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The guide encompasses the careers of over 350 directors from the last 20 years. A must for any film studies library, it is a unique reference to the changing dynamics of these cinemas.
Yorkshire-born Ken Annakin is one of the greatest international film directors. The last of the English directors to make it in the international arena (others included Hitchcock and Lean), this autobiography traces Annakin's career from his early British films through to Hollywood. He has directed, written and produced over 50 feature films in Africa, India, Malaysia, Scandinavia, China, Europe and the United States. His films include: Swiss Family Robinson, The Longest Day, Battle of the Bulge, and Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines. Annakin's autobiography includes personal and revealing insights into many film personalities, including: Claudette Colbert; Edward G. Robinson; D...
"Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe". This tag was to hang around Diana Dors' neck during the 1950s. As Diana would often point out she had been working professionally a lot longer than Monroe. Her first appearance was in 1946 in The Shop at Sly Corner, while still a student at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Diana, like Marilyn, was blonde, curvy and sexy, but that's where the comparison ended. Her range as an actress encompassed everything from comedy to Greek tragedy. She was a real person – a quality that endeared her to the public, but above all, she was a survivor. Diana was also a talented writer compiling two autobiographies of herself, as well as her three A - Z books. Diana had a prolific career covering every facet of the entertainment industry - theatre, cabaret, film and TV. Passport to Fame is a comprehensive study of Diana's work across her 40 years of filmmaking. The book is also an invaluable source of reference to the film-buff interested in the changing face of the film industry.
Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Warfare on Film is the first volume exclusively dedicated to the study of a theme that informs virtually every reimagining of the classical world on the big screen: armed conflict. Through a vast array of case studies, from the silent era to recent years, the collection traces cinema’s enduring fascination with battles and violence in antiquity and explores the reasons, both synchronic and diachronic, for the central place that war occupies in celluloid Greece and Rome. Situating films in their artistic, economic, and sociopolitical context, the essays cast light on the industrial mechanisms through which the ancient battlefield is refashioned in cinema and investigate why the medium adopts a revisionist approach to textual and visual sources.
Christopher Challis, a distinguished Director of Photography, worked in the British Film Industry for almost fifty years and now looks back on a career that involved him with such giants as Alexander Korda, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger and Stanley Donen. Among the many films he photographed are: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, the Tales of Hoffman and - perhaps the most famous of them all - Genevieve. His compulsively readable memoirs reveal his joy in the madness of it all and tell of the vanity of Cary Grant; the warmth of Audrey Hepburn; the wit of Robert Morley; the professionalism of Sophia Loren; and the long lunches of Richard Burton. Are they Really So Awful? was a question directed at Christopher Challis when he was a young man, and referred to everyone involved in the making of films. In retirement his answer to the question is 'Yes' - but his delightful memoir shows that he loved every moment of it.
First published in 2001.The standard work on its subject, this resource includes every traceable British entertainment film from the inception of the "silent cinema" to the present day. Now, this new edition includes a wholly original second volume devoted to non-fiction and documentary film--an area in which the British film industry has particularly excelled. All entries throughout this third edition have been revised, and coverage has been extended through 1994.Together, these two volumes provide a unique, authoritative source of information for historians, archivists, librarians, and film scholars.
This work covers Bronson's entire output in film and on television, and includes many film stills and photographs. Alphabetical entries list film or episode, complete cast and credits, and year of release. Accompanying each entry's plot synopsis and discussion is a survey of the critical responses to the work. The great Charles Laughton once said Bronson "has the strongest face in the business, and he is also one of its best actors." Pretty high praise for an actor who, though loved by fans worldwide, has been consistently underestimated by critics. Bronson's career has spanned five decades, from such television appearances in The Fugitive, Rawhide, Bonanza and Have Gun, Will Travel as well as the telemovie A Family of Cops (1995) and its two sequels. He will long be remembered for his role as urban vigilante Paul Kersey in the Death Wish films. Bronson is one of the most enigmatic, and also most recognizable, of all film stars.
This informed, highly readable account of 65 great British cinema character actors recalls such highlights of film history as Alec Guiness's obdurate commanding officer in The Bridge on the River Kwai, the chilling screen presence of Peter Cushing, and the hilarious bungling of Ian Carmichael in I'm All Right Jack.
This book gives the fullest account so far of the origins, success and public impact of Walter Greenwood's Love on the Dole in all three of its versions: novel (1933), play (1935) and film (1941).
English actor Dirk Bogarde dominated the films in which he starred. Exploring the tension between his matinee idol appeal and his own closeted sexuality, this book focuses on the wide variety of genres in which he worked, and the highly charged interaction between his life and his roles. Beginning with an expose of gay life in post-war Britain and his relationship with partner/manager, Anthony Forwood, each chapter explores Bogarde's performances by genre--his juvenile delinquent movies, his military roles, his contribution to Basil Dearden's overtly gay thriller Victim (1961), and his "outsider" roles in such films as The Servant (1963), The Fixer (1968) and Despair (1978). Bogarde's "camp" cinema, espionage thrillers and various roles as artists are also examined, along with the misogyny of the Doctor films and his later television work.