When Thomas Edison wanted to capture western magic on film in 1904, where did he send his crew? To Oklahoma's 101 Ranch near Ponca City. And when Francis Ford Coppola readied young actors Tom Cruise and Matt Dillon to portray teen class strife in the 1983 movie "The Outsiders," he took cast and crew to Tulsa, the setting of S. E. Hinton's acclaimed novel. From Edison to Coppola and beyond, Oklahoma has served as both backdrop and home base for cinematic productions. "Shot in Oklahoma" explores the variety, spunk, and ingenuity of movie-making in the Sooner State over more than a century.

Gats, gals, gangsters, good guys, and even a little gore enliven the holidays in this top-shelf collection of nine great tales of Yuletide homicide from the golden days of the pulp magazines - plus the first new Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective story in more than 60 years, written by John Wooley, scripter of the 1990 made-for-TV movie featuring Marc Singer as the famed Tinseltown snoop. Ripped from the mouldering pages of the thrill-a-minute magazines of the 1930s and '40s, these fast-paced and thoroughly entertaining tales were penned by such great names of yesteryear as Steve Fisher, author...

The acclaimed Forgotten Horrors series of movie-genre history and criticism lurches into the turning-point stretch of 1949-1954. This 300-plus-page study of the independent studios' forays into horror, S-F, film noir -- and some unclassifiable oddities -- tackles the most conflicted and paranoid period of American cultural history in terms of such breakthrough pictures as these: Mikel Conrad's "The Flying Saucer," the oddly matched set of George Pal's "Destination Moon" and Kurt Neumann's "Rocketship X-M," Edgar G. Ulmer's "The Man from Planet X," Ivan Tors' "Office of Scientific...

Michael H. Price's FORGOTTEN HORRORS series of movie encyclopedias forges on through the 1940s with this expanded fourth volume -- amended and updated from the original edition. New showcase chapter unearths significant detail on the most elusive exploitation film of the postwar years, Dwain Esper's CURSE OF THE UBANGI, with significant assistance from the Web-based Classic Horror Film Board. The foreshadowings of the Atom Age of the 1950s run thick and deep, and so do the crossovers among horror films, science-fiction films, and film noir-styled crime melodramas.

Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective is at his best in "Homicide Highball," showcasing his unique brand of slang-talking, Vat 69-swilling action. Read Robert Leslie Bellem's original story, then thrill to John Wooley's original script, which laid the groundwork for the film starring Marc Singer. A good deed backfires, and the famous shamus is on the run, eager to put the squiff on a murder charge. The suspects? A smooth filly, a movie mogul, and a B-movie director. Meantime, Turner dodges someone with a killer pitching arm, and eludes cops and crooks alike in a wild amusement park chase. 90 proof...

Down and out former playboy Steven Middleton Knight's fortune was destroyed by the Depression. Now a cabbie for the Red Owl Cab Company, he never fails to take on another mystery with each new fare. Created by John K. Butler, this fast-paced, Los Angeles-based hard-boiled series was published between 1940 and 1942 in the pages of Dime Detective, the prestigious crime pulp second only to the legendary Black Mask in its impact on the genre. Contains the following stories: "The Dead Ride Free," "The Man from Alcatraz," "Hacker's Holiday," and "The Saint in Silver."