Download or read book Mamoulian written by David Luhrssen and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2013-01-25 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Armenian national raised in Russia, Rouben Mamoulian (1897--1987) studied in the influential Stanislavski studio, renowned as the source of the "method" acting technique. Shortly after immigrating to New York in 1926, he created a sensation with an all-black production of Porgy (1927). He then went on to direct the debut Broadway productions of three of the most popular shows in the history of American musical theater: Porgy and Bess (1935), Oklahoma! (1943), and Carousel (1945). Mamoulian began working in film just as the sound revolution was dramatically changing the technical capabilities of the medium, and he quickly established himself as an innovator. Not only did many of his unusual camera techniques become standard, but he also invented a device that eliminated the background noises created by cameras and dollies. Seen as a rebel earlier in his career, Mamoulian gradually gained respect in Hollywood, and the Directors Guild of America awarded him the prestigious D. W. Griffith Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1983. In this meticulously researched biography, David Luhrssen paints the influential director as a socially conscious artist who sought to successfully combine art and commercial entertainment. Luhrssen not only reveals the fascinating personal story of an important yet neglected figure, but he also offers a tantalizing glimpse into the extraordinarily vibrant American film and theater industries during the twenties, thirties, and forties.
Download or read book Film Genre written by Rick Altman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-07-25 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Film/Genre revises our notions of film genre and connects the roles played by industry critics and audiences in making and re-making genre. Altman reveals the conflicting stakes for which the genre game has been played and recognises that the term 'genre' has different meanings for different groups, basing his new genre theory on the uneasy competitive yet complimentary relationship among genre users and discussing a huge range of films from The Great Train Robbery to Star Wars and from The Jazz Singer to The Player.
Download or read book The Camera Lies written by Dan Callahan and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alfred Hitchcock once famously remarked, "Actors are cattle." In The Camera Lies, Dan Callahan uncovers the sophisticated acting theory that lay beneath the director's notorious indifference towards his performers, spotlighting the great performances of deceit and duplicity he often coaxed from them.
Download or read book On My Way The Untold Story of Rouben Mamoulian George Gershwin and Porgy and Bess written by Joseph Horowitz and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-07-29 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A former New York Times music critic and award-winning author describes the contributions of the stage and film master director to Gershwin's classic American folk opera that originally premiered in 1935.
Download or read book Barbara Stanwyck written by Dan Callahan and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2012-02-03 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Barbara Stanwyck (1907–1990) rose from the ranks of chorus girl to become one of Hollywood's most talented leading women—and America's highest-paid woman in the mid-1940s. Shuttled among foster homes as a child, she took a number of low-wage jobs while she determinedly made the connections that landed her in successful Broadway productions. Stanwyck then acted in a stream of high-quality films from the 1930s through the 1950s. Directors such as Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang, and Frank Capra treasured her particular magic. A four-time Academy Award nominee, winner of three Emmys and a Golden Globe, she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Academy. Dan Callahan considers both Stanwyck's life and her art, exploring her seminal collaborations with Capra in such great films as Ladies of Leisure, The Miracle Woman, and The Bitter Tea of General Yen; her Pre-Code movies Night Nurse and Baby Face; and her classic roles in Stella Dallas, Remember the Night, The Lady Eve, and Double Indemnity. After making more than eighty films in Hollywood, she revived her career by turning to television, where her role in the 1960s series The Big Valley renewed her immense popularity. Callahan examines Stanwyck's career in relation to the directors she worked with and the genres she worked in, leading up to her late-career triumphs in two films directed by Douglas Sirk, All I Desire and There's Always Tomorrow, and two outrageous westerns, The Furies and Forty Guns. The book positions Stanwyck where she belongs—at the very top of her profession—and offers a close, sympathetic reading of her performances in all their range and complexity.
Download or read book Porgy written by DuBose Heyward and published by . This book was released on 1945 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Porgy written by DuBose Heyward and published by Bibliotech Press. This book was released on 1925 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Basis for light opera Porgy and Bess. Story of crippled Negro beggar and his friends and enemies in Charleston, S.C.
