Bücher der Reihe The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series

The author relates the film's subsequent history against the background of the worsening political situation in Europe. The events leading up to World War II were to have a profound effect on the future of the film. Aside from the political issues, the book describes the fascinating story of the making of an epic film.

An obscure independent filmmaker until Halloween (1978), John Carpenter has been applauded for his classic sense of compositions, yet reviled for his "B-film" sensibility. With a chronology of Carpenter's career, a detailed filmography, photos, brief plot synopses, and a thorough index, this volume will be treasured by film scholars and fans alike.

Suranjan Ganguly's book examines in depth six of Ray's major films focusing on issues such as human subjectivity, the importance of education, the emancipation of women, the rise of the new middle class, and the crisis of identity in post-Independence India.

An expanded and updated study of the thematic concerns and the underlying humanism and morality in Scorsese's films. Contains individual chapters on fifteen Scorsese films, the most complete Scorsese filmography available, and a host of illustrations.

From the silent era into the early days of television, hundreds of small production companies turned out low-budget films that were played as second features in this country and abroad. As might be expected, a high percentage of these films were Westerns. The people who made these films-producers, directors, writers, actors, and technicians-inhabited what came to be known as Poverty Row, eking out a living doing a job they loved.Author C. Jack Lewis spent 25 years in this world of low-budget Westerns, and here he portrays the human side of the industry through the many people with whom he came into contact as he worked his way from film to film. Highly personal, filled with rare glimpses of a life that lives only in the memory of a few, this narrative is a nostalgic memoir of a bygone time, of those who shared life on Poverty Row-and of the hard work, failures, successes, and dreams made or broken.Liberal use of photos helps readers identify the faces they have seen on their television screens in the reruns of these pictures still making the rounds. A must-read for students of film and popular culture-great for fans of Westerns as well.

Now in paperback. William Desmond Taylor (1872-1922) was a leading silent film director remembered as the victim of Hollywood's most sensational unsolved murder, which shook the nation and shattered the reputations of several top Hollywood stars. Until now, Taylor's film career and leadership role in the Hollywood film industry have been completely overshadowed by the scandal of his death. By reprinting over 400 items from contemporary newspapers, magazines, and trade journals, the book reveals Taylor's life in Hollywood_from his arrival as a minor actor in 1912 until his death in 1922 as one of Hollywood's top directors. These annotated clippings and articles, many containing Taylor's own words, provide substantial insight into Hollywood life and film production during the decade that transformed Hollywood into the movie capital of the world. Included in the book is the most extensive filmography of Taylor's work ever published. Taylor's murder is also examined, including a critical analysis of two published 'solutions' to the crime.

Wife of the Life of the Party is the memoir of the late Lita Grey Chaplin (1908-1995), the only one of Chaplin's wives to have written an account of life with Chaplin. Her memoir is an extraordinary Hollywood story of someone who was there from the very beginning. Born Lillita Louise MacMurray in Hollywood, she began her career at twelve with the Charlie Chaplin Film Company, when Chaplin selected her to appear with him as the flirting angel in The Kid. When she was fifteen, Chaplin signed her as the leading lady in The Gold Rush and changed her name to Lita Grey. She was forced to leave the production when, at the age of sixteen, she became pregnant with Chaplin's child. She married Chaplin in Empalme, Mexico in November 1924. The Chaplins stayed together for two years. Lita bore Chaplin two sons: Charles Chaplin, Jr. and Sydney Chaplin. In November 1926, after Lita discovered that Chaplin was having an affair with Merna Kennedy (Lita's best friend, whom she had persuaded Chaplin to hire as the leading lady in The Circus), Lita left Chaplin and filed for divorce. It was one of the first divorce cases to receive a public airing. The divorce complaint ran a staggering 42 pages and fed scandal with its revelations about the private life of Charles Chaplin. Lita's divorce settlement of $825,000 was the largest in American history at the time. Lita authorized the publication of another biography, My Life with Chaplin, in 1966. The book was mainly the creation of her co-author, Morton Cooper, who re-wrote her manuscript. Lita was never happy with the many inaccuracies and distortions of that book. Wife of the Life of the Party is not to be seen as a supplement to her early book, but rather Lita's own version of her life, told for the first time.

