Author: Steven Bingen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493070894
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Movies don’t exist in a vacuum. Each MGM movie is a tiny piece of a large, colorful (although often black-and-white) quilt, with threads tying it into all of the rest of that studio’s product, going forward, yes, but also backward, and horizontally, and three-dimensionally across its entire landscape. Not necessarily a “best of” compilation, this book discusses the films that for one reason or another (and not all of them good ones) changed the trajectory of MGM and the film industry in general, from the revolutionary use of “Cinerama” in 1962’s How the West Was Won to Director Alfred Hitchcock’s near-extortion of the profits from the 1959 hit thriller North by Northwest.And there are the studio’s on-screen self-shoutouts to its own past or stars, in films like Party Girl (1958), the That’s Entertainment series, Garbo Talks (1984), Rain Man (1955), and De-Lovely (2004), or the studio’s acquisition of other successful franchises such as James Bond. But fear not—what we consider MGM’s classic films all get their due here, often with a touch of irony or fascinating anecdote. Singin' in the Rain (1952), for example, was in its day neither a financial blockbuster nor critically acclaimed but rather an excuse for the studio to reuse some old songs it already owned. The Wizard of Oz (1939) cost almost as much to make as Gone With the Wind (also 1939) and took ten years to recoup its costs. But still, the MGM mystique endures. Like the popular Netflix series The Movies that Made Us, this is a fascinating look behind the scenes of the greatest—and at times notorious—films ever made.

Author: Steven Bingen
Publisher: Santa Monica Press
ISBN: 1595808930
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 1157

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Book Description
M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot is the illustrated history of the soundstages and outdoor sets where Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced many of the world’s most famous films. During its Golden Age, the studio employed the likes of Garbo, Astaire, and Gable, and produced innumerable iconic pieces of cinema such as The Wizard of Oz, Singin’ in the Rain, and Ben-Hur. It is estimated that a fifth of all films made in the United States prior to the 1970s were shot at MGM studios, meaning that the gigantic property was responsible for hundreds of iconic sets and stages, often utilizing and transforming minimal spaces and previously used props, to create some of the most recognizable and identifiable landscapes of modern movie culture. All of this happened behind closed doors, the backlot shut off from the public in a veil of secrecy and movie magic. M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot highlights this fascinating film treasure by recounting the history, popularity, and success of the MGM company through a tour of its physical property. Featuring the candid, exclusive voices and photographs from the people who worked there, and including hundreds of rare and unpublished photographs (including many from the archives of Warner Bros.), readers are launched aboard a fun and entertaining virtual tour of Hollywood’s most famous and mysterious motion picture studio.

Author: Steven Bingen
Publisher: Lyons Press
ISBN: 9781493060542
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's emblem, which has opened thousands of movies since 1924, is the most recognized corporate symbol in the world. Not just in the entertainment industry, it should be noted, but of any industry, anywhere, in the history of human civilization. But MGM has been a competitively insignificant force in the motion picture industry for nearly as long as it once, decades ago, dominated that industry. In fact, the MGM lion now presides not over movies alone, but over thirty world-class resorts, and is, or has been, also a recognized leader in the fields of real estate, theme parks, casinos, golf courses, consumer products, and even airlines, all around the world. But the MGM mystique remains. This book is a look at what made MGM the Mount Rushmore of studios, how it presented itself to the world, and how it influenced everything from set design to merchandising to music and dance, and continues to do so today.

Author: Steven Bingen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1589799623
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Movie studios are the wondrous, almost magical locales where not just films, but legends, are created. Unfortunately, these celebrity playgrounds are, and always have been, largely hidden from public view. Although some movie studios offer tours, few guests from outside the Hollywood community have ever been witness to the artistry, politics, and scandals that routinely go on behind the soundstage walls and away from the carefully orchestrated scenes visible to them from their tram carts. In this book, studio staff historian and Hollywood insider Steven Bingen throws open Hollywood’s iron gates and takes you inside the greatest and yet most mysterious movie studio of them all: Warner Bros. Long home to the world’s biggest stars and most memorable films and television shows, the Warner Bros. Studio lot functions as a small city and is even more fascinating, glamorous, and outrageous than any of the stars or movies that it has been routinely minting for more than ninety years. Accompanied by stunning behind-the-scenes photos and maps, and including a revealing backstory, this book is your ticket to a previously veiled Hollywood paradise.