Download or read book A Steady Digression to a Fixed Point written by Rose Hobart and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hobart writes about the first 45 years of her life, including her childhood in New York, the start of her theatrical career in Chautauqua, her adventures as a Hollywood actress, the demise of three marriages, and her efforts to clear her name after being blacklisted in Hollywood. Of special interest is the sane perspective that Hobart, now 89, brings to her story and her attention to the connections that pull these seemingly disjointed events together into a coherent story of a life. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book Ah Wilderness written by Eugene O'Neill and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An affectionate and witty comedy of recollection from one of the twentieth century's most significant writers. This edition includes a full introduction, biographical sketch and chronology.
Download or read book A Life of Barbara Stanwyck written by Victoria Wilson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-11-24 with total page 1056 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “860 glittering pages” (Janet Maslin, The New York Times): The first volume of the full-scale astonishing life of one of our greatest screen actresses—her work, her world, her Hollywood through an American century. Frank Capra called her, “The greatest emotional actress the screen has yet known.” Now Victoria Wilson gives us the first volume of the rich, complex life of Barbara Stanwyck, an actress whose career in pictures spanned four decades beginning with the coming of sound (eighty-eight motion pictures) and lasted in television from its infancy in the 1950s through the 1980s. Here is Stanwyck, revealed as the quintessential Brooklyn girl whose family was in fact of old New England stock; her years in New York as a dancer and Broadway star; her fraught marriage to Frank Fay, Broadway genius; the adoption of a son, embattled from the outset; her partnership with Zeppo Marx (the “unfunny Marx brother”) who altered the course of Stanwyck’s movie career and with her created one of the finest horse breeding farms in the west; and her fairytale romance and marriage to the younger Robert Taylor, America’s most sought-after male star. Here is the shaping of her career through 1940 with many of Hollywood's most important directors, among them Frank Capra, “Wild Bill” William Wellman, George Stevens, John Ford, King Vidor, Cecil B. Demille, Preston Sturges, set against the times—the Depression, the New Deal, the rise of the unions, the advent of World War II, and a fast-changing, coming-of-age motion picture industry. And at the heart of the book, Stanwyck herself—her strengths, her fears, her frailties, losses, and desires—how she made use of the darkness in her soul, transforming herself from shunned outsider into one of Hollywood’s most revered screen actresses. Fifteen years in the making—and written with full access to Stanwyck’s family, friends, colleagues and never-before-seen letters, journals, and photographs. Wilson’s one-of-a-kind biography—“large, thrilling, and sensitive” (Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Town & Country)—is an “epic Hollywood narrative” (USA TODAY), “so readable, and as direct as its subject” (The New York Times). With 274 photographs, many published for the first time.
Download or read book My Life with Cleopatra written by Walter Wanger and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-06-04 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cleopatra faced countless problems during its filming and production: passionate casting disputes, broken contracts, a costly re-location from London to Rome, an emergency tracheotomy for its star, Elizabeth Taylor, scandal-ridden gossip surrounding relationships on set, and a budget of $2 million that ballooned to final costs of $44 million. Legendary producer Walter Wanger recalls the drama that occurred both on and off the set, including the incredible obstacles he had to overcome and the exhilaration of producing a cinematic triumph. A revealing story about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s tempestuous romance and an insightful filmmaker’s journal, now back in print for the 50th anniversary of Cleopatra’s release, My Life with Cleopatra shares the true story of the relationship and film that enthralled the world. “I have been told by responsible journalists that there was more world interest in Cleopatra, which I produced, and in its stars—Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Rex Harrison—than in any event of 1962.” —Walter Wanger
Download or read book Fredric March A Consummate Actor Hardback written by Charles Tranberg and published by BearManor Media. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the HARDBACK version. Fredric March (1897-1975) was one of the most dynamic and versatile actors of his time. On the screen he created memorable performances in such classic films as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Death Takes a Holiday, Les Miserables, A Star is Born, Nothing Sacred, One Foot in Heaven, The Adventures of Mark Twain, The Best Years of Our Lives, Death of a Salesman and Inherit the Wind. Along the way he was nominated five times for an Academy Award and won the coveted statuette twice. He had an equally distinguished career as a stage actor-appearing in such acclaimed Broadway productions as The Skin of Our Teeth and Long Day's Journey Into Night-winning two Tony Awards-including the very first presented to an actor. Despite this great record of success, Fredric March isn't as well remembered today as some of his peers (Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, James Stewart) because unlike them he never developed a recognizable screen persona that followed him from film to film. He was always characterizing-always hiding his own personality behind that of the character he was portraying. He was the consummate actor who richly deserves to be rediscovered.
