Download or read book Joel Mccrea a Film History written by Tony Thomas and published by . This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is doubtful if any film actor has ever summed up a long career more modestly, more succinctly or more accurately than Joel McCrea: "I did the best I could without trying too hard." In view of his having starred in eighty films over a thirty-year period during what is generally regarded as Hollywood's Golden Age, it is a remarkably modest summation. His is an extraordinary filmography, one that has seldom been given much attention, possibly because McCrea himself was a man who never sought much attention. If it was his wish to avoid attention, he was successful because he is the most underrated of all the male stars of that Golden Age. His contemporaries-Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, James Stewart, John Wayne, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, James Cagney, Henry Fonda, Humphrey Bogart-have all been well assessed. Hopefully, this biographical essay and comprehensive filmography by author and film historian Tony Thomas will serve to remind us of the significant contributions of Joel McCrea.
Download or read book Joel McCrea written by Tony Thomas and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of the life and career of actor Joel McCrea. Contains over 200 photos and a complete filmography.
Download or read book Last of the Cowboy Heroes written by Robert Nott and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2005-01-20 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the world of Western films, Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, and Audie Murphy have frequently been overlooked in favor of names like Roy Rogers and John Wayne. Yet these three actors played a crucial role in the changing environment of the post–World War II Western, and, in the process, made many excellent middle-budget films that are still a pleasure to watch. This account of these three Western stars’ careers begins in 1946, when Scott and McCrea committed themselves to the Western roles they would play for nearly twenty years. Murphy, who also joined them in 1946, would continue his Western career for a few years after his cohorts rode into the film sunset. Arranged chronologically, and balanced among the three actors, the text concludes with Audie Murphy’s last Western in 1967. Covering both the personal and professional lives of these three Hollywood cowboys, the book provides both their stories and the story of a Hollywood whose attitude toward the Western was in a time of transition and transformation. The text is complemented by 60 photographs and a filmography for each of the three.
Download or read book The Films of Randolph Scott written by Robert Nott and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-05-05 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reclusive American actor Randolph Scott, known for his subtle, dignified performances in almost 60 westerns, has been called the “most genuine Westerner.” His career began in 1928 with the first of several bit parts; his first starring role was 1932’s Heritage of the Desert. He fought in World War I, studying horsemanship, shooting, and bayoneting, and acted in a variety of films in every genre from musical to swashbuckler. His final film was Ride the High Country (1962). Chronologically arranged from his birth in 1898 to his death in 1987, this book covers every film in which Randolph Scott acted. Each section begins with a biographical chapter and then lists Scott’s films from that period: each film’s entry has filmographic information, a synopsis, and detailed commentary, discussing such topics as the financial aspects, production details, acting, other participants, anecdotes, and critical responses. Quotes from interviews with figures in the industry and published reviews bolster the entries. A bibliographical essay completes the work, which is heavily illustrated with stills and promotional materials.
Download or read book Letters from Hollywood written by Rocky Lang and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rare correspondence from Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, Jane Fonda, and other Hollywood luminaries from the silent film era to the 1970s. Letters from Hollywood reproduces in full color scores of entertaining and insightful pieces of correspondence from some of the most notable and talented film industry names of all time—from the silent era to the golden age, and up through the pre-email days of the 1970s. Culled from libraries, archives, and personal collections, the 135 letters, memos, and telegrams are organized chronologically and are annotated by the authors to provide backstories and further context. While each piece reveals a specific moment in time, taken together, the letters convey a bigger picture of Hollywood history. Contributors include celebrities like Greta Garbo, Alfred Hitchcock, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Katharine Hepburn, Marlon Brando, Elia Kazan, Cary Grant, Francis Ford Coppola, Tom Hanks, and Jane Fonda. This is the gift book of the season for fans of classic Hollywood. With a foreword by Peter Bogdanovitch. “This is, quite simply, one of the finest books I’ve ever read about Hollywood.” —Leonard Maltin
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 Hank and Jim written by Scott Eyman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[A] remarkably absorbing, supremely entertaining joint biography” (The New York Times) from bestselling author Scott Eyman about the remarkable friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart, two Hollywood legends who maintained a close relationship that endured all of life’s twists and turns. Henry Fonda and James Stewart were two of the biggest stars in Hollywood for forty years, but they became friends when they were unknown. They roomed together as stage actors in New York, and when they began making films in Hollywood, they were roommates again. Between them they made such classic films as The Grapes of Wrath, Mister Roberts, Twelve Angry Men, and On Golden Pond; and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Philadelphia Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, Vertigo, and Rear Window. They got along famously, with a shared interest in elaborate practical jokes and model airplanes, among other things. But their friendship also endured despite their differences: Fonda was a liberal Democrat, Stewart a conservative Republican. Fonda was a ladies’ man who was married five times; Stewart remained married to the same woman for forty-five years. Both men volunteered during World War II and were decorated for their service. When Stewart returned home, still unmarried, he once again moved in with Fonda, his wife, and his two children, Jane and Peter, who knew him as Uncle Jimmy. For his “breezy, entertaining” (Publishers Weekly) Hank and Jim, biographer and film historian Scott Eyman spoke with Fonda’s widow and children as well as three of Stewart’s children, plus actors and directors who had worked with the men—in addition to doing extensive archival research to get the full details of their time together. This is not just another Hollywood story, but “a fascinating…richly documented biography” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) of an extraordinary friendship that lasted through war, marriages, children, careers, and everything else.