New in Paperback! In 1935, two film production companies merged to form one of the most influential corporations in the world-Twentieth Century-Fox. Here is the story of that dynamic company and of the personalities who molded it over the past fifty years, from Darryl F. Zanuk to Barry Diller. Unlike any previous volume on a film studio, this in-depth history is told from a corporate viewpoint, covering the trends that influenced film-making, profit-making incentives, and the creative policies resulting in films like The Grapes of Wrath, the Snake Pit, The Robe, Cleopatra, The Towering Inferno, and Star Wars.The book spans the birth of the movies; the rise of the studio system; the coming of sound; the Consent Decrees; the development of CinemaScope; the growth of independent production; and the video revolution. The result is an inside view of how the studio operated, with information never before published on the costs and grosses of films, as well as exclusive interviews and memos. Available in paperback 2001. Cloth version previously published in 1988.

Roberto Benigni, the Italian comedian, actor, director, and writer, gained international fame when his film La vita e bella/ Life Is Beautiful (1997) won three Oscars in 1999, including Best Foreign Film and Best Actor. Benigni has been a steady presence in Italian popular culture since the mid-1970s. This book introduces Benigni's performances in film, stage, and television, little known outside of Italy, with an emphasis on the cultural and intellectual backdrops that characterize his films, including his origins among the Tuscan rhyming poets and his experiences in the Roman avant-garde theater. Benigni's statements about his experiences and apprenticeships with cinema notables like Cesare Zavattini and Federico Fellini reveal a wealth of fresh information and confirm the sense that there is more to this madcap buffoon than meets the eye.

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 on Hitchcock's first talkie, Blackmail, and went on to direct Maggie Smith, Judy Garland, Walter Matthau, and many other prominent performers. The book includes tales of the on-and-off-the-set antics of comedian George Formby, and original accounts of his experiences working with Noel Coward and David Lean. This is not simply an autobiography, but rather a history of British cinema from the 1920s through the 1960s, and Hollywood cinema from the 1960s through the present. Aside from Neame's own writing, the book contains original commentary by many of his contemporaries and associates including Alec Guinness, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Shirley MacLaine, Walter Matthau, John Mills and Shelley Winters. Includes more than 40 photos!

Rungs on a Ladder looks at part of the movie industry from a unique perspective. Christopher Neame, son of director Ronald, started his career (in the early 1960s) at the very bottom, but determinedly made his way to the top. Neame fondly recalls his learning years at Bray Studios and beyond. Simply and often amusingly, he recounts his days with Hammer Films and observes many of the characters both in front of and behind the camera-names synonymous with those classic tales of Gothic horror: director Terrence Fisher, producers Anthony Hinds, Michael Carreras and Anthony Nelson Keys, screenwriter/producer Jimmy Sangster, and of course, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Along the way, he encounters those less obviously connected to Hammer like Joan Fontaine, Joseph Cotten, Norman Lloyd, and Bette Davis. Never the one to reserve his critical eye for others alone, Neame willingly says mea culpa when deserved. The book begins with his rude awakening to the "e;string and sealing wax"e; world of Dracula Prince of Darkness and follows his journey through sixteen subsequent productions including three Frankensteins, The Devil Rides Out (which American distributors thought was going to be a Western!), and a couple of Mummy films. Neame also shares stories of his participation in non-genre ventures like Quatermass and the Pit, The Anniversary, Demons of the Mind and Fear in the Night.Includes 16 pages of photos.

The popular screen and stage star Laurence Harvey (1928-1973) is best remembered for his stellar performance in the film The Manchurian Candidate-a 20th century classic. Of his 50 films, Room At the Top not only brought sexual permissiveness to American and British screens and an Oscar nomination, but it also branded him a heartthrob sensation.For all his fame and fortune, Harvey's short life was riddled with controversy, demonized by critics, and fraught with tragedy. In this revealing biography by Harvey's sister-in-law, readers are provided a close-up view of his career, his three marriages and his longtime sexual affair with one of his male producers. It also details his battle with cancer and his failure to acknowledge its seriousness.Packed with personal anecdotes, more than twenty black and white photographs, and a filmography, Reach for the Top: The Turbulent Life of Laurence Harvey will fascinate film students, scholars, and fans of the actor.

