American Classic Screen Interviews

American Classic Screen Interviews PDF Author: John C. Tibbetts
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810876752
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
In American Classic Screen Interviews, editors John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh have assembled some of the most significant and memorable interviews conducted for the magazine over its ten-year history. This collection contains rare conversations with some of the brightest stars of yesteryear, as well as gifted filmmakers, celebrated animators, and highly revered historians. This compendium of interviews recaptures the spirit and scholarship of that time and will appeal to both scholars and fans who have an abiding interest in the American motion picture industry.

American Classic Screen Interviews

American Classic Screen Interviews PDF Author: John C. Tibbetts
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810876752
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
In American Classic Screen Interviews, editors John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh have assembled some of the most significant and memorable interviews conducted for the magazine over its ten-year history. This collection contains rare conversations with some of the brightest stars of yesteryear, as well as gifted filmmakers, celebrated animators, and highly revered historians. This compendium of interviews recaptures the spirit and scholarship of that time and will appeal to both scholars and fans who have an abiding interest in the American motion picture industry.

American Classic Screen Features

American Classic Screen Features PDF Author: John C. Tibbetts
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810876795
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 346

Get Book Here

Book Description
In American Classic Screen Features, editors John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh have assembled some of the most significant and memorable essays and critical pieces written for the magazine over its ten-year history. This collection contains fascinating accounts of Hollywood history including articles on Marilyn Monroe's first screen test, John Ford's favorite film, Olivia De Havilland's lawsuit against Warner Bros., Walt Disney's unfinished projects, and Stanley Kubrick's early noir classics. This volume also contains in-depth examinations of classic films, including Birth of a Nation, The Big Parade,The Jazz Singer, King Kong, and Citizen Kane. This compendium of essays recaptures the spirit and scholarship of that time and will appeal to both scholars and fans who have an abiding interest in the American motion picture industry.

High Noon

High Noon PDF Author: Glenn Frankel
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1620409488
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 417

Get Book Here

Book Description
From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Searchers, the revelatory story behind the classic movie High Noon and the toxic political climate in which it was created. It's one of the most revered movies of Hollywood's golden era. Starring screen legend Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in her first significant film role, High Noon was shot on a lean budget over just thirty-two days but achieved instant box-office and critical success. It won four Academy Awards in 1953, including a best actor win for Cooper. And it became a cultural touchstone, often cited by politicians as a favorite film, celebrating moral fortitude. Yet what has been often overlooked is that High Noon was made during the height of the Hollywood blacklist, a time of political inquisition and personal betrayal. In the middle of the film shoot, screenwriter Carl Foreman was forced to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities about his former membership in the Communist Party. Refusing to name names, he was eventually blacklisted and fled the United States. (His co-authored screenplay for another classic, The Bridge on the River Kwai, went uncredited in 1957.) Examined in light of Foreman's testimony, High Noon's emphasis on courage and loyalty takes on deeper meaning and importance. In this book, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Frankel tells the story of the making of a great American Western, exploring how Carl Foreman's concept of High Noon evolved from idea to first draft to final script, taking on allegorical weight. Both the classic film and its turbulent political times emerge newly illuminated.

Douglas Fairbanks and the American Century

Douglas Fairbanks and the American Century PDF Author: John C. Tibbetts
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1626741476
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 437

Get Book Here

Book Description
Douglas Fairbanks and the American Century brings to life the most popular movie star of his day, the personification of the Golden Age of Hollywood. At his peak, in the teens and 1920s, the swashbuckling adventurer embodied the new American century of speed, opportunity, and aggressive optimism. The essays and interviews in this volume bring fresh perspectives to his life and work, including analyses of films never before examined. Also published here for the first time in English is a first-hand production account of the making of Fairbanks's last silent film, The Iron Mask. Fairbanks (1883–1939) was the most vivid and strenuous exponent of the American Century, whose dominant mode after 1900 was the mass marketing of a burgeoning democratic optimism, at home and abroad. During those first decades of the twentieth century, his satiric comedy adventures shadow-boxed with the illusions of class and custom. His characters managed to combine the American easterner's experience and pretension and the westerner's promise and expansion. As the masculine personification of the Old World aristocrat and the New World self-made man—tied to tradition yet emancipated from history—he constructed a uniquely American aristocrat striding into a new age and sensibility. This is the most complete account yet written of the film career of Douglas Fairbanks, one of the first great stars of the silent American cinema and one of the original United Artists (comprising Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith). John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh's text is especially rich in its coverage of the early years of the star's career from 1915 to 1920 and covers in detail several films previously considered lost.

Claude Rains

Claude Rains PDF Author: John T. Soister
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476612781
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 279

Get Book Here

Book Description
The career of Claude Rains is often, and unfairly, overshadowed by the careers of the ever-popular Karloff, Lugosi, Chaney and Rathbone, but few can dispute that he was truly one of the world's foremost character actors. The Invisible Man, ironically, made him quite the visible star. In his own inimitable way, Rains later became John Jasper (in Mystery of Edwin Drood), Louis Renault (Casablanca), Julius Caesar (Caesar and Cleopatra), and Mr. Dryden (Lawrence of Arabia). While concentrating on Rains' more than fifty films, this book also comprehensively examines his work in other media: the stage, radio, television and recordings. His only child, Jessica, in the foreword, provides a brief biography of her father. There are many rare photographs.

