Download or read book Hal Wallis Producer to the Stars written by Bernard F. Dick and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Few ships in American history have had as illustrious a history as the heavy cruiser USS Portland (CA-33), affectionately known by her crew as 'Sweet Pea.' With the destructionof most of the U.S. battleship fleet at Pearl Harbor, cruisers such as Sweet Pea carried the biggest guns the Navy possessed for nearly a year after the start of World War II. Sweet Pea at War describes in harrowing detail how Portland and her sisters protected the precious carriers and held the line against overwhelming Japanese naval strength. Portland was instrumental in the dramatic American victories at the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway, and the naval battle of Guadalcanal--conflicts that historians regard as turning points in the Pacific war. She rescued nearly three thousand sailors from sunken ships, some of them while she herself was badly damaged. Only a colossal hurricane ended her career, but she sailed home from that, too. Based on extensive research in official documents and interviews with members of the ship's crew, Sweet Pea at War recounts from launching to scrapping the history of USS Portland, demonstrating that she deserves to be remembered as one of the most important ships in U.S. naval history.
Download or read book Hal Wallis written by Bernard F. Dick and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-11-21 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hal Wallis (1898-1986) might not be as well known as David O. Selznick or Samuel Goldwyn, but the films he produced—Casablanca, Jezebel, Now, Voyager, The Life of Emile Zola, Becket, True Grit, and many other classics (as well as scores of Elvis movies)—have certainly endured. As producer of numerous films, Wallis made an indelible mark on the course of America's film industry, but his contributions are often overlooked. Bernard Dick offers the first comprehensive assessment of the producer's incredible career. A former office boy and salesman, Wallis first engaged with the film business as the manager of a Los Angeles movie theater in 1922. He attracted the notice of the Warner brothers, who hired him as a publicity assistant. Within three months he was director of the department, and appointments to studio manager and production executive quickly followed. Wallis went on to oversee dozens of productions and formed his own production company in 1944. Dick draws on numerous sources such as Wallis's personal production files and exclusive interviews with many of his contemporaries to finally tell the full story of his illustrious career. Dick combines his knowledge of behind-the-scenes Hollywood with fascinating anecdotes to create a portrait of one of Hollywood's early power players.
Download or read book Finding My Way written by Lois Simmie and published by Coteau Books. This book was released on 2019-09-01 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lois Simmie was born in Edam, Saskatchewan in 1932. Filled with awe and wonder at the bountiful and remarkable world unfolding around her Simmie takes us on the journey of her life and the events that shaped her into a writer. She describes her whimsical youth in Saskatchewan in a bygone era of Frank Sinatra on the radio, Amos ‘n’ Andy, the jitterbug, jazz, square dances, and Hollywood movies every Friday night in the town hall. Simmie’s magical delight in all things transports us through the Depression and war years to childhood summer visits to Hopkinsville, Kentucky in her relatives’ Gone With the Wind-style southern mansion, an adventure in the lush beauty of Brazil, and to Scotland while writing her first non-fiction book, The Secret Lives of Sgt. John Wilson, about the murder of a young Scottish woman by her RCMP husband. Simmie fell in love with words at a young age but it isn’t until later in life that she takes up her calling as a writer while living in Saskatoon. She describes the burgeoning Saskatchewan writing scene as “electric” as she enters an exciting community of like-minded writers and poets, a hotbed of creativity and inspiration that is the impetus of her finest writing and the culmination of an astonishing life story.
Download or read book Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood s Golden Age at the American Film Institute written by George Stevens, Jr. and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-05-27 with total page 734 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER'S 100 GREATEST FILM BOOKS OF ALL TIME • The first book to bring together interviews of master moviemakers from the American Film Institute’s renowned seminars, Conversations with the Great Moviemakers, offers an unmatched history of American cinema in the words of its greatest practitioners. Here are the incomparable directors Frank Capra, Elia Kazan, King Vidor, David Lean, Fritz Lang (“I learned only from bad films”), William Wyler, and George Stevens; renowned producers and cinematographers; celebrated screenwriters Ray Bradbury and Ernest Lehman; as well as the immortal Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini (“Making a movie is a mathematical operation. It’s absolutely impossible to improvise”). Taken together, these conversations offer uniquely intimate access to the thinking, the wisdom, and the genius of cinema’s most talented pioneers.