Download or read book Fast talking Dames written by Maria DiBattista and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this acclaimed book, DiBattista paints vivid portraits of the grandest fast-talking dames of the 1930s and 1940s movie era including Katharine Hepburn, Irene Dunne, and Barbara Stanwyck. 39 illustrations.
Download or read book Lee Marvin written by Dwayne Epstein and published by IPG. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full-length, authoritative, and detailed story of the iconic actor's life to go beyond the Hollywood scandal-sheet reporting of earlier books, this account offers an appreciation for the man and his acting career and the classic films he starred in, painting a portrait of an individual who took great risks in his acting and career. Although Lee Marvin is best known for his icy tough guy roles—such as his chilling titular villain in The ManWho Shot Liberty Valance or the paternal yet brutally realistic platoon leader in The Big Red One—very little is known of his personal life; his family background; his experiences in WWII; his relationship with his father, family, friends, wives; and his ongoing battles with alcoholism, rage, and depression, occasioned by his postwar PTSD. Now, after years of researching and compiling interviews with family members, friends, and colleagues; rare photographs; and illustrative material, Hollywood writer Dwayne Epstein provides a full understanding and appreciation of this acting titan's place in the Hollywood pantheon in spite of his very real and human struggles.
Download or read book No Applause Just Throw Money written by Trav S.D. and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2006-10-31 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From 1881 to 1932, vaudeville was at the heart of show business in the UnitedStates. This volume explores the many ways in which vaudeville's story is thestory of show business in America.
Download or read book Dark Star written by Alan Strachan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-10-25 with total page 595 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Society for Theatre Research Book Prize 2020 Vivien Leigh was perhaps the most iconic actress of the twentieth century. As Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche Du Bois she took on some of the most pivotal roles in cinema history. Yet she was also a talented theatre actress with West End and Broadway plaudits to her name. In this ground-breaking new biography, Alan Strachan provides a completely new full-life portrait of Leigh, covering both her professional and personal life. Using previously unseen sources from her archive, recently acquired by the V&A, he sheds new light on her fractious relationship with Laurence Olivier, based on their letters and diaries, as well as on the bipolar disorder which so affected her later life and work. Revealing new aspects of her early life as well as providing glimpses behind-the-scenes of the filming of Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire, this book provides the essential and comprehensive life-story of one of the twentieth century's greatest actresses.
Download or read book Laura written by Vera Caspary and published by The Feminist Press at CUNY. This book was released on 2014-07-24 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The greatest noir romance of all time, Laura won lasting renown as an Academy Award-nominated 1944 film: “an intriguing melodrama. . . . A top-drawer mystery.” (The New York Times) A brutal murder. A tough detective. And a woman who kept men spellbound—even after her death. Laura Hunt was the ideal modern woman: beautiful, elegant, highly ambitious, and utterly mysterious. No man could resist her charms—not even the hardboiled NYPD detective sent to investigate her murder. As this cop probes the mystery of Laura’s death, he finds himself drawn to the mere idea of her. As the circumstances surrounding her death become more intriguing, he comes to a startling realization—he’s in love with a dead woman. But is she even dead? Vera Caspary’s equally haunting novel is remarkable for its stylish, hardboiled writing, its electrifying plot twists, and its darkly complex characters—including a woman who stands as the ultimate femme fatale. Femmes Fatales restores to print the best of women’s writing in the classic pulp genres of the mid-20th century. From mystery to hard-boiled noir to taboo lesbian romance, these rediscovered queens of pulp offer subversive perspectives on a turbulent era.
