Download or read book Movies Were Always Magical written by Leo Verswijver and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2003-02-27 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work is a compilation of interviews with 19 film actors, directors, and producers who were all part of the studio system that made Hollywood such a powerful and illustrious city in the era of the 1950s. Each of the celebrities interviewed for this work have made lasting contributions to the film industry, and some of them continue to do so. Pat Boone, Jeff Corey, Kathryn Grayson, Beverly Garland, Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., Jane Greer, Stanley Kramer, Janet Leigh, Joan Leslie, Sheree North, Janis Paige, Luise Rainer, Paula Raymond, John Saxon, Vincent Sherman, Robert Wise, Jane Withers, Jane Wyatt and Fred Zinnemann speak candidly about their work and experiences in Hollywood and share many of their memories. Each interview is followed by a complete filmography for each film that the actor, director, or producer was a part of, giving such information as the U.S. distributor, year of release, director, producer, screenwriter, editor, composer, running time, and cast for each film.
Download or read book Producer of Controversy written by Jennifer Frost and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2017-10-27 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With films ranging from High Noon to Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Stanley Kramer (1913–2001) was one of the most successful and prolific director-producers of his day. But even as critics praised his courage in taking on such issues as nuclear war, racism, fascism, and the battle between science and religion, others condemned his work as “emptily pretentious“ and “hollow, falsely sentimental, overproduced.” Whether Kramer was “one of the great filmmakers of all time” (Kevin Spacey at the Golden Globe Awards) or “one of Hollywood’s worst directors” (preeminent film critic Andrew Sarris in The Village Voice), he had a strong and undeniable influence on American culture during the Cold War. Producer of Controversy is the first book to take a close-up look at Kramer’s career, films, and liberal politics in an effort to explain his contributions and historical significance. Kramer learned filmmaking within the old studio system, but over a career spanning forty years he did much to shape the independent moviemaking that emerged after World War II. Jennifer Frost pays particular attention to four of his key “message movies”—The Defiant Ones, On the Beach, Inherit the Wind, and Judgment at Nuremberg—to show how Kramer’s controversial films opened up public debate about the most important issues of his time—among average filmgoers as well as professional critics, political commentators, and public figures. In this context, she for the first time fully documents the Hollywood Right’s attacks on Kramer in the 1950s; details his resistance to the anticommunist Red Scare and the Hollywood blacklist; exposes his role as a cultural diplomat with the Soviet Union; and reveals his important contribution to the liberal and radical politics of the 1960s. Her book is at once an absorbing work of cultural history and a thoroughgoing reassessment of Stanley Kramer’s place in the pantheon of American filmmakers.
Download or read book Into the Dark Turner Classic Movies written by Mark A. Vieira and published by Running Press Adult. This book was released on 2016-05-24 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "TCM Turner Classic Movies"--Front cover.
Download or read book Janet Leigh written by Michelangelo Capua and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first decade of her career Leigh appeared as the stereotypical "nice girl." She was cast opposite some of the industry's biggest names including Robert Mitchum in Holiday Affair, Stewart Granger in Scaramouche, James Stewart in The Naked Spur, and Charlton Heston in Touch of Evil. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho supplied her most memorable role: Marion Crane, who is murdered before the picture is half over. The part earned Leigh an Academy Award nomination. From 1951 to 1962, Leigh was married to favorite co-star Tony Curtis. They had two daughters, Kelly and Jamie Lee Curtis, both of whom followed in their parents' professional footsteps. This book reveals and reflects upon Janet Leigh's life and career and also extensively analyzes her films and television appearances.
Download or read book Oscar Buzz and the Influence of Word of Mouth on Movie Success written by Owen Eagan and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-03-27 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores why word of mouth is the most important determinant of a movie’s success. Beginning with a discussion of the enduring appeal of movies, and why the box office has survived the disruption of television and will likely survive the disruption of streaming services, Owen Eagan goes on to discuss the unpredictable nature of movies and ways to mitigate their risk. His astute analysis sheds light on the role of film festivals, film critics, Oscar campaigns, and word of mouth in influencing a film's success. Eagan concludes with a summary of why word of mouth is the most influential among all the variables that affect a film’s outcome. Expertly synthesizing quantitative analyses of box office data with illuminating insights from industry experts, this concise and engaging book presents findings with important implications for scholars, industry insiders and marketing professionals alike.
