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Author: Edward Watz
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2016-12-16
Total Pages: 337
ISBN-13: 1476616841
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDuring the Depression years, the comedy team of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey were second only to Laurel and Hardy at the box office. Each of their over 20 comedies are analyzed in detail here; full filmographic data, production notes, plot synopses, and critical commentary are provided. The research is supplemented by an interview with Bert Wheeler.
Author: Scott Balcerzak
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Published: 2013-10-01
Total Pages: 270
ISBN-13: 0814339662
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFans and scholars of film history, gender studies, and broadcast studies will appreciate Balcerzak's thorough exploration of the era's fascinating gender constructs.
Author: John Franceschina
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2012-06-08
Total Pages: 317
ISBN-13: 0199930759
DOWNLOAD EBOOKArmed with an eighth-grade education, an inexhaustible imagination, and an innate talent for dancing, Hermes Pan (1909-1990) was a boy from Tennessee who became the most prolific, popular, and memorable choreographer of the glory days of the Hollywood musical. While he may be most well-known for the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals which he choreographed at RKO film studios, he also created dances at Twentieth Century-Fox, M-G-M, Paramount, and later for television, winning both the Oscar and the Emmy for best choreography. In Hermes Pan: The Man Who Danced with Fred Astaire, Pan emerges as a man in full, an artist inseparable from his works. He was a choreographer deeply interested in his dancers' personalities, and his dances became his way of embracing and understanding the outside world. Though his time in a Trappist monastery proved to him that he was more suited to choreography than to life as a monk, Pan remained a deeply devout Roman Catholic throughout his creative life, a person firmly convinced of the powers of prayer. While he was rarely to be seen without several beautiful women at his side, it was no secret that Pan was homosexual and even had a life partner. As Pan worked at the nexus of the cinema industry's creative circles during the golden age of the film musical, this book traces not only Pan's personal life but also the history of the Hollywood musical itself. It is a study of Pan, who emerges here as a benevolent perfectionist, and equally of the stars, composers, and directors with whom he worked, from Astaire and Rogers to Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Elizabeth Taylor, Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Bob Fosse, George Gershwin, Samuel Goldwyn, and countless other luminaries of American popular entertainment. Author John Franceschina bases his telling of Pan's life on extensive first-hand research into Pan's unpublished correspondence and his own interviews. Pan enjoyed one of the most illustrious careers of any Hollywood dance director, and because his work also spanned across Broadway and television, this book will appeal to readers interested in musical theater history, dance history, and film.
Author: Wes D. Gehring
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2014-11-21
Total Pages: 217
ISBN-13: 0786483520
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe 1930s are routinely considered sound film's greatest comedy era. Though this golden age encompassed various genres of laughter, clown comedy is the most basic type. This work examines the Depression decade's most popular type of comedy--the clown, or personality comedian. Focusing upon the Depression era, the study filters its analysis through twelve memorable pictures. Each merits an individual chapter, in which it is critiqued. The films are deemed microcosmic representatives of the comic world and discussed in this context. While some of the comedians in this text have generated a great deal of previous analysis, funnymen like Joe E. Brown and Eddie Cantor are all but forgotten. Nevertheless, they were comedy legends in their time, and their legacy, as showcased in these movies, merits rediscovery by today's connoisseur of comedy. Even this book's more familiar figures, such as Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers, are often simply relegated to being recognizable pop culture icons whose work has been neglected in recent years. This book attempts to address these oversights and to re-expose the brilliance and ingenuity with which the screen clowns contributed a comic resiliency that was desperately needed during the Depression and can still be greatly appreciated today. The films discussed are City Lights (1931, Chaplin), The Kid From Spain (1932, Cantor), She Done Him Wrong (1933, Mae West), Duck Soup (1933, Marx Brothers), Sons of the Desert (1933, Laurel and Hardy), Judge Priest (1934, Will Rogers), It's a Gift (1934, W.C. Fields), Alibi Ike (1935, Brown), A Night at the Opera (1935, Marx Brothers), Modern Times (1936, Chaplin), Way Out West (1937, Laurel and Hardy), and The Cat and the Canary (1939, Bob Hope).