Download or read book Islam and Development written by John L. Esposito and published by Syracuse, N.Y. : Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 1980 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Islamic world stretches from North America to Southeast Asia and includes some forty independent states in which Muslims constitute a majority of the population. Islam has approximately 750 million adherents and, therefore, is the second largest of the world's religions. A distinctive feature of the Islamic tradition is the belief that Islam is a total, comprehensive way of life. Religion has an integral, organic relationship to politics and society. This Islamic ideal is reflected in the development of Islamic law which was a comprehensive law, encompassing a Muslim's duties to God (worship, fasting, pilgrimage) and duties to one's fellow man (family, commercial, and criminal laws). Therefore, the Islamic tradition provided a normative system in which religion was integral to all areas of Muslim life - politics, economics, law, education, and the family. In the twentieth century Muslim countries have faced formidable political and social challenges: the struggle for independence from colonial dominance, the formation and development of independent nation states with all the pressures and problems of modernization, the Arab‐ Israeli conflict, and more recently, the emergence of the oil-producing states as a major world economic power bloc. The history of Islam in the modern period reflects the continued interaction of the Islamic tradition with the forces of change. While Islam may be acknowledged as a significant force in the precolonial period and to varying degrees during the twentieth-century independence movements, the strength and interaction of Islam in sociopolitical change has often been overlooked or underestimated. For most observers, Islam was simply an obstacle to change, an obstacle whose relevance to the political and social order would increasingly diminish
Download or read book Errol Olivia written by Robert Matzen and published by Paladin Communications. This book was released on 2017-03-27 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: IPPY Award Bronze Medalist for Performing Arts Digging deep into the vaults of Warner Brothers and the collections of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as well as other private archives, this book explores the complex personal and professional relationship of Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Flynn, even 50 years after his death, continues to conjure up images to the prototypical handsome, charismatic ladies' man; while de Havilland, a two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner, is the last surviving star of Gone with the Wind. Richly illustrated with both color and black-and-white photos, most previously unpublished, this detailed history tells the sexy story of these two massive stars, both together and apart.
Download or read book Eighty Odd Years in Hollywood written by John Meredyth Lucas and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-11-18 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Meredyth Lucas, son of silent screen star and screenwriter Bess Meredyth (Ben-Hur, The Sea Beast, When a Man Loves, Don Juan) and stepson of renowned Hungarian-born director Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, Mildred Pierce, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Life with Father), came of age in Hollywood during the 1930s. Lucas went on to an impressive career of his own as a writer-producer-director. He made films with Hal Wallis, Ross Hunter, Walt Disney, and others, and he wrote, produced, and directed such classic television series as Mannix, The Fugitive and Star Trek. Completed shortly before his death in 2002, Lucas' memoir is filled with never-before-told recollections of many Hollywood greats and features previously unpublished photographs. With Lucas, we go behind the scenes, onto the studio lots and into the parties with family friends John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Errol Flynn and Jack Warner, to name just a few. It's a boy's-eye-view of Hollywood in a time of glamour, decadence, and the golden years of filmmaking.