Download or read book Coppola s Monster Film written by Steven Travers and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-06-21 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1975, after his two Godfather epics, Francis Ford Coppola went to the Philippines to film Apocalypse Now. He scrapped much of the original script, a jingoistic narrative of U.S. Special Forces winning an unwinnable war. Harvey Keitel, originally cast in the lead role, was fired and replaced by Martin Sheen, who had a heart attack. An overweight Marlon Brando, paid a huge salary, did more philosophizing than acting. It rained almost every day and a hurricane wiped out the set. The Philippine government promised the use of helicopters but diverted them at the last minute to fight communist and Muslim separatists. Coppola filmed for four years with no ending in the script. The shoot threatened to be the biggest disaster in movie history. Providing a detailed snapshot of American cinema during the Vietnam War, this book tells the story of how Apocalypse Now became one of the great films of all time.
Download or read book Magical Suspension written by James Combs and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2015-09-04 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book builds upon the author’s extensive previous work on the movies, adopting a more comprehensive and inquisitive stance for the study of moving pictures as a cultural movement and ludenic innovation. It returns to earlier analysis and commentary on this new invention and recreation quickly termed “the movies”, and develops the initial impression of both moviegoers and observers that the movies appealed because they were fun. As such, the book examines the characteristics that made films so enjoyable, namely their use of magic, presentation of myth, and persistence of mnemonic recollection. The enduring appeal of moving pictures remains consistent, even though the medium has proliferated and diversified, so much so that now a good portion of the human race spends a great deal of time looking at moving pictures. The book is eclectic and exploratory, designed to urge consideration of moving pictures in this larger perspective as something that has changed and perhaps enriched the lives of many people, leaving inquirers the task of calculating the enormous significance and consequences of our motion picture experience for the conduct of our lives. Such an effort is not without merit, since it now seems quite clear that the whole world is watching.
Download or read book Claire Trevor written by Derek Sculthorpe and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2018-05-03 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Claire Trevor (1910–2000) is best remembered as the alluring blonde femme fatale in such iconic noir films as Murder, My Sweet (1944) and Raw Deal (1948). Yet she was a versatile performer who brought rare emotional depth to her art. She was effective in a range of diverse roles, from an outcast prostitute in John Ford’s classic Stagecoach (1939) to the ambitious tennis mother in Hard, Fast and Beautiful (1951) to the embittered wife of a landowner in William Wellman’s overlooked gem My Man and I (1952). Nominated for three Oscars, she deservedly won Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Gaye Dawn, a gangster’s broken-down moll in Key Largo (1948). The author covers her life and career in detail, recognizing her as one of the finest actresses of her generation.
Download or read book Phantom Lady written by Christina Lane and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Mystery Writers of America's 2021 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Critical/Biographical In 1933, Joan Harrison was a twenty-six-year-old former salesgirl with a dream of escaping both her stodgy London suburb and the dreadful prospect of settling down with one of the local boys. A few short years later, she was Alfred Hitchcock's confidante and one of the Oscar-nominated screenwriters of his first American film, Rebecca. Harrison had quickly grown from being the worst secretary Hitchcock ever had to one of his closest collaborators, critically shaping his brand as the "Master of Suspense." Harrison went on to produce numerous Hollywood features before becoming a television pioneer as the producer of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. A respected powerhouse, she acquired a singular reputation for running amazingly smooth productions— and defying anyone who posed an obstacle. She built most of her films and series from the ground up. She waged rough-and-tumble battles against executives and censors, and even helped to break the Hollywood blacklist. She teamed up with many of the most respected, well-known directors, writers, and actors of the twentieth century. And she did it all on her own terms. Author Christina Lane shows how this stylish, stunning woman became Hollywood's most powerful female writer-producer—one whom history has since overlooked.
Download or read book Fred Zinnemann and the Cinema of Resistance written by J.E. Smyth and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2014-02-06 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling history of the director's films of war and resistance
Download or read book James Edwards written by Pamala S. Deane and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Hollywood's most heralded postwar African American movie stars, James Edwards catapulted to stardom following his breakout role in Stanley Kramer's Home of the Brave. In his groundbreaking performance as a U.S. soldier experiencing racial prejudice during combat in the South Pacific, Edwards proved that African American actors could handle serious film roles. Edwards performed on radio, television, and theatre, and appeared in two-dozen or more films, including Stanley Kubrick's breakthrough indie The Killing, John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate, and Franklin J. Schaffner's Patton. This book tells the story of Edwards' life and career, describing his unlikely climb to fame following a serious wartime injury and detailing how this native of Muncie, Indiana, paved the way for the careers of Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, and other African American stars to follow.
Download or read book Entertaining Children written by G. Arrighi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-05-07 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Children have been exploited as performers and wooed energetically as consumers throughout history. These essays offer scholarly investigations into the employment and participation of children in the entertainment industry with examples drawn from historical and contemporary contexts.
