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Edouard Bourdet (1887-1945) was a French playwright. Controversy about the propriety of staging a New York production of his 1926 play La prisonniere [The Captive] was swept away by the "restrained though uncompromising tragedy" that resulted."
Samuel Goldwyn was the premier dream-maker of his era - a fierce independent force i a time when studios ruled, a producer of silver screen sagas who was, in all probability, the last Hollywood tycoon. In this riveting book, Pulitzer Prize winning biographer A. Scott Berg tells the life story of this remarkable man - a tale as rich with drama as any feature length epic and as compelling as the history of Hollywood itself.
With six Academy Awards, four entries on the American Film Institute's list of 100 greatest American movies, and more titles on the National Historic Register of classic films deemed worthy of preservation than any other director, Billy Wilder counts as one of the most accomplished filmmakers ever to work in Hollywood. Yet how American is Billy Wilder, the Jewish émigré from Central Europe? This book underscores this complex issue, unpacking underlying contradictions where previous commentators routinely smoothed them out. Wilder emerges as an artist with roots in sensationalist journalism and the world of entertainment as well as with an awareness of literary culture and the avant-garde, features that lead to productive and often highly original confrontations between high and low.
This critical text offers a behind-the-scenes look at fifteen of the most important American war films of the last 60 years. Based on original interviews and archival research and featuring rare photographs, this book covers films considered unusually realistic for the genre. The original edition (1981) covered war films through World War II, while the present, expanded edition includes seven new chapters covering the Civil War, the American gunboat presence in China in the 1920s, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the fighting in Mogadishu in 1993 and the war in Iraq.
From the beginning, Myrna Loy's screen image conjured mystery, a sense of something withheld. This first ever biography of the wry and sophisticated actress, best known for her role as Nora Charles in The Thin Man, offers an unprecedented picture of her life and a career that spanned six decades. Opening with Loy's rough-and-tumble upbringing in Montana, the book takes us to Los Angeles from the 1920s, through the thirties, when Loy became a top box office draw, and to her robust post-World War II career. Throughout, Emily W. Leider illuminates the actress's friendships with luminaries such as Cary Grant, Clark Gable, and Joan Crawford and her collaborations with the likes of John Barrymore, David O. Selznick, Sam Goldwyn, and William Wyler, among many others. This biography offers a fascinating slice of studio era history and gives us the first full picture of a woman who has often been overlooked.--From publisher description.
"The period of 1880 to 1929 is the richest theater era in American history, certainly in the number of plays produced and significant artists, as well as in the centrality of theater in the lives of Americans. As the impact of European modernism gradually seeped into American theater during the 1880s and 1890s, more traditional forms of theater gave way to futurism, symbolism, surrealism, and expressionism. Such playwrights as Eugene O'Neill, George Kelly, Elmer Rice, Philip Barry, and George S. Kaufman ushered in the golden age of American drama." "The A to Z of American Theater: Modernism focuses on legitimate drama, both as influenced by modernism in Europe and by the popular entertainment that also enlivened the era. This is accomplished through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced entries on plays, music, playwrights, performers, producers, critics, architects, designers, and costumes." --Book Jacket.
Fun and fright have long been partners in the cinema, dating back to the silent film era and progressing to the Scary Movie franchise and other recent releases. This guide takes a comprehensive look at the comedy-horror movie genre, from the earliest stabs at melding horror and hilarity during the nascent days of silent film, to its full-fledged development with The Bat in 1926, to the Abbott and Costello films pitting the comedy duo against Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy and other Universal Studio monsters, continuing to such recent cult hits as Shaun of the Dead and Black Sheep. Selected short films such as Tim Burton's Frankenweenie are also covered. Photos and promotional posters, interviews with actors and a filmography are included.
Hollywood, Walter Winchell quipped, is where they shoot too many movies and not enough actors. Always looking for an angle, always, scheming, always the scene of clashing egos, the movie industry is where they place you under contract instead of observation--and if you don't have anything nice to say, write it down. "In 1940, I had my choice between Hitler and Hollywood," French director Ren'e Clair recalled, "and I preferred Hollywood--just a little." In Movie Anecdotes, Peter Hay treats us to a delightful ride through the world that has captivated audiences for almost a century, with stories that are often hilarious, sometimes tragic, and always entertaining. He takes us from the rough-and...
Interviews with screenwriters