Anna May Wong was an extraordinary Asian American woman who became the country's most famous film actress of Chinese descent. From small parts in silent films to starring roles in Hollywood and across the Atlantic, Wong made an impression on audiences of all persuasions. In Perpetually Cool, Anthony Chan takes the reader on a compelling journey through Wong's early years in Los Angeles and her first Hollywood pictures. Chan also examines the scope and nature of race, gender, and power and their impact on Wong's personal growth as a Chinese American.Perpetually Cool is not only the captivating story of a cinematic career, but also of roots and identity, as it recounts Wong's desire to connect with her heritage in the United States and in China. Chan provides extensive textual analyses of Wong's signature films, especially The Toll of the Sea (1922), The Thief of Bagdad (1924) with Douglas Fairbanks, and her most famous role as Hui Fei in Shanghai Express (1932), opposite Marlene Dietrich. Perpetually Cool is a fitting tribute to the influence of this Chinese American icon.

In the 1950s, Hammer Film Productions, a small British filmmaking company, introduced the world to a new genre of motion picture. Referred to by some as "e;horror,"e; by others as "e;fantasy,"e; Hammer films had a unique look and feel that many other studios would later attempt-and fail-to capture. Hammer films also had a unique sound. For although the studio was small and the budgets limited, those involved in making the Hammer films recognized that the musical score was just as important as the set, the actors, and the script in telling the story. Consequently, Hammer Films Productions recruited the best musical talent to make its films come alive. Those artists and the work they did are chronicled here in careful detail by Randall D. Larson. From the studio's fledging days, through its great successes of the 60s and early 70s, Music from the House of Hammer offers an inside look at how the "e;Hammer sound"e; was developed and nurtured.

This is the first full-length biography of Irene Dunne, one of the most versatile actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age. A recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors award in 1985, Dunne's acting highlights include five Best Actress Oscar nominations, occurring in almost as many different genres: the Western Cimarron (1931), the two screwball comedies Theodora Goes Wild (1936) and The Awful Truth (1937), the romantic comedy Love Affair (1939), and the populist I Remember Mama (1948). Her other memorable films include My Favorite Wife (1940), Penny Serenade (1941), Anna and the King of Siam (1946), and Life with Father (1947). After delving into Dunne's childhood and early acting forays, the book reveals details about key events in her life and career, including a difficult, bi-coastal marriage. The author also examines Dunne's pivotal roles on stage and in film, her movement among the genres of melodrama and screwball comedy, her ties to director Leo McCarey, and her post-war film career. Gehring's research and insightful analysis shed light on what made Irene Dunne so unique and her performances so memorable. Includes 16 pages of photos.

Many remember Charlie Chaplin's comic masterpiece, The Gold Rush, as the finest blend of comedy and farce ever brought to the screen. Far fewer remember its heroine, Georgia Hale (1900-1985).Seventy years after the film's appearance, Heather Kiernan brings Georgia Hale back to life in this edition of her hitherto unpublished memoirs. Research work embodied in her perceptive introduction clears up many uncertainties about Hale's life and provides an outline of her most significant years.Hale's own chief purpose was to describe her long and close relationship with Chaplin and his dual personality, which made the relationship at times a love-hate one. As Chaplin's constant companion during the years 1928-1931, she became a part of his social circle, meeting people as diverse as Marion Davies, Sergei Eisenstein, Ralph Barton, and Albert Einstein. The memoir effectively ends with Chaplin's marriage in June 1943 to Oona O'Neill.This unique book contains illustrations from the Chaplin archive, most of which are published here for the first time.

Roberto Benigni's romantic comedy Life is Beautiful enjoyed tremendous success everywhere it was shown. In addition to winning almost every possible film award, including three Oscars, lavish praise and film reviews, it grossed over a quarter of a billion dollars-the most profitable Italian movie ever. Very few have questioned the movie-until now. With sharp, uncompromising logic and eye-opening insight, Niv analyzes the film and its script scene-by-scene to show why Life is Beautiful is very far from being the innocent, charming, and heartwarming film it appears to be. The author argues that the film not only lends support to the central arguments of Holocaust deniers, but is actually a quasi-theological, Christian parable which seeks to justify the extermination of Jews in the 20th century as divine punishment for the sin of the crucifixion of Jesus two thousand years ago. Life is Beautiful, But Not for Jews is a riveting book that simply and concisely raises some important and complex ideas about film and psychology in post-Holocaust civilization. It also serves as an elementary course in the appreciation of films and artistic texts in general and in deciphering their deeper meanings, teaching the reader to more clearly grasp the hidden significance of cultural processes. This is the first English translation of the Hebrew text.