Download or read book Clara Bow written by David Stenn and published by Cooper Square Press. This book was released on 2000-03-13 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hollywood's first sex symbol, the ' It ' girl, Clara Bow was born in the slums of Brooklyn in a family plagued with alcoholism and insanity. She catapulted to fame after winning Motion Picture magazine's 1921 " Fame and Fortune" contest. The greatest box-office draw of her day—she once received 45,000 fan letters in a single month, Clara Bow's on screen vitality and allure that beguiled thousands, however, would be her undoing off-camera. David Stenn captures her legendary rise to stardom and fall from grace, her success marred by studio exploitation and sexual scandals.
Download or read book SIX GUN LAW 2 written by BARRY ATKINSON. and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Five Came Back written by Mark Harris and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-02-27 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now a Netflix original documentary series, also written by Mark Harris: the extraordinary wartime experience of five of Hollywood's most important directors, all of whom put their stamp on World War II and were changed by it forever Here is the remarkable, untold story of how five major Hollywood directors—John Ford, George Stevens, John Huston, William Wyler, and Frank Capra—changed World War II, and how, in turn, the war changed them. In a move unheard of at the time, the U.S. government farmed out its war propaganda effort to Hollywood, allowing these directors the freedom to film in combat zones as never before. They were on the scene at almost every major moment of America’s war, shaping the public’s collective consciousness of what we’ve now come to call the good fight. The product of five years of scrupulous archival research, Five Came Back provides a revelatory new understanding of Hollywood’s role in the war through the life and work of these five men who chose to go, and who came back. “Five Came Back . . . is one of the great works of film history of the decade.” --Slate “A tough-minded, information-packed and irresistibly readable work of movie-minded cultural criticism. Like the best World War II films, it highlights marquee names in a familiar plot to explore some serious issues: the human cost of military service, the hypnotic power of cinema and the tension between artistic integrity and the exigencies of war.” --The New York Times
Download or read book Women of the Western Frontier in Fact Fiction and Film written by Ronald W. Lackmann and published by McFarland. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work provides factual accounts of women of the Old West in contrast to their depictions on film and in fiction. The lives of Martha Calamity Jane Canary and Belle The Bandit Queen Starr are first detailed; one discovers that Starr was indeed friends with notorious bank robbers of the time, including Jesse James and Cole Younger, but was herself primarily a cattle and horse thief. Wives and lovers of some of the West's most famous outlaws are covered in the second section along with real-life female entertainers, prostitutes and gamblers. Native Americans, entrepreneurs, doctors, reformers, artists, writers, schoolteachers, and other such respectable women are covered in the third section.
Download or read book People Will Talk written by John Kobal and published by Alfred A. Knopf. This book was released on 1985 with total page 760 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Gloria Swanson written by Tricia Welsch and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2013-08-21 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gloria Swanson: Ready for Her Close-Up shows how a talented, self-confident actress negotiated a creative path through seven decades of celebrity. It also illuminates a little-known chapter in American media history: how the powerful women of early Hollywood transformed their remarkable careers after their stars dimmed. This book brings Swanson (1899-1983) back into the spotlight, revealing her as a complex, creative, entrepreneurial, and thoroughly modern woman. Swanson cavorted in slapstick short films with Charlie Chaplin and Mack Sennett in the 1910s. The popularity of her films with Cecil B. DeMille helped create the star system. A glamour icon, Swanson became the most talked-about star in Hollywood, earning three Academy Award nominations, receiving 10,000 fan letters every week, and living up to a reputation as Queen of Hollywood. She bought mansions and penthouses, dressed in fur and feathers, and flitted through Paris, London, and New York engaging in passionate love affairs that made headlines and caused scandals. Frustrated with the studio system, Swanson turned down a million-dollar-a-year contract. After a wild ride making unforgettable movies with some of Hollywood's most colorful characters--including her lover Joseph Kennedy and maverick director Erich von Stroheim--she was a million dollars in debt. Without hesitation she went looking for her next challenge, beginning her long second act. Swanson became a talented businesswoman who patented inventions and won fashion awards for her clothing designs; a natural foods activist decades before it was fashionable; an exhibited sculptor; and a designer employed by the United Nations. All the while she continued to act in films, theater, and television at home and abroad. Though she had one of Hollywood's most famous exit lines--"All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up"--the real Gloria Swanson never looked back.
