Author: Shannon Hengen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134385587
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Get Book Here
Book Description
First Published in 1998. This lively volume explores comedy as a place where gender and sexuality, through performance, challenge sexist and heteronormative forces in Western culture. The contributors investigate the effects of gender, sexuality, sexual identity, race, class and nationality on humor and comedic performance. Each chapter, distinct in its voice and content, addresses how particular historical periods seem to affect who laughs at what, why, and with what consequences. This book not only spans a broad range of historical and literary periods, it also engages in a critical conversation with past and present thinkers to articulate the political, cultural and social effects of comedy.
Author: Frank Cullen
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 0415938538
Category : Entertainers
Languages : en
Pages : 1362
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: Michael R. Pitts
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476648514
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Get Book Here
Book Description
For more than seven decades Nick Lucas was an entertainer, beginning as a child street musician and becoming one of the most popular singer-guitarists of all time. He was a popular sideman in bands, and his solo career conquered radio, recordings, vaudeville, Broadway, films, night clubs and television. He is credited with being the first musician to replace the banjo with the guitar in big bands and on records, and with initiating the "intimate style" of singing, making him the first crooner. Nick Lucas' guitar playing contributed significantly to the instrument's popularity, and he influenced generations of players with his instruction books and by having a line of popular guitar picks bearing his name. He was the first guitarist to have a custom-made model, "The Nick Lucas Special." This biography comprehensively covers Nick Lucas' career as he entertained audiences in the United States, England and Australia, becoming a beloved star and influencing popular music to the present day.
Author: Richard Barrios
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195088115
Category : Musical films
Languages : en
Pages : 509
Get Book Here
Book Description
Chronicling the early musical film years from 1926 to 1934, A Song in the Dark offers a fascinating look at these innovative films, the product of much of the major experimentation that went on during the development of sound technology. The triumphs, disasters and offscreen intrigue of this era form a remarkable story of this vital and unique film history.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 770
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: Edwin M. Bradley
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476639930
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 307
Get Book Here
Book Description
Pre-World War II Hollywood musicals weren't only about Astaire and Rogers, Mickey and Judy, Busby Berkeley, Bing Crosby, or Shirley Temple. The early musical developed through tangents that reflected larger trends in film and American culture at large. Here is a survey of select titles with a variety of influences: outsized songwriter personalities, hubbub over "hillbilly" and cowboy stereotypes, the emergence of swing, and the brief parade of opera stars to celluloid. Featured movies range from the smash hit Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), to obscurities such as Are You There? (1930) and Swing, Sister, Swing (1938), to the high-grossing but now forgotten Mountain Music (1937), and It's Great to Be Alive (1933), a zesty pre-Code musical/science-fiction/comedy mishmash. Also included are some of the not-so-memorable pictures made by some of the decade's greatest musical stars.
Author: David A. Jasen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135949018
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 492
Get Book Here
Book Description
For nearly a century, New York's famous "Tin Pan Alley" was the center of popular music publishing in this country. It was where songwriting became a profession, and songs were made-to-order for the biggest stars. Selling popular music to a mass audience from coast-to-coast involved the greatest entertainment media of the day, from minstrelsy to Broadway, to vaudeville, dance palaces, radio, and motion pictures. Successful songwriting became an art, with a host of men and women becoming famous by writing famous songs.
Author: Graham Webb
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 147668118X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 735
Get Book Here
Book Description
Short subject films have a long history in American cinemas. These could be anywhere from 2 to 40 minutes long and were used as a "filler" in a picture show that would include a cartoon, a newsreel, possibly a serial and a short before launching into the feature film. Shorts could tackle any topic of interest: an unusual travelogue, a comedy, musical revues, sports, nature or popular vaudeville acts. With the advent of sound-on-film in the mid-to-late 1920s, makers of earlier silent short subjects began experimenting with the short films, using them as a testing ground for the use of sound in feature movies. After the Second World War, and the rising popularity of television, short subject films became far too expensive to produce and they had mostly disappeared from the screens by the late 1950s. This encyclopedia offers comprehensive listings of American short subject films from the 1920s through the 1950s.
Author: Howard Pollack
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520933141
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 938
Get Book Here
Book Description
This comprehensive biography of George Gershwin (1898-1937) unravels the myths surrounding one of America's most celebrated composers and establishes the enduring value of his music. Gershwin created some of the most beloved music of the twentieth century and, along with Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter, helped make the golden age of Broadway golden. Howard Pollack draws from a wealth of sketches, manuscripts, letters, interviews, books, articles, recordings, films, and other materials—including a large cache of Gershwin scores discovered in a Warner Brothers warehouse in 1982—to create an expansive chronicle of Gershwin’s meteoric rise to fame. He also traces Gershwin’s powerful presence that, even today, extends from Broadway, jazz clubs, and film scores to symphony halls and opera houses. Pollack’s lively narrative describes Gershwin’s family, childhood, and education; his early career as a pianist; his friendships and romantic life; his relation to various musical trends; his writings on music; his working methods; and his tragic death at the age of 38. Unlike Kern, Berlin, and Porter, who mostly worked within the confines of Broadway and Hollywood, Gershwin actively sought to cross the boundaries between high and low, and wrote works that crossed over into a realm where art music, jazz, and Broadway met and merged. The author surveys Gershwin’s entire oeuvre, from his first surviving compositions to the melodies that his brother and principal collaborator, Ira Gershwin, lyricized after his death. Pollack concludes with an exploration of the performances and critical reception of Gershwin's music over the years, from his time to ours.
Author: Roy Liebman
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476609365
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 464
Get Book Here
Book Description
The headline of the Variety extra on October 27, 1926, proclaimed "Vitaphone1 Thrills L.A.!" Vitaphone, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. formed in association with Western Electric, was one of the major producers of talkies, even though its sound-on-disc technology barely lasted four years. The Vitaphone features and shorts that have survived intact, or that have been so carefully restored, preserve much of the show business history that might otherwise have been lost with the industry's fast-paced advances in movie making. This book is a catalogue of Vitaphone features and shorts. The first section lists the features and shorts by release number. The New York productions (1926-1940) are listed first, followed by the West Coast productions (1927-1970). For shorts, the following particulars, if known and if applicable, are given: title, alternate title(s), instrumental and vocal selections performed on screen, composer(s) and performers of instrumental and vocal selections, release date and synopsis of the film, names of major cast members and directors, set information if two or fewer sets were used, and the amount paid to early performers. For features, entries list release dates, genre, and major cast members. The section on performers includes only those who appeared in shorts, listing dates and places of birth when known.