Author: David Bordwell
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022648775X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 583

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Book Description
Introduction: the way Hollywood told it -- The frenzy of five fat years; Interlude: Spring 1940: lessons from our town

Author: Richard M. Hurst
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 081085886X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Republic Studios: Between Poverty Row and the Majors documents the influence and significance of this major B studio. Originally published in 1979, this book provides a brief overview of the studio's economic structure and charts its output. Hurst examines the various genres represented by the studio and addresses the non-series B films Republic produced, as well as rare A films such as Wake of the Red Witch, Sands of Iwo Jima, and John Ford's The Quiet Man, all of which starred John Wayne.

Author: Rocky Lang
Publisher: Hlpi Books
ISBN: 9780692266632
Category : Children of celebrities
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
What really goes on behind the veil of celebrity? Rocky Lang, who grew up in the 90210 as the son of mega-producer and screen disaster master Jennings Lang (Earthquake, the Airport movies and 35 other features), dishes all in his new book, Growing Up Hollywood: Tales from the Son of a Hollywood Mogul. Raised around the likes of Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Walter Matthau and Billy Wilder, Lang serves up-in self-deprecating style-a genuine insider's collection of bizarre, sometimes ribald, often hilarious and always surprising true tales from the rarefied world of Hollywood, such as: * Finding himself a pawn in the brutal creative war between Dustin Hoffman and director Sydney Pollack during the making of the classic comedy Tootsie. ! * Spying on Olivia Newton-John being photographed nude in his family's backyard pool, and the "breast-beating" he endured after getting caught in the act. ! * Discovering the scandal-sheet affair between his dad and screen siren Joan Bennett- along with the truth behind his father getting shot in the crotch by Bennett's husband. ! * Having Steven Spielberg as an "older brother" before and after the famous filmmaker's meteoric rise. ! *Being told by his dad that writer Gore Vidal offered to buy young Rocky for $1 million. ! * Learning his mother had slept with Ronald Reagan, plus the outrageous nickname the future U.S. president had given his own sexual prowess.

Author: Steven Bingen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493046446
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
In 1969 a man walked upon the moon, the Woodstock music festival was held in upstate New York, Richard Nixon was sworn in as the president of the United States, the Beatles made their last public appearance, as did, after a fashion, Judy Garland, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Boris Karloff, Joseph P. Kennedy, and Jack Kerouac, all of whom passed away that year. Something else passed away that year as well. In early July, just days before the moon landing, a low-budget exploitation movie, EasyRider, was released. It’s astonishing and wholly unexpected success almost single-handedly destroyed the Hollywood studio system which had been controlling the entertainment industry for half a century. Its success would ultimately change the way movies would be made, and who made them, as well as how those movies looked and sounded, and which audiences those movies would be made for. Additionally, the film’s innovative techniques; including extensive location shooting, unexplained editing juxtapositions, improvised dialogue, and innovative use of popular music, would change the vocabulary and language of cinema forever. Easy Rider: 50 Years of Looking for America will tell the story of Easy Rider on the fiftieth anniversary of its explosive release. Through published interviews, previously undiscovered archival materials, and new reflections by the participants, the whole story of Hollywood’s first true counterculture movie will be revealed for the first time ever.

Author: Robert C. Sickels
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1174

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Book Description
This fascinating and thought-provoking read challenges readers to consider entertainers and entertainment in new ways, and highlights figures from outside the worlds of film, television, and music as influential "pop stars." Comprising approximately 100 entries from more than 50 contributors from a variety of fields, this book covers a wide historical swath of entertainment figures chosen primarily for their lasting influence on American popular culture, not their popularity. The result is a unique collection that spotlights a vastly different array of figures than would normally be included in a collection of this nature—and appeals to readers ranging from high school students to professionals researching specific entertainers. Each subject individual's influence on popular culture is analyzed from the context of his or her time to the present in a lively and engaging way and through a variety of intellectual approaches. Many entries examine commonly discussed figures' influence on popular culture in ways not normally seen—for example, the widespread appeal of Woody Allen's essay collections to other comedians; or the effect of cinematic adaptations of Tennessee Williams' plays in breaking down Hollywood censorship.

Author: Steven Bingen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1630762016
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
Paramount: City of Dreams brings to life the operations of the world’s grandest movie lot as never before by opening its famous gates and revealing – for the first time – the wonderful myriad of soundstages and outdoor sets where, for one hundred years, Paramount has produced the world’s most famous films. With hundreds and hundreds of rare and unpublished photographs in color and black & white, readers are launched aboard a fun and entertaining “virtual tour” of Hollywood’s first, most famous and most mysterious motion picture studio. Paramount is a self-contained city. But unlike any community in the real world, this city’s streets and lawns, its bungalows and backlots, will be familiar even to those who have never been there. Now, for the first time, these much-filmed, much-haunted acres will be explored and the mysteries and myths peeled away – bringing into focus the greatest of all of Hollywood’s legendary dream factories.