Author: Edward Bernds
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Published: 1999-04-29
Total Pages: 333
ISBN-13: 1461697085
DOWNLOAD EBOOKEdward Bernds came to Hollywood in 1928 to help United Artists make the transition to sound. He worked with some of the most notable directors in Hollywood including Frank Capra, Leo McCarey, and Howard Hawks. Though Bernds loved sound work, he had higher aspirations, and hoped to become a writer and director. His first breakthrough came during the mid-1940s on Columbia shorts starring the Three Stooges. Bernds worked with Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp, and company for over twenty years as the Stooges' favorite director. A second breakthrough came when he wrote and directed feature length films, among them the science fiction classics: World Without End, Return of the Fly, Spacemaster X7, and Zsa-zsa Gabor's Queen of Outer Space. Edward Bernds witnessed all of the profound changes that Hollywood underwent from the advent of sound to the start of the Easy Rider era. Fortunately for students and fans of film, he tells his story in this fascinating and vivid account of his life in Hollywood.
Author: Hal Erickson
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2012-08-21
Total Pages: 425
ISBN-13: 0786462906
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBeginning with Charlie Chaplin's Shoulder Arms, released in America near the end of World War I, the military comedy film has been one of Hollywood's most durable genres. This generously illustrated history examines over 225 Army, Navy and Marine-related comedies produced between 1918 and 2009, including the abundance of laughspinners released during World War II in the wake of Abbott and Costello's phenomenally successful Buck Privates (1941), and the many lighthearted service films of the immediate postwar era, among them Mister Roberts (1955) and No Time for Sergeants (1958). Also included are discussions of such subgenres as silent films (The General), military-academy farces (Brother Rat), women in uniform (Private Benjamin), misfits making good (Stripes), anti-war comedies (MASH), and fact-based films (The Men Who Stare at Goats). A closing filmography is included in this richly detailed volume.
Author: Michelle Vogel
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2012-07-24
Total Pages: 245
ISBN-13: 078646139X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHere is the first extensive, full-length biography and career record on the life and work of Mexican whirlwind Lupe Velez (1908-1944). Over the years many crude myths have surfaced about Velez, the most notorious that she "died with her head in the toilet." This biography not only studies Lupe's personal life and career--including her tempestuous marriage to Johnny Weissmuller--but also examines her death in detail. It has been almost seven decades since her untimely end; at long last, the ugly rumors and myths are debunked--for good. Included are never-before-told family stories and photographs from Lupe's second cousin, and an analysis of the actress's lasting influence on popular culture. The foreword by Oscar-winning film historian Kevin Brownlow focuses on the fact and fancy behind Lupe Velez's colorful public image.
Author: John Howard Reid
Publisher: Lulu.com
Published: 2006-06
Total Pages: 261
ISBN-13: 1411673425
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMany of your favorite movie musicals are sure to be represented in this book. Classics like "Rose Marie" and "Calamity Jane" rub shoulders with "Artists and Models," "Babes on Broadway," "The Bohemian Girl," "The Inspector General" and "The Kid from Brooklyn." Bing and Bob are off on "The Road to Singapore," Eddie Cantor is involved in "Roman Scandals," while Mitzi Gaynor enjoys her stay in "South Pacific." Will Rogers, Jeanne Crain and Alice Faye all have a go in the various versions of "State Fair" and we catch Deanna Durbin in "Three Smart Girls," "Three Smart Girls Grow Up," "It Started with Eve" and "Something in the Wind." And that's just a small sampling of the wonders in store in "More Movie Musicals."
Author: Jean-Louis Ginibre
Publisher: Filipacchi Publishing
Published: 2005
Total Pages: 420
ISBN-13: 1933231041
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFrom Greek drama through vaudeville and modern cinema, nothing in the theatrical experience has ever guaranteed a laugh like a man in a dress. This spectacular pictorial history examines the grand tradition of male cross-dressing in the movies through more than 700 photos, more than half of which are previously unpublished. The screen's greatest stars, from comedians like Buster Keaton and Peter Sellers to "serious" actors like Marlon Brando and Max von Sydow, are pictured in everything from bustiers to ball gowns. Just as in real life, the cinematic motives for cross-dressing are complex, ranging from plot device (I Was a Male War Bride) and social commentary (Tootsie) to the simple sight gags of Laurel and Hardy. The book explores these and myriad other reasons actors are coaxed out of dress suits and into dresses. By turns provocative, serious, and silly, Ladies or Gentlemen is a delightful study of a seldom-explored facet of cinema history.
Author: Steven G. Farrell
Publisher: PTP Book Division
Published: 2022-07-06
Total Pages: 211
ISBN-13: 1545755396
DOWNLOAD EBOOKProfessor Steven G. Farrell has published more writings with The Path, A Literary Magazine since the first volume appeared in 2010 than any other author. “Stories Told on The Path” are his very best pieces culled from the magazine's archives. The professor has carefully selected twenty-two of his best writings published by The Path, including one poem, thirteen short stories, five essays, one interview and four book reviews.