Download or read book Like Water written by Daryl Joji Maeda and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2024-04 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Highlights Bruce Lee’s influence beyond martial arts and film An Asian and Asian American icon of unimaginable stature and influence, Bruce Lee revolutionized the martial arts by combining influences drawn from around the world. Uncommonly determined, physically gifted, and artistically brilliant, Lee rose to fame as part of a wave of transpacific globalization that bridged the nearly seven thousand miles between Hong Kong and California. Like Water unpacks Lee’s global impact, linking his legendary status as a martial artist, actor, and director to his continual traversals across the newly interconnected Asia and America. Daryl Joji Maeda’s multifaceted account of Bruce Lee’s legacy uniquely traces how movements and migrations across the Pacific Ocean structured the cultures Bruce Lee inherited, the milieu he occupied, the martial art he developed, the films he made, and the world he left behind. A unique blend of cultural history and biography, Like Water unearths the cultural strands that Lee intertwined in his rise to a new kind of global stardom. Moving from the gold rush in California and the British occupation of Hong Kong, to the Cold War and the deployment of American troops across Asia, Maeda builds depth and complexity to this larger-than-life figure. His cultural chronology of Bruce Lee reveals Lee to be both a product of his time and a harbinger of a more connected future. Nearly half a century after his tragic death, Bruce Lee remains an inspiring symbol of innovation and determination, with an enduring legacy as the first Asian American global superstar.
Download or read book Magic and Modernity written by Birgit Meyer and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to explore comparatively how magic—usually portrayed as the antithesis of the modern—is also at home in modernity.
Download or read book Self Esteem written by Ian Miller and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2024-02-07 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the end of the last century, the idea of self-esteem became enormously influential. A staggering amount of psychological research and self-help literature was published, and before long was devoured by readers. Self-esteem initiatives permeated American schools. Self-esteem became the way of understanding ourselves, our personalities, our interactions with others. Nowadays, few people think much about the idea of self-esteem—but perhaps we should. Self-Esteem: An American History is the first historical study exploring the emotional politics of self-esteem in modern America. Written with verve and insight, Ian Miller’s expert analysis explores the critiques of self-help which accuse it of propping up conservative agendas by encouraging us to look solely inside ourselves to resolve life’s problems. At the same time, he reveals how African American, LGBTQ+ and feminist activists endeavored to build positive collective identities based upon self-esteem, pride and self-respect. This revelatory book will be essential reading for anyone with an interest in the history of mental health, well-being, emotions in the United States’ unique society and culture.
Download or read book Katherine Anne Porter s Ship of Fools written by Thomas Austenfeld and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2015-04-15 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Containing pieces by distinguished scholars including Darlene Harbour Unrue and Robert Brinkmeyer, this book is the first full investigation of the links between Porter's only novel and European intellectual history. Beginning with Sebastian Brant, author of the late medieval Narrenschiff, whom she acknowledges in her Preface to Ship of Fools, Porter's image of Europe emerges as more complex, more knowledgeable, and more politically nuanced than previous critics of her novel have acknowledged. Ship of Fools is in conversation with Europe's humanistic tradition as well as with the political moments of 1931 and 1962; i.e., the years that elapsed from the novel's conception to its completion. The novel and the 1965 film based upon it intervene into the history of film, the assessment of Weimar Germany, and Porter's clear-eyed judgment of her own times through the lens of her art.
Download or read book Glenn Ford written by Peter Ford and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2011-05-12 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Glenn Ford—star of such now-classic films as Gilda, Blackboard Jungle, The Big Heat, 3:10 to Yuma, and The Rounders—had rugged good looks, a long and successful career, and a glamorous Hollywood life. Yet the man who could be accessible and charming on screen retreated to a deeply private world he created behind closed doors. Glenn Ford: A Life chronicles the volatile life, relationships, and career of the renowned actor, beginning with his move from Canada to California and his initial discovery of theater. It follows Ford’s career in diverse media—from film to television to radio—and shows how Ford shifted effortlessly between genres, playing major roles in dramas, noir, westerns, and romances. This biography by Glenn Ford’s son, Peter Ford, offers an intimate view of a star’s private and public life. Included are exclusive interviews with family, friends, and professional associates, and snippets from the Ford family collection of diaries, letters, audiotapes, unpublished interviews, and rare candid photos. This biography tells a cautionary tale of Glenn Ford’s relentless infidelities and long, slow fade-out, but it also embraces his talent-driven career. The result is an authentic Hollywood story that isn’t afraid to reveal the truth. Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the Public Library Reviewers