalization!

Download or read book Day by Day in Jewish Sports History written by Bob Wechsler and published by KTAV Publishing House, Inc.. This book was released on 2008 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ultimate Jewish Sports History and Trivia Book.

Download or read book The Hidden Language of Baseball written by Paul Dickson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-05-26 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baseball is set apart from other sports by many things, but few are more distinctive than the intricate systems of coded language that govern action on the field and give baseball its unique appeal. During a nine-inning game, more than 1,000 silent instructions are given-from catcher to pitcher, coach to batter, fielder to fielder, umpire to umpire-and without this speechless communication the game would simply not be the same. Baseball historian Paul Dickson examines for the first time the rich legacy of baseball's hidden language, offering fans everywhere a smorgasbord of history and anecdote. Whether detailing the origins of the hit-and-run, the true story behind the home run that gave "Home Run" Baker his nickname, Bob Feller's sign-stealing telescope, Casey Stengel's improbable method of signaling his bullpen, the impact of sign stealing on the Giants' miraculous comeback in 1951, or the pitches Andy Pettitte tipped off that altered the momentum of the 2001 World Series, Dickson's research is as thorough as his stories are entertaining. A roster of baseball's greatest names and games, past and present, echoes throughout, making The Hidden Language of Baseball a unique window on the history of our national pastime.

Download or read book Business in Britain in the Twentieth Century written by Richard Coopey and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of fresh, incisive scholarship, by some of the leading business historians, critically examines the nature of economic recovery in Britain in recent years. Covering the key issues for business history in this period, the book confronts the traditional literature on conclusions of relative decline, and monocausal, simplistic explanations. It provides an impressive range of studies forming a platform for a new debate on the nature of British business in the 20th century. Themes include productivity, management, research and development, marketing, regional clusters and networks, industrial policy, the use of technology, and gender. Sector studies include newer, post-war hopefuls and successes including: * aerospace, * IT, * retail, * banking, * overseas investment, * the creative industries. The book demonstrates that our understanding of the historic strengths and weaknesses of business in Britain, and the shifting balance between sectors of the economy, has until now been poorly understood, and that British business history needs a fundamental reappraisal.

Download or read book Moving the Goalposts written by Martin Polley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-09-11 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martin Polley provides a survey of sport in Britain since 1945 and examines sport's place in British culture. He discusses issues of class, gender, race, commerce and politics, as well as analysing contemporary sport.

Download or read book Gender and the Superhero Narrative written by Michael Goodrum and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2018-10-01 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contributions by Dorian L. Alexander, Janine Coleman, Gabriel Gianola, Mel Gibson, Michael Goodrum, Tim Hanley, Vanessa Hemovich, Christina Knopf, Christopher McGunnigle, Samira Nadkarni, Ryan North, Lisa Perdigao, Tara Prescott-Johnson, Philip Smith, and Maite Ucaregui The explosive popularity of San Diego’s Comic-Con, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Rogue One, and Netflix’s Jessica Jones and Luke Cage all signal the tidal change in superhero narratives and mainstreaming of what were once considered niche interests. Yet just as these areas have become more openly inclusive to an audience beyond heterosexual white men, there has also been an intense backlash, most famously in 2015’s Gamergate controversy, when the tension between feminist bloggers, misogynistic gamers, and internet journalists came to a head. The place for gender in superhero narratives now represents a sort of battleground, with important changes in the industry at stake. These seismic shifts—both in the creation of superhero media and in their critical and reader reception—need reassessment not only of the role of women in comics, but also of how American society conceives of masculinity. Gender and the Superhero Narrative launches ten essays that explore the point where social justice meets the Justice League. Ranging from comics such as Ms. Marvel, Batwoman: Elegy, and Bitch Planet to video games, Netflix, and cosplay, this volume builds a platform for important voices in comics research, engaging with controversy and community to provide deeper insight and thus inspire change.

Download or read book A Brief History of Light and Those That Lit the Way written by Richard J. Weiss and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 1996 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Leonardo to Oppenheimer, from candles to lasers, from cave drawings to cinema, from Stonehenge to quantum mechanics, from Genesis to the Big Bang, light has filled our thoughts, our way of life, our aesthetics, our technology, and our means for survival. Richard Weiss leads us along these paths over the past 500 light years. The way is lit by pioneers such as Rembrandt, Einstein, D W Griffith, Newton, and Heisenberg." A Brief History Of Light, And Those That Lit The Way" is a summer''s day roller-coaster ride through five centuries of man''s achievements in understanding and manipulating light. Readership: General.

Download or read book The Little Red Book of Major League Baseball written by and published by . This book was released on 1947 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: