The Films of George Roy Hill
The Films of George Roy Hill

Author: Andrew Horton

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9780786419319

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As late as 1976, George Roy Hill was the first and only director to have two films on the all-time top ten box office hits: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting (both starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman). A filmmaker with a diverse background in music, drama and television, Hill proved to be a popular storyteller in a variety of genres. His films are tied to important American themes and reflect an ironic, bittersweet vision of life. The book begins with a discussion of the way Hill's films often make their most important statements on the subtextual level. The stories entertain, but the subtext is often disturbing, contradictory, unresolved. Hill felt that all of his major characters create an environment, a fantasy, an illusion, and then go on to make it happen. It continues by tracing the thematic characteristics that are consistent with Hill's depiction of protagonists who create their own environments and then attempt to inhabit them. Then, individual chapters study in detail the art, craft and style of each of his films, including Thoroughly Modern Millie, Slaughterhouse Five, A Little Romance, The World According to Garp, Little Drummer Girl and Hill's last film Funny Farm.

The Films of George Roy Hill, rev. ed.
The Films of George Roy Hill, rev. ed.

Author: Andrew Horton

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-05-07

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 1476608725

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As late as 1976, George Roy Hill was the first and only director to have two all-time, top-ten, box-office hits: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting (both starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman). A filmmaker with backgrounds in music, drama and television, he was a popular storyteller. His films reflect an ironic, bittersweet vision of life. The stories entertain, but the subtext is often disturbing. Hill felt that all of his major characters "create an environment, a fantasy, an illusion, and then go on to make it happen." Individual chapters study in detail the art, craft and style of each of his films, including Period of Adjustment, Toys in the Attic, The World of Henry Orient, Hawaii, The Great Waldo Pepper, Slap Shot, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Slaughterhouse Five, A Little Romance, The World According to Garp, The Little Drummer Girl and Hill's last, Funny Farm.

Butch Cassidy
Butch Cassidy

Author: Charles Leerhsen

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2021-07-20

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1501117491

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"For a century Butch Cassidy has been the subject of legends about his life and death, spawning a small industry of mythmakers and a major Hollywood film. Charles Leerhsen sorts out fact from fiction to find the real Butch Cassidy, who is far more complicated and fascinating than legend has it"--

A Is for Audra: Broadway's Leading Ladies from A to Z
A Is for Audra: Broadway's Leading Ladies from A to Z

Author: John Robert Allman

Publisher: Doubleday Books for Young Readers

Published: 2023-10-03

Total Pages: 43

ISBN-13: 0593377877

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Broadway babies, it's never too early to learn about the great women of American musical theater! From Audra McDonald to Liza with a "Z," this is a showstopping alphabet board book featuring your favorite leading ladies of the Broadway stage. Step into the spotlight and celebrate a cavalcade of Broadway's legendary leading ladies. Start with "A" for six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald, then sing and dance your way through the alphabet with beloved entertainers like Carol Channing, Angela Lansbury, Patti LuPone, Bernadette Peters, Chita Rivera, Lea Salonga, and Liza Minnelli! With their signature voices and iconic roles, these talented women have created some of the greatest moments in musical theater history. Broadway fans and theater lovers everywhere will give a standing ovation to this one-of-a-kind tribute full of toe-tapping rhymes, with illustrations as bright and beautiful as the shining lights on any marquee.

Sydney Pollack
Sydney Pollack

Author: Janet L. Meyer

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-08-13

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1476609799

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Jeremiah Johnson, The Way We Were, Absence of Malice, Out of Africa, Tootsie, The Firm, Searching for Bobby Fischer--Sydney Pollack has produced, directed or appeared in some of the biggest and most influential films of the last quarter century. His emergence in Hollywood coincided with those of such other innovative directors as John Frankenheimer, George Roy Hill and Sidney Lumet, and with them he helped develop a contemplative style of filmmaking that was almost European in its approach but retained its commercial viability. Film-by-film, this work examines the directorial career of Sydney Pollack. One finds that his style is marked by deliberate pacing, ambiguous endings and metaphorical love stories. Topically, Pollack's films reflect social, culture and political dilemmas that hold some fascination for him, with multidimensional characters in place that generally break the stereotypical molds of the situations. Pollack's directing efforts on television are also detailed, as are his production and acting credits.

Letters from Hollywood
Letters from Hollywood

Author: Rocky Lang

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2019-09-10

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1683356667

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Rare correspondence from Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, Jane Fonda, and other Hollywood luminaries from the silent film era to the 1970s. Letters from Hollywood reproduces in full color scores of entertaining and insightful pieces of correspondence from some of the most notable and talented film industry names of all time—from the silent era to the golden age, and up through the pre-email days of the 1970s. Culled from libraries, archives, and personal collections, the 135 letters, memos, and telegrams are organized chronologically and are annotated by the authors to provide backstories and further context. While each piece reveals a specific moment in time, taken together, the letters convey a bigger picture of Hollywood history. Contributors include celebrities like Greta Garbo, Alfred Hitchcock, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Katharine Hepburn, Marlon Brando, Elia Kazan, Cary Grant, Francis Ford Coppola, Tom Hanks, and Jane Fonda. This is the gift book of the season for fans of classic Hollywood. With a foreword by Peter Bogdanovitch. “This is, quite simply, one of the finest books I’ve ever read about Hollywood.” —Leonard Maltin

