Steven Spielberg has fashioned an enviable career as a writer, producer, and director of American motion pictures, winning Academy Awards for Best Direction (Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List), and for Best Film (Schindler's List). With David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg he founded Dreamworks SKG, already one of the most productive and respected studios in Hollywood. Despite Spielberg's notable successes, however, his films have not avoided controversy. The Films of Steven Spielberg provides for the first time a collection of critical writings by professional film critics about the...

Now in Paperback Ronald Neame's autobiography takes its title from one of his best-loved films, The Horse's Mouth (1958), starring Alec Guinness. In an informative and entertaining style, Neame discusses the making of that film, along with several others, including In Which We Serve, Blithe Spirit, Brief Encounter, Great Expectations, Tunes of Glory, I Could Go on Singing, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Scrooge, The Poseidon Adventure, and Hopscotch. Straight from the Horse's Mouth provides a fascinating, first-hand account of a unique filmmaker, who began his career as assistant cameraman...

Body and Soul explores the work of Robert Aldrich, a producer and director responsible for several notable films, including The Flight of the Phoenix, The Dirty Dozen, Too Late the Hero, The Longest Yard and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Author Tony Williams examines the relationship of Aldrich's films to the Cultural Front movement of the 1930s as well as to the blacklist of the 1950s. He also delineates Aldrich's attempts to follow the progressive ideals of such mentors as Jean Renoir, Lewis Milestone, and Charlie Chaplin. From the noir classic Kiss Me Deadly to the controversial thriller...

For more than fifty years, High Noon has been a touchstone in the popular imagination and a source of endless controversy about film art. On its release it was hailed as a masterpiece. But film historians and theorists have also reviled it almost from the beginning as pretentious "social realism" inspired by its screenwriter's victimization by the red-hunting House Committee on Un-American Activities. Showdown at High Noon is the study of a film caught between popular admiration and critical disdain. In order to understand how and why High Noon has elicited such disparate reactions, author...

In his unsurpassed employment of 60 years in the business, Beaudine racked up more than 500 films and in excess of 350 television programs. Until his death at age 78, he was the oldest active director in the business. This detailed biography chronicles Beaudine's swift rise through the ranks, his triumph as one of the most successful directors of British comedies, his accumulation and loss of personal fortunes, his fall from fame, and his prolific work in television. Marshall corrects much misinformation that has been written about the director and has compiled the most complete list of his...

Although numerous books about conventional filmmaking exist, none has solely addressed the challenges and production requirements of making stereoscopic motion pictures. Until now. Stereographer and film historian, Ray Zone, presents the insights of twenty-one professionals who have worked in this specialized field. In this unique collection of interviews, Zone explores the art and craft of 3-D filmmaking with producers, screenwriters, directors, and cinematographers. The interviews range from a discussion with Arch Oboler - producer of Bwana Devil, the 1952 feature that triggered the "boom"...

Walter Charles Mycroft (1890-1959) was the film critic of the Evening Standard from 1922-1927, and also a founding member of London's Film Society. In 1928, he was appointed Head of the Scenario Department--and then Director of Production--at British International Pictures (later Associated British Pictures). In 1941 Mycroft was sacked following the death of the company's Managing Director and the requisition of Elstree studios by the British Government for war purposes. After that his career went into steady decline, although after the Second World War he worked for nearly a decade as...