Michael Powell was introduced to film relatively late in life, and feeling dissatisfied with what British films had to offer, he took his primary influences from American and German films. Emeric Pressburger was a Hungarian emigre who was educated in the German film industry before fleeing from the threat of the Nazi party. These two men of diverse backgrounds would successfully collaborate on 16 films over a period of fifteen years, most often with their identities united as the Archers. The Archers' collaboration began during World War II, where they attempted to identify the causes for...
Michael Powell was introduced to film relatively late in life, and feeling dissatisfied with what British films had to offer, he took his primary infl...
In 1914, a young midwesterner quit his railroad job to crack the Hollywood motion picture boom. Impressed by his energy and honesty in his role as Lincoln, D.W. Griffith made him his assistant for Intolerance. Griffith then made Joe a director. He swiftly progressed to a preeminent position in the industry, directing some of the biggest Hollywood stars of the 1920's including Douglas Fairbanks, Fatty Arbuckle, and Rudolph Valentino. Versatility played an important role in Joe's rich creative life inside the studios. His understanding of the mechanics of motion-picture film led him to develop...
In 1914, a young midwesterner quit his railroad job to crack the Hollywood motion picture boom. Impressed by his energy and honesty in his role as Lin...
At the age of ten, Charley Chase was singing and dancing on the street corners of Baltimore. Charley eventually became a local vaudeville attraction, but Baltimore could not contain the ambitious young man. After a brief, but memorable, stint in New York, Chase finally landed in Los Angeles in 1912. His timely arrival coincided with the birth of the film industry, and Charley Chase became a major force in the shaping of motion picture comedy. A human dynamo, Charley's talent and creativity seemed inexhaustible. As a writer/director/actor, Charley started out at Mack Sennett's Keystone...
At the age of ten, Charley Chase was singing and dancing on the street corners of Baltimore. Charley eventually became a local vaudeville attraction, ...
The first full-length account of the life and work of Joseph H. Lewis, the noted director of films such as My Name is Julia Ross (1945) and The Halliday Brand (1957).
The first full-length account of the life and work of Joseph H. Lewis, the noted director of films such as My Name is Julia Ross (1945) and The Hallid...
The memoir of the late Lita Grey Chaplin (1908-1995), the only one of Chaplin's wives to have written an account of life with Chaplin. Her memoir is an extraordinary Hollywood story of someone who was there from the very beginning.
The memoir of the late Lita Grey Chaplin (1908-1995), the only one of Chaplin's wives to have written an account of life with Chaplin. Her memoir is a...
Collects together Knox's writings, published and unpublished, on various performers with whom he worked or was familiar, and on the art and craft of acting.
Collects together Knox's writings, published and unpublished, on various performers with whom he worked or was familiar, and on the art and craft of a...
Son of pioneer movie producer Harry Rapf, Maurice Rapf grew up in Hollywood in that city's golden age. After moving from independent filmmaking to Warner Bros., in 1924 the senior Rapf joined Louis Mayer and became one of the founding members of MGM. Hence, movies were a huge influence in Maurice Rapf's early life. After graduating from college, Rapf worked as a screenwriter for major Hollywood studios, but, in 1947, he left Hollywood, never to work for a major studio again. On numerous occasions, he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee as an alleged communist,...
Son of pioneer movie producer Harry Rapf, Maurice Rapf grew up in Hollywood in that city's golden age. After moving from independent filmmaking to War...
The anti-Communist hysteria that began in the 1930s was further empowered in 1938 when the House of Representatives established the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. Soon thereafter, the creation of the blacklist in the late 1940s brought the Hollywood film and television community into the fold. Provocatively capturing the controversy and sentiments surrounding this period of political imbalance, Actors on Red Alert explores the repercussions of the blacklist through career interviews with five prominent actors and actresses.
The anti-Communist hysteria that began in the 1930s was further empowered in 1938 when the House of Representatives established the House Committee on...
In an industry that celebrates extravagance and showmanship, Danish film director Carl Th. Dreyer was a rarity, a man who guarded his privacy fiercely and believed that film provided a way to understand human nature by focusing on the individual person. Best known for his 1928 film The Passion of Joan of Arc, dominated by its emotionally harrowing close-ups of Joan during her trial, it was Dreyer who pioneered some of the seminal techniques of modern film, techniques that would later be made famous by better known contemporaries such as Sergei Eisenstein and D.W. Griffith. Now, in My Only...
In an industry that celebrates extravagance and showmanship, Danish film director Carl Th. Dreyer was a rarity, a man who guarded his privacy fiercely...
An obscure independent filmmaker until Halloween (1978), John Carpenter has been applauded for his classic sense of compositions, yet reviled for his "B-film" sensibility. This second edition of the first book-length analysis finds in Carpenter's films a vision of a profound but unexpected order in the universe. The author analyzes Carpenter's early independent work, his made-for-television movies, his big Hollywood films (The Fog, Escape from New York, The Thing, Stephen King's Christine, Starman), his more recent independent work (Big Trouble in Little China, Prince of Darkness, They Live),...
An obscure independent filmmaker until Halloween (1978), John Carpenter has been applauded for his classic sense of compositions, yet reviled for his ...