Download or read book When Warners Brought Broadway to Hollywood 1923 1939 written by Martin Shingler and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-01-23 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a different take on the early history of Warner Bros., the studio renowned for introducing talking pictures and developing the gangster film and backstage musical comedy. The focus here is on the studio’s sustained commitment to produce films based on stage plays. This led to the creation of a stock company of talented actors, to the introduction of sound cinema, to the recruitment of leading Broadway stars such as John Barrymore and George Arliss and to films as diverse as The Gold Diggers (1923), The Marriage Circle (1924), Beau Brummel (1924), Disraeli (1929), Lilly Turner (1933), The Petrified Forest (1936) and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). Even the most crippling effects of the Depression in 1933 did not prevent Warners’ production of films based on stage plays, many being transformed into star vehicles for the likes of Ruth Chatterton, Leslie Howard and Bette Davis.
Download or read book Hollywood and the O K Corral written by Michael F. Blake and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-01-28 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lot can happen in 30 seconds. In the case of the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral, 30 seconds found three men dead, left two men wounded and ultimately captured the imagination of generations of Americans. Wyatt Earp, an against-all-odds hero who was literally the last man standing; Doc Holliday, Earp's unlikely crony; the tragic tale of the Earp family--all of these elements make the story of the O.K. Corral irresistible to a great many people. Hollywood filmmakers were quick to recognize the legend's attraction--and its potential. As early as 1939 (with the production of Frontier Marshal), moviemakers were recreating the gunfight at the O.K. Corral and its attendant happenings in Tombstone, Arizona, on October 26, 1881. The following decades produced various renderings of the story, some more historically accurate than others but all with the American flair for entertainment. This volume examines eight movie renderings of the legendary gunfight. Produced from 1939 to 1994, these movies each use Wyatt Earp and other real-life characters as their sources. The work focuses on the filmmakers' treatment of the history and the skill with which each balances fact with the necessity of entertainment. The ways in which Wyatt Earp is presented in each film and this portrayal's relationship to the period in which the film was made is also examined in detail. Films discussed are Frontier Marshal (1939), Tombstone: The Town Too Tough to Die (1942), My Darling Clementine (1946), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Hour of the Gun (1967), Doc (1971), Tombstone (1993), and Wyatt Earp (1994). Period photographs are also included.
Download or read book Inventing Elvis written by Mathias Haeussler and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-10 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elvis Presley stands tall as perhaps the supreme icon of 20th-century U.S. culture. But he was perceived to be deeply un-American in his early years as his controversial adaptation of rhythm and blues music and gyrating on-stage performances sent shockwaves through Eisenhower's conservative America and far beyond. This book explores Elvis Presley's global transformation from a teenage rebel figure into one of the U.S.'s major pop-cultural embodiments from a historical perspective. It shows how Elvis's rise was part of an emerging transnational youth culture whose political impact was heavily conditioned by the Cold War. As well as this, the book analyses Elvis's stint as G.I. soldier in West Germany, where he acted as an informal ambassador for the so-called American way of life and was turned into a deeply patriotic figure almost overnight. Yet, it also suggests that Elvis's increasingly synonymous identity with U.S. culture ultimately proved to be a double-edged sword, as the excesses of his superstardom and personal decline seemingly vindicated long-held stereotypes about the allegedly materialistic nature of U.S. society. Tracing Elvis's story from his unlikely rise in the 1950s right up to his tragic death in August 1977, this book offers a riveting account of changing U.S. identities during the Cold War, shedding fresh light on the powerful role of popular music and consumerism in shaping images of the United States during the cultural struggle between East and West.
Download or read book The Creative Producer written by David Lewis and published by Scarecrow Filmmakers Series. This book was released on 1993 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1938, Warner Brothers production chief Hal Wallis grudgingly described David Lewis--one of his six "supervisors" and a veteran of 15 feature films--to director Michael Curtiz: "That Lewis is a genius at getting scripts out of people who can't write " Wallis knew that writing ultimately defined the job of the creative producer and that David Lewis had an uncanny talent for coaxing the best filmic material from the screenwriters he supervised. In this memoir, Lewis describes his development as a production executive and how the associate producer helped make the famed studio system work. It was the producer (or "supervisor", at Warners) who saw the script budgeted, cast the film, helped choose the director, and gently influenced the filming itself. Once shooting was complete, it was the producer who stayed with the project through editing and previews. David Lewis (1903-1987) was an associate producer at RKO and later at MGM. He hit his stride at Warner Bros., where, between 1937 and 1942, he produced twelve films with such popular stars as James Cagney (Each Dawn I Die), Humphrey Bogart (It All Came True), Bette Davis (Dark Victory), Ronald Reagan (Kings Row), Errol Flynn (Four's a Crowd), and Charles Boyer (All This and Heaven Too). His films were nominated for a total of 15 Academy Awards, including three for Best Picture. Some of Lewis's films have rightfully become classics; all reflect an unerring instinct for character and structure, part of the filmmaking process he describes in The Creative Producer.