Now available in paperback! No movie has ever been made, or made well, without the character who toils just outside the spotlight. He arranged for the spotlight, hired the spotlight operator, and even made sure that it was trained correctly on the stars. At the end of the day, there would be no blinking movie screens, no blinking Oscar winners, no finished films, good or bad, without the Assistant Director. Jerry Ziesmer was an assistant director for over thirty years, working on countless films before his retirement in the middle-nineties. He has worked with some of Hollywood's biggest directors, and its biggest stars. In this memoir, he recounts his time in Hollywood including his work on the sets of Apocalypse Now, Close Encounters, and Jerry Maguire. Written with the craft and humor that made Jerry Ziesmer one of the most sought-after assistant directors in Hollywood, this book will be a treasure for students and fans of twentieth-century Hollywood. Cloth edition previously published in 2000.

For nearly 40 years, David Lynchs works have enthralled, mystified, and provoked viewers. Lynchs films delve into the subjective consciousness of his characters to reveal both the depraved darkness and luminous spirituality of human nature. From his experimental shorts of the 1960s to feature films like Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, and INLAND EMPIRE, Lynch has pushed the boundaries of cinematic storytelling. In David Lynch: Beautiful Dark, author Greg Olson explores the surreal intricacies of the directors unique visual and visceral style not only in his full-length films but also his early forays into painting and short films, as well as his television landmark, Twin Peaks. This in-depth exploration is the first full-length work to analyze the intimate symbiosis between Lynchs life experience and artistic expressions: from the small-town child to the teenage painter to the 60-year-old Internet and digital media experimenter.To fully delineate the directors life and art, Olson received unprecedented participation from Lynch, his parents, siblings, old school friends, romantic partners, children, and decades of professional colleagues, as well as on-set access to the director during the production of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. Throughout this study, Olson provides thorough analyses of the filmmakers works as Lynch conceived, crafted, and completed them. Consequently, David Lynch: Beautiful Dark is the definitive study of one of the most influential and idiosyncratic directors of the last four decades.

Discovered by Charlie Chaplin in 1919, four-year-old Jackie Coogan soared to overnight stardom for his title role in the silent masterpiece, The Kid. A string of successes followed, including Peck's Bad Boy, Oliver Twist, and A Boy of Flanders, earning Coogan a fortune of four million dollars. Dubbed 'The Millionaire Kid' by the press, he later had to sue his parents in a futile attempt to recover his squandered fortune. His later years were marked with penury and the cruel diminishment of his childhood fame. As an adult, he found work in character roles and gained unexpected but fleeting fame as 'Uncle Fester' in the series The Addams Family. He continued to make guest appearances on television until his death in 1984. In Jackie Coogan: The World's Boy King, Diana Serra Cary reveals the little-known and even less understood private life of this famous child star and his dysfunctional family. She looks at the highs and lows of an actor who reached the height of fame before ten and whose subsequent career took an inevitable fall. Cary also examines the conduct of Coogan's parents, whose behavior served as an unfortunate model for countless others who sought fame and fortune through their children's success. The author, a major child star (the former Baby Peggy), employs her own hard-won insight to explore the career and family woes of another in this fascinating account about one of the greatest child stars of all time. Includes more than 30 photos.

As the grandson of actress Ivy Close and son of director Ronald Neame (Straight from the Horse''s Mouth; Scarecrow, 2003), Christopher Neame''s roots in the film business were already firmly established by the time he joined the family profession. In his first memoir, Rungs on a Ladder, Neame gave readers an insider''s look into a number of productions of the 1960s and 70s produced by Hammer Studios. Christopher followed this with A Take on British TV Drama, in which he recounted the challenges and rewards of working on some of the most distinguished works of British television, including The Flame Trees of Thika, Monsignor Quixote, and Danger: U.X.B. In Principal Characters, Neame fills in the gaps of his illustrious career by providing brief intimate portraits of the many important film figures he has worked with. In this charming collection of anecdotes, he asks and answers questions about the stars, who reveal both their carefree and vulnerable moments alike: Was Richard Harris really such a hell-raiser as a young man? What was Peter Sellers like to work with? How did Robert Mitchum find himself in trouble? How many faces did Alec Guinness have? What was behind Peter O''Toole and a bomb threat in Paris? Looking behind the camera lens, Neame captures director Karel Reisz (This Sporting Life) wearing a producer''s hat, marvels at cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth ''painting'' Cabaret with light, discloses Kenneth Tynan''s unusual predilection, and weighs in on the culinary skills of Ismail Merchant (A Room with a View). Throughout these accounts, Christopher looks both acutely and often amusingly at many who are household names, and when he feels it is appropriate to do so, he doesn''t pull punches. This work is a fitting conclusion to an autobiographical "trilogy," and will be of interest to all those curious about the film industry and especially the stars and directors Christopher Neame has worked with over the years.

