Classic Film

Dark City expands with new chapters and a fresh collection of restored photos that illustrate the mythic landscape of the imagination. It's a place where the men and women who created film noir often find themselves dangling from the same sinister heights as the silver-screen avatars to whom they gave life.

Believe it or not, America's fascination with celebrity culture was thriving well before the days of TMZ, Perez Hilton, Charlie Sheen's breakdown, and allegations against Woody Allen. And the stars of yesteryear? They weren't always the saints that we make them out to be. Part biography, part cultural history, the stories contained in this book cover the stuff that films are made of: love, sex, drugs, illegitimate children, illicit affairs, and botched cover-ups.

In Buffoon Men: Classic Hollywood Comedians and Queered Masculinity, Scott Balcerzak reads the performances of notable comedians such as W. C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, Jack Benny, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, and Bud Abbott and Lou Costello through humor and queer theory to expose a problematic history of maleness in their personas.

Herman J. (1897-1953) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909-1993) wrote, produced, and directed over 150 pictures. With Orson Welles, Herman wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane and shared the picture's only Academy Award. Joe earned the second pair of his four Oscars for writing and directing All About Eve, which also won Best Picture.

The basis for the cult-classic film The Warriors chronicles one New York City gang's nocturnal journey through the seedy, dangerous subways and city streets of the 1960s. Every gang in the city meets on a sweltering July 4 night in a Bronx park for a peace rally. The crowd of miscreants turns violent after a prominent gang leader is killed and chaos prevails over the attempt at order. The Warriors follows the Dominators trying to make their way back to their home territory without being killed.

From the triumphant “Main Title” in Star Wars to the ominous bass line of Jaws, John Williams has penned some of the most unforgettable film scores—while netting more than fifty Academy Award nominations. This updated and revised edition of Emilio Audissino’s groundbreaking volume takes stock of Williams’s creative process and achievements in music composition, including the most recent sequels in the film franchises that made him famous. Audissino details his lasting impact and cements his legacy as one of the most important composers in movie history.

Jessica Rossi is a celebrity swimsuit model walking the Paris and Milan runways for the first time. She is a modern day princess, controlled by her agency, told how to act, who to date, what to think. She cannot take it anymore and escapes to Rome to blend into the landscape and enjoy a period of freedom and normalcy. Falling in with a tour group led by a professor of art history from the Metropolitan Museum in New York, Jess finds far more than she was looking for and her life's trajectory spins in a new direction. This is a story of adventure, enlightenment, coming of age, romance, and ...

NOSFERATU – A Symphony of Horror The Cult Film Transformed into a Novel – Darker, Deeper, Unrelenting Over 100 years ago, F.W. Murnau introduced the world to the very first vampire film, Nosferatu – A Symphony of Horror. Now, the myth awakens once again – not on the screen, but on the pages of this novel. This adaptation not only honors the cinematic classic, it expands and deepens its terror, elevating the horror to a whole new level. If you’re a fan of vampire legends, Gothic horror, and classic tales of dread, this book is made for you. A Journey into Darkness Follow Thomas ...

The History of Slasher Films: From Cult Classics to Modern Horror Icons is your ultimate guide to one of cinema’s most enduring—and thrilling—genres. Whether you're a longtime horror fan or just discovering the thrill of the Final Girl, this engaging and in-depth book traces the evolution of the slasher film from its early roots in the 1930s to its 21st-century reinvention. Packed with fascinating film history, cultural analysis, iconic characters, and must-watch movie recommendations, this book explores how slasher movies reflect our fears, challenge social norms, and continue to ...

A book that explores the great American novelist and playwright Edna Ferber, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Ficton, whose work was made into many Academy Award-winning movies; the writing of her controversial, international best-selling novel about Texas, and the making of George Stevens’ Academy Award winning epic film of the same name, Giant.

The saga behind The Blues Brothers, as Daniel de Visé reveals, is epic, encompassing the colorful childhoods of Belushi and Aykroyd; the comedic revolution sparked by Harvard’s Lampoon and Chicago’s Second City; the birth and anecdote-rich, drug-filled early years of Saturday Night Live, where the Blues Brothers were born as an act amidst turmoil and rivalry; and, of course, the indelible behind-the-scenes narrative of how the film was made, scene by memorable scene.

Thia book is a history of the movie channel Turner Classic Movies (TCM) from its founding in 1994 to the present.

Early Film Directing Pioneers: The Complete Guide to the Directors, Innovations, and Films That Shaped Cinema is an essential resource for film lovers, students, and anyone curious about the origins of the movie industry. This comprehensive guide explores the groundbreaking work of early cinema’s most influential directors—from Thomas Edison and Georges Méliès to Charlie Chaplin and F.W. Murnau. Through ten in-depth chapters and a curated list of 25 must-see films, readers will discover how the foundations of modern filmmaking were laid through silent film, montage theory, German ...

Essential 1970s Horror Movies: A Complete Guide to the Decade’s Scariest and Most Influential Films is your ultimate journey into the golden age of horror cinema. From groundbreaking psychological thrillers to terrifying tales of possession, monstrous mutations, and the bloody birth of the modern slasher film, this comprehensive guide explores the films that redefined the genre and left a permanent scar on pop culture. With in-depth chapters on iconic trends such as Italian Giallo, body horror, cult classics, and the rise of feminist themes in horror, this book highlights how the 1970s ...

The sand-blasted world of Arrakis has become green, watered, and fertile. Old Paul Atreides, who led the desert Fremen to political and religious domination of the galaxy, is gone. But for the children of Dune, the very blossoming of their land contains the seeds of its own destruction. The altered climate is destroying the giant sandworms, and this in turn is disastrous for the planet's economy.

In two past books that I have written, I focused on Forgotten Stars of the 1930s through the 1950s; that is stars who were pretty big movie stars in their time but that most people today would not be familiar with unless they were fans of classic Hollywood films of that era. I have also written books on great Western stars and on good and bad science fiction movies of the 1950s. In this book, however, I am concentrating on my favorite 100 movies of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. I have focused on American films only, with a few British films included also. (I am not an expert on foreign ...

The raids happen at night. Searches by the police are regular, tearing homes apart down to the nails, the officers' intentions a mystery. This time, it's not SC they are trying to find, but someone else entirely. Nothing will stop them, even if it means traveling halfway across the globe to chase a centuries-old myth of a rare power.

Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works. It is his classic memoir of Paris in the 1920s, filled with irreverent portraits of other expatriate luminaries such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein; tender memories of his first wife, Hadley; and insightful recollections of his own early experiments with his craft.

The History of Body Horror Films: From Grotesque Origins to Modern Mutation is the ultimate guide for horror lovers, film students, and pop culture enthusiasts who want to dive deep into one of cinema’s most disturbing and thought-provoking subgenres. This comprehensive, 6000-word book explores the evolution of body horror movies from their eerie beginnings in early cinema to their grotesque peaks during the golden age of gore, all the way to their reemergence in today’s era of prestige horror. Discover how visionary directors like David Cronenberg, Shinya Tsukamoto, and Julia Ducournau...

Ejnar Mikkelsen was devoted to Arctic exploration. In 1910 he decided to search for the diaries of the ill-fated Mylius-Erichsen expedition, which had set out to prove that Robert Peary’s outline of the East Greenland coast was a myth, erroneous and presumably self-serving. Iver Iversen was a mechanic who joined Mikkelsen in Iceland when the expedition’s boat needed repair.