Download or read book Boxoffice Barometer Combined with Records written by and published by . This book was released on 1960 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Box Office written by and published by . This book was released on 1962 with total page 1350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Elvis Films FAQ written by Paul Simpson and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (FAQ). If Elvis Presley had not wanted to be a movie star, he would never have single-handedly revolutionized popular culture. Yet this aspect of his phenomenal career has been much maligned and misunderstood partly because the King himself once referred to his 33 movies as a rut he had got stuck in just off Hollywood Boulevard. Elvis Films FAQ explores his best and worst moments as an actor, analyzes the bizarre autobiographical detail that runs through so many of his films, and reflects on what it must be like to be idolized by millions around the world yet have to make a living singing about dogs, chambers of commerce, and fatally naive shrimps. Elvis's Hollywood years are full of mystery, and Elvis Films FAQ covers them all! Which of his own movies did he actually like? What films did he wish he could have made? Why didn't he have an acting coach? When will Quentin Tarantino stop alluding to him in his movies? And was Clambake really the catalyst for his marriage to Priscilla? Elvis Films FAQ explains everything you want to know about the whys and wherefores of the singer-actor's bizarre celluloid odyssey; or, as Elvis said, "I saw the movie and I was the hero of the movie."
Download or read book The Star Spangled Screen written by Bernard F. Dick and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2022-05-31 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American World War II film depicted a united America, a mythic America in which the average guy, the girl next door, the 4-F patriot, and the grieving mother were suddenly transformed into heroes and heroines, warriors and goddesses. The Star-Spangled Screen examines the historical accuracy—or lack thereof—of films about the Third Reich, the Resistance, and major military campaigns. Concerned primarily with the films of the war years, it also includes discussions of such postwar movies as Battleground (1949), Attack! (1956), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and Patton (1970). This revised edition includes new material covering recent films such as Saving Private Ryan (1998), Pearl Harbor (2001), Dunkirk (2017), and JoJo Rabbit (2019), and their place in the war movie tradition. The Star-Spangled Screen makes a major contribution to popular culture by re-creating an era that, for all its tragedy, was one of the most creative in the history of American film.
Download or read book The Making of The Magnificent Seven written by Brian Hannan and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-05-11 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story behind The Magnificent Seven could have been a movie in itself. It had everything--actors' strike, writers' strike, Mexican government interference and a row between the screenwriters that left one removing his name from the credits, all under the lingering gloom of post-McCarthy era Hollywood. A flop on release, it later became a box office hit. This book tells the behind-the-scenes story: how Yul Brynner became the biggest independent producer in Hollywood; why John Sturges was not the first choice after Brynner surrendered the director's chair; why Sturges quit; the truth about the Mirisch Company (producers); the details of the film's botched release and unlikely redemption; the creation of Elmer Bernstein's classic score; and how internecine fighting prevented the making of the television series in 1963. Myths about Steve McQueen, his feud with Brynner and the scene-stealing antics of the cast are debunked. A close examination of the various screenplay drafts and the writers' source material--Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai--shows who wrote what. Extensive analysis of Sturges' directorial work is provided.
Download or read book Showmen s Motion Picture Trade Review written by and published by . This book was released on 1956 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