Impressed by the success of The Birth of a Nation, Robert Goldstein, owner of a well-known Los Angeles costume supply house, produced his own epic film drama, The Spirit of ''76 and screened it in Los Angeles shortly after America''s entry into World War I. The film was denounced as anti-British and treasonous. Arrested under the Espionage Act, Goldstein became the first and only American jailed for the crime of producing a patriotic film. Film historian Tony Slide includes an introductory essay, reprints contemporary documentation, and publishes a 1927 manuscript by Goldstein, in which he fully documents the background to the film, its making, his arrest and trial, and his later suffering.

This study explores the aesthetic of Poe and Hitchcock in terms of a set of common obsessions, techniques and genres. Each chapter explores the similarities and differences between their respective treatments of such issues as doubles, the perverse, voyeurism and romantic obsession.

While John Woo is regarded as a master action director, little attention has been paid to the manner in which Woo's films reflect the director's religious and ethical concerns. This work shows that Woo should be regarded as a predominantly religious director.

Peckinpah's Women examines the confluence of factors that worked with, and often against, Peckinpah's cinematic voice to divine a recurring positive theme regarding women in those films that form the heart of his body of work: his period Westerns.

This is the first overview of Schulberg's career 1937-2000 (his own autobiography, Moving Pictures, covers his life only to age 17). This book covers his career as a novelist, short story writer, playwright, Oscar-winning screenwriter and boxing historian.

This is the memoir of Richard Bare, director of the television series, "Green Acres". The book follows Bare through his many years in filmmaking, which brought him into contact with some of Hollywood's biggest stars, sometimes in the most unexpected places.

This is a history spanning almost a hundred years. The author, Edward Eliscu, describes the course of his life from his family's emigration to America, his experiences in the Broadway theatre, his migration to Hollywood, and his eventual recognition as a celebrity in the entertainment field.

This collection of interviews traces the career of filmmaker Henry Hathaway from his beginnings as a child actor for the American Film Company in 1911 through his directorial triumphs How the West Was Won (1962) and True Grit (1969). Begun as a special project for the American Film Institute, this oral history has now been edited and is being released for the first time in book form. Polly Platt, production designer, screenwriter, and producer of such films as Broadcast News, Pretty Baby, and The War of the Roses conducted the interviews and intended to edit them herself, but her busy career prevented her from completing the project. Now edited for release, this collection contains Hathaway''s fascinating reflections about the studio system and working with such Hollywood luminaries as John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, Jimmy Stewart, and Shirley Temple. A must for any Hollywood history buff.

Over the course of his five-decade career in television, John Stephens produced many hit shows, including My Three Sons, Family Affair, Gunsmoke, How the West Was Won, and Simon & Simon. He also produced a number of failures, including The Smith Family (starring Henry Fonda and Ron Howard) and arguably the worst Movie of the Week, the pilot to Wonder Woman (starring Cathy Lee Crosby). Along the way, Stephens encountered the usualΓÇöand not so usualΓÇödifficulties that accompany work on such projects. While others may have seen these events as obstacles, Stephens regarded them as opportunities. And when an opportunity did not yield the most favorable outcome, he made the most of it by rendering the experience into an amusing anecdote. It is with this lighthearted approach that Stephens recounts his lengthy career in From My Three Sons to Major Dad: My Life as a TV Producer. From Arness to Zsa Zsa, the author reveals everything about the making of episodic television: casting stars and guest stars, handling actors in various states of inebriation, fixing scripts, hiring and firing directors, and filming on location. From Brian Keith''s colorful vocabulary to Fred MacMurray''s well-known frugality; from Jimmy Stewart''s guest appearance at scale to the rising egosΓÇöand subsequent demandsΓÇöof Simon and Simon''s pair of stars, it''s all here. Beginning in the 1950s, Stephens chronicles five decades of work in the television industryΓÇöfrom his early days as a casting director to his triumphant swan song, creating and producing the hit series Major Dad. Whether you''re an industry professional or one of the many millions of Americans glued to their TV sets every night, you''ll enjoy this informative and entertaining memoir.