Download or read book Leading Men written by Frank Miller and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2006-09-28 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tough, sophisticated, witty, and handsomefrom Rudolph Valentino to Buster Keaton, Cary Grant to Jimmy Stewart, Humphrey Bogart to Steve McQueen, each of the actors featured in this book brought a magnetic presence to the screen and made a powerful and enduring mark on film history. Produced by Turner Classic Movies, this stylish and definitive guide as the inside scoop and off-the-record reveals of fifty unforgettable actors and is also the focus of an on-air film festival on the channel. The lives and accomplishments of each actor are celebrated in an insightful career overview, accompanied by an annotated list of essential films, filmographies, behind the scenes facts, Academy Award wins and nominations. Full of surprising trivia, film stills, posters, and stunning photos, Leading Men pays tribute to the most charismatic, enduring, and elegant actors of the silver screenan essential resource for movie buffs and pop-culture enthusiasts alike.
Download or read book An Eye for Hitchcock written by Murray Pomerance and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Film scholar Murray Pomerance presents a series of meditations on six films directed by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock, a master of the cinema. Two of the films are extraordinarily famous and have been seen - and misunderstood - countless times: North by Northwest and Vertigo. Two others, Marnie and Torn Curtain, have been mostly disregarded by viewers and critics, or considered to be colossal mistakes, while two others, Spellbound and I Confess have received almost no critical attention at all. Hitchcock's vision and his screen architecture, revealing key elements and showing how Hitchcock was profoundly interested not only in social class, but also in humanity's philosophical predicament, as we traverse a world fraught with shifting appearances, multiple deceptions, vulnerability and peril. Pomerance also reveals the link between Hitchcock's work and a wide range of thinkers and artists in other fields.
Download or read book William Cameron Menzies written by James Curtis and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2015 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He was the consummate designer of film architecture on a grand scale. He was known for his visual flair and timeless innovation, a man who meticulously preplanned the color and design of each film through a series of continuity sketches that made clear camera angles, lighting, and the actors' positions for each scene, translating dramatic conventions of the stage to the new capabilities of film. Here is the long-awaited book on William Cameron Menzies, Hollywood's first and greatest production designer, a job title David O. Selznick invented for Menzies' extraordinary, all-encompassing, Academy Award-winning work on Gone With the Wind (which he effectively co-directed). It was Menzies--winner of the first-ever Academy Award for Art Direction, and who was as well a director (fourteen pictures) and a producer (twelve pictures)--who changed the way movies were (and still are) made, in a career that spanned four decades, from the 1920s through the 1950s. Now, James Curtis, acclaimed film historian and biographer, writes of Menzies' life and work as the most influential designer in the history of film. Interviewing colleagues, actors, directors, friends, and family, and with full access to the Menzies family collection of artwork and unpublished writing, Curtis gives us the path-finding work of the movies' most daring and dynamic production designer: his evolution as artist, art director, production designer, and director. Here is a portrait of a man in his time that makes clear how the movies were forever transformed by his startling, visionary work.--Adapted from book jacket.
Download or read book Fun in a Chinese Laundry written by Josef Von Sternberg and published by New York : Macmillan. This book was released on 1966 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Josef von Sternberg was born in Vienna in 1894, went to America as a penniless immigrant, and directed his first motion picture in 1924. It was hailed as a work of genius, and he followed it with some of the most striking films of the end of the silent era. With the "talkies" began his long association with Marlene Dietrich. He was the terror of the Hollywood stage, driving his team to a frenzy in his demands for perfection. He also shaped the new medium in several decisive ways. In this book he is not merely reminiscing; in a series of key chapters he sets out his views on the nature of the cinema and of direction.