Twentieth Century–Fox

Twentieth Century–Fox PDF Author: Peter Lev
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292744498
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 482

Get Book Here

Book Description
When the Fox Film Corporation merged with Twentieth Century Pictures in 1935, the company posed little threat to industry juggernauts such as Paramount and MGM. In the years that followed however, guided by executives Darryl F. Zanuck and Spyros Skouras, it soon emerged as one of the most important studios. Though working from separate offices in New York and Los Angeles and often of two different minds, the two men navigated Twentieth Century-Fox through the trials of the World War II boom, the birth of television, the Hollywood Blacklist, and more to an era of exceptional success, which included what was then the highest grossing movie of all time, The Sound of Music. Twentieth Century-Fox is a comprehensive examination of the studio’s transformation during the Zanuck-Skouras era. Instead of limiting his scope to the Hollywood production studio, Lev also delves into the corporate strategies, distribution models, government relations, and technological innovations that were the responsibilities of the New York headquarters. Moving chronologically, he examines the corporate history before analyzing individual films produced by Twentieth Century-Fox during that period. Drawn largely from original archival research, Twentieth Century-Fox offers not only enlightening analyses and new insights into the films and the history of the company, but also affords the reader a unique perspective from which to view the evolution of the entire film industry.

José Ferrer

José Ferrer PDF Author: Mike Peros
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496830164
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Get Book Here

Book Description
José Ferrer (1912–1992) became the first Puerto Rican actor to win the Best Actor Academy Award for the 1950 film version of Cyrano de Bergerac. His iconic portrayal of the lovelorn poet/swordsman had already won him the Tony in 1947, and he would be identified with Cyrano for the rest of his life. Ferrer was a theatrical dynamo with limitless energy; in 1952 he directed Stalag 17, The Fourposter, and The Shrike (which he starred in) on Broadway, while New York City movie marquees were heralding his appearance in Anything Can Happen. At his apex in the 1950s, Ferrer was in constant demand both in theater and movies. He capitalized on his Oscar with such triumphs as Moulin Rouge and The Caine Mutiny. Not content with merely acting, Ferrer soon became a force behind the camera, acting and directing such critically well-received films as The Shrike and The Great Man. Success proved difficult to sustain. In the late 1950s, such ambitious theatrical productions as Edwin Booth and Juno were critical and commercial flops, while film studios also lost their patience with him. By the mid-1960s, Ferrer took whatever roles he could get in films, television, or regional theater. In addition, Ferrer had a turbulent personal life. His first marriage to actress Uta Hagen ended in divorce and scandal. His personal and professional relationship with his Othello costar Paul Robeson landed Ferrer before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Ferrer’s marriage to actress/dancer Phyllis Hill was marred by his infidelity, while his initial wedded bliss with singer Rosemary Clooney eroded as his career began to ebb while hers started to peak. In spite of everything, Ferrer managed to endure and was working practically right up to his death. Ferrer maintained his pride in his Puerto Rican heritage, donating his Oscar to the University of Puerto Rico while championing the work of Latino poets and playwrights. He continuously evolved, striving to remain relevant, stretching his talents (including cabaret, operas, musicals, and yes, ballet!), and writing the occasional guest column for major newspapers. Ferrer’s life is an American success story and a testament to reinvention and resilience.

Kenneth Strickfaden, Dr. Frankenstein's Electrician

Kenneth Strickfaden, Dr. Frankenstein's Electrician PDF Author: Harry Goldman
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786483555
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Get Book Here

Book Description
Kenneth Strickfaden, innovative genius of illusionary special effects from silent films to the age of television, set the standard for Hollywood's mad scientists. Strickfaden created the science fiction apparatus in more than 100 motion picture films and television programs, from 1931's Frankenstein to the Wizard of Oz and The Mask of Fu Manchu to television's The Munsters. The skilled technician, known around Hollywood's back lots as "Mr. Electric," once doubled for Boris Karloff in a dangerous scene and was nearly electrocuted. From his birth in 1896 to his death in 1984, Strickfaden's life was filled with adventure. He spent his early years working the amusement parks on both coasts, served overseas as a Marine during World War I, took a 1919 cross-country trip in a dilapidated Model T, and favored risky pursuits like automobile and speedboat racing. He worked as an aeronautical mechanic, constructing airplanes for an historic around-the-world flight. A science teacher at heart, he gave 1,500 traveling science demonstration lectures across the U.S. and Canada. Besides covering Strickfaden's entire personal and professional life, this book discusses how later films show his influence. It reveals the fate of his collection of equipment, and is richly illustrated with numerous rare and previously unpublished photographs. Appendices provide a selection of notes, doodles, and scribbles from Strickfaden's notebooks, informal sketches, correspondence, documents, a chronology of his film and television contributions, a bibliography, a film index, and a complete subject index.

Irene Dunne

Irene Dunne PDF Author: Wes D. Gehring
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 0810858649
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book Here

Book Description
Traces the life of the American film actress from her childhood days spent in Louisville, St. Louis, and Madison, Indiana, through her Hollywood career to her retirement, and receipt of the Kennedy Center Award in 1985.

Those Who Made It

Those Who Made It PDF Author: John C. Tibbetts
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137541911
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 245

Get Book Here

Book Description
What was it like to work behind the scenes, away from the spotlight's glare, in Hollywood's so-called Golden Age? The interviews in this book provide eye-witness accounts from the likes of Steven Spielberg and Terry Gilliam, to explore the creative decisions that have shaped some of Classical Hollywood's most-loved films.