Roberto Benigni's romantic comedy Life is Beautiful enjoyed tremendous success everywhere it was shown. In addition to winning almost every possible film award, including three Oscars, lavish praise and film reviews, it grossed over a quarter of a billion dollars--the most profitable Italian movie ever. Very few have questioned the movie--until now. With sharp, uncompromising logic and eye-opening insight, Niv analyzes the film and its script scene-by-scene to show why Life is Beautiful is very far from being the innocent, charming, and heartwarming film it appears to be. The author argues...

This is Ronnie Maasz's account of his more than fifty years in the film business as a cameraman. With candid humor, Maasz offers a light-hearted collage of the international locales, quirky people, exciting events, and special effects gone wrong that the author encountered during his noteworthy film career. He includes his impressions of working with talented performers including Janet Leigh, Sir Michael Caine, Christopher Lee, and Sir Laurence Olivier, as well as renowned directors Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Tony Richardson, and John Huston. In this charming memoir of life behind the camera,...

Early in his Hollywood career, Leo McCarey honed his skills by working with some of the great names of comedy, including Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields, and The Marx Brothers, whose 1933 classic, Duck Soup, McCarey directed. Later, as a writer and/or director, McCarey was responsible for a number of classic films, including Ruggles of Red Gap, The Awful Truth, Love Affair, Make Way for Tomorrow, My Favorite Wife, and An Affair to Remember. McCarey's 1944 film Going My Way was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won seven, including the first triple crown awarded to the same person for...