Slaughterhouse-Five
Slaughterhouse-Five

Author: Kurt Vonnegut

Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback

Published: 1999-01-12

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 0385333846

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Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five is “a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century” (Time). Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.” An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it. Authors as wide-ranging as Norman Mailer, John Irving, Michael Crichton, Tim O’Brien, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Strout, David Sedaris, Jennifer Egan, and J. K. Rowling have all found inspiration in Vonnegut’s words. Jonathan Safran Foer has described Vonnegut as “the kind of writer who made people—young people especially—want to write.” George Saunders has declared Vonnegut to be “the great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us . . . a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves.” More than fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut’s portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.

The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man
The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man

Author: Paul Newman

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2022-10-18

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0593534514

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NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • The raw, candid, unvarnished memoir of an American icon. The greatest movie star of the past 75 years covers everything: his traumatic childhood, his career, his drinking, his thoughts on Marlon Brando, James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, John Huston, his greatest roles, acting, his intimate life with Joanne Woodward, his innermost fears and passions and joys. With thoughts/comments throughout from Joanne Woodward, George Roy Hill, Tom Cruise, Elia Kazan and many others. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME and Vanity Fair "Newman at his best…with his self-aware persona, storied marriage and generous charitable activities…this rich book somehow imbues his characters’ pain and joy with fresh technicolor." —The Wall Street Journal In 1986, Paul Newman and his closest friend, screenwriter Stewart Stern, began an extraordinary project. Stuart was to compile an oral history, to have Newman’s family and friends and those who worked closely with him, talk about the actor’s life. And then Newman would work with Stewart and give his side of the story. The only stipulation was that anyone who spoke on the record had to be completely honest. That same stipulation applied to Newman himself. The project lasted five years. The result is an extraordinary memoir, culled from thousands of pages of transcripts. The book is insightful, revealing, surprising. Newman’s voice is powerful, sometimes funny, sometimes painful, always meeting that high standard of searing honesty. The additional voices—from childhood friends and Navy buddies, from family members and film and theater collaborators such as Tom Cruise, George Roy Hill, Martin Ritt, and John Huston—that run throughout add richness and color and context to the story Newman is telling. Newman’s often traumatic childhood is brilliantly detailed. He talks about his teenage insecurities, his early failures with women, his rise to stardom, his early rivals (Marlon Brando and James Dean), his first marriage, his drinking, his philanthropy, the death of his son Scott, his strong desire for his daughters to know and understand the truth about their father. Perhaps the most moving material in the book centers around his relationship with Joanne Woodward—their love for each other, his dependence on her, the way she shaped him intellectually, emotionally and sexually. The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man is revelatory and introspective, personal and analytical, loving and tender in some places, always complex and profound.

The Making of Slap Shot
The Making of Slap Shot

Author: Jonathon Jackson

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2010-09-23

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0470678003

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How a movie about minor league hockey became a box office hit-and an international cult classic Even thirty-odd years after Slap Shot's release, diehard hockey fans can still recite scenes of dialogue by heart, making lines like "putting on the foil" just common argot for the devoted. Yet many may be surprised to learn that the true story behind the making of the film is as captivating as the film itself. In The Making of Slap Shot, veteran sports writer Jonathon Jackson lets fans not only relive just how the film was made, but brings to light surprising facts (i.e., Al Pacino was the first choice for the role of Reggie Dunlop; almost every scene-even the absurd and unbelievable ones-depicts a real life event). With access to those involved in the making of the film, he brings to life some of the magic behind the creation of memorable scenes and characters, especially the Charleston Chiefs, one of the most popular fictional sports teams in history. Based on interviews with over 50 cast members, production staff, and anyone of note involved in the film's creation Destined to be a collectible and keepsake (along with the jerseys, bobbleheads, and other paraphernalia associated with the film), The Making of Slapshot is a must for fans eager to learn even more about their favorite film.

The Big Con
The Big Con

Author: David Maurer

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2010-10-27

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 030775572X

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The classic 1940 study of con men and con games that Luc Sante in Salon called “a bonanza of wild but credible stories, told concisely with deadpan humor, as sly and rich in atmosphere as anything this side of Mark Twain.” “Of all the grifters, the confidence man is the aristocrat,” wrote David Maurer, a proposition he definitely proved in The Big Con, one of the most colorful, well-researched, and entertaining works of criminology ever written. A professor of linguistics who specialized in underworld argot, Maurer won the trust of hundreds of swindlers, who let him in on not simply their language but their folkways and the astonishingly complex and elaborate schemes whereby unsuspecting marks, hooked by their own greed and dishonesty, were “taken off” – i.e. cheated—of thousands upon thousands of dollars. The Big Con is a treasure trove of American lingo (the write, the rag, the payoff, ropers, shills, the cold poke, the convincer, to put on the send) and indelible characters (Yellow Kid Weil, Barney the Patch, the Seldom Seen Kid, Limehouse Chappie, Larry the Lug). It served as the source for the Oscar-winning film The Sting.