In 1912, Guillermo Calles (1893-1958) became the first Mexican actor to appear in films made in California. Despite limited resources, he began directing and producing his own movies, and in 1929 pioneered production of Spanish-language sound films. His major works, among them the long-unavailable El indio yaqui and Raza de bronce (both 1927), represented Calles' tireless crusade to restore the image of Mexicans and Indians in an era dominated by Hollywood stereotypes.

This biography traces Calles' career from his earliest Hollywood days through the 1950s. Included are the only surviving images of the filmmaker's silent productions, a closing commentary on his intimate circle of relatives, and an appendix featuring two fascinating letters written by Calles during a filming trip.

The twelve classic comedy films examined within these pages are distinguished by an equal number of defining comic performances. Ranging from The Great Dictator (1940) to A Southern Yankee (1948), each film focuses on the most central theme of "clown comedy": Resilience, the encouragement or hope that one can survive the most daunting of life's dilemmas--even during the war-torn 1940s. And each film can be regarded as a microcosm of the antiheroic world of its central clown (or clowns).

Beginning with ""The Jazz Singer"" in 1927 and ending with ""Sweeney Todd"" in 2007, this comprehensive critical history examines the greatest movie musicals of all time. Organized alphabetically by decade, more than 150 films are analyzed on the basis of importance, entertainment value and musical presentation. Included are Broadway adaptations (""West Side Story""), screen originals (""The Wizard of Oz""), all-star revues (""The King of Jazz""), musical biopics (""The Glenn Miller Story""), 'dance' pictures (""Fame"") and animated features (""Aladdin""). Each entry contains full cast and production credits, a list of awards, background information, and a synopsis incorporating the musical numbers in order of appearance. An appendix itemizes the 'greatest musical' selections of the American Film Institute and ""Entertainment Weekly"" magazine.

Originally broadcast on American television between 1952 and 1969, the thirty situation comedies detailed in this work are seldom seen today, receiving only brief and often incomplete and inaccurate mentions in most reference sources. Yet these sitcoms (including ""Angel"", ""The Governor and J.J."", ""It's a Great Life"", ""I'm Dickens...He's Fenster"" and ""Wendy and Me"",) and the stories of the talented people who made them, represent an integral part of TV history. Each of the thirty entries has been extensively researched, including screenings of multiple episodes. Containing a complete list of production credits and rare publicity stills, this volume not only corrects errors and omissions in other sources, but also expands our understanding and appreciation of these neglected sitcoms.

King Baggot began making films for Carl Laemmle in 1909 and was a major star from 1910 to 1916. Baggot then gained renown as a director in the 1920s and as a character actor in the 1930s and 1940s, but perhaps most notably, he was the first publicized leading man in America. In his two-reel ""Shadows"" - this was a first in film history - he played ten different characters and also directed. He founded the Screen Club, the first and most prestigious club strictly for film personnel, and became an international star in England with Ivanhoe and in France with Absinthe. As a director, he worked on Kissed, in which Marie Prevost had her first starring role. He also directed The Home Maker, a social drama that explored the role reversal between a husband and wife when such an idea was not at all accepted, and Tumbleweeds, now considered a classic among western films. This work is a biography and filmography of the early film pioneer. It covers his early life before he broke into the film industry, traces his career from his beginnings as a stage actor in 1900 to the peak of his career in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, and ends with his death in 1948. The extensive filmography documents every known film in which he took part, and provides cast and production credits, release date, length, Library of Congress registration number, places where the film can be found today, and other information.

Deals with the various aspects of theatre scholarship. This title presents a selection of the best research presented at the international, interdisciplinary Comparative Drama Conference. It includes papers from the 33rd annual conference held in Los Angeles, California.

With its impressive variety of theater, Finland is a superpower of performing arts. Finnish theater, however, is presently a hotbed of cultural debate regarding the artistic quality of its performances. This comprehensive overview of contemporary theater explores many of the most contentious questions concerning applied theater, its devised methods, and the corresponding challenges presented to traditional definitions of theater and related arts. Through interviews with new writers and directors, and first-hand accounts of recent performances, this study attempts to define what it means today to say "Finnish theater." It also addresses issues concerning Finland's emergence as a cultural player within the European Union and implications for its evolving national identity.

Filmmaker David Lynch asserts that when he is directing, ninety percent of the time he doesn't know what he is doing. To understand Lynch's films, Martha Nochimson believes, requires a similar method of being open to the subconscious, of resisting the logical reductiveness of language. In this innovative book, she draws on these strategies to offer close readings of Lynch's films, informed by unprecedented, in-depth interviews with Lynch himself.

Nochimson begins with a look at Lynch's visual influences--Jackson Pollock, Francis Bacon, and Edward Hopper--and his links to Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles, then moves into the heart of her study, in-depth analyses of Lynch's films and television productions. These include Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Dune, The Elephant Man, Eraserhead, The Grandmother, The Alphabet, and Lynch's most recent, Lost Highway.

Nochimson's interpretations explode previous misconceptions of Lynch as a deviant filmmaker and misogynist. Instead, she shows how he subverts traditional Hollywood gender roles to offer an optimistic view that love and human connection are really possible.

This book explores the mechanisms that have driven the evolution of televisual comedy from the classic sitcom, a genre deeply rooted in its theatrical origins, toward a more mature stage of television's history. It analyzes four comic series--Scrubs, The Office, The Comeback, and Ugly Betty--revealing how each separates itself from the traditional sitcom archetype and shows increased awareness of the comic genre. Throughout the author focuses on two cardinal themes: the relationship between comedy and euphoria; and the relationship between comic texts and reality.|This book explores the mechanisms that have driven the evolution of televisual comedy from the classic sitcom, a genre deeply rooted in its theatrical origins, toward a more mature stage of television's history. It analyzes four comic series--Scrubs, The Office, The Comeback, and Ugly Betty--revealing how each separates itself from the traditional sitcom archetype and shows increased awareness of the comic genre. Throughout the author focuses on two cardinal themes: the relationship between comedy and euphoria; and the relationship between comic texts and reality.

Making spirits visible has been a part of the theatrical experience since at least the sixteenth century. Instead of illusions, however, ghostly doubles in theatre are materially real and pervasive.
In "Ghosts," Alice Rayner examines theatre as a memorial practice that is haunted by the presence of loss, looking at how aspects of stagecraft turn familiar elements into something uncanny. Citing examples from the works of Shakespeare, Beckett, and Suzan-Lori Parks as well as the films "Vertigo, Gaslight, and The Sixth Sense," she begins by describing time as it is employed by theatre with multiple aspects of presence, duration, and passage. Suggesting that objects connect past to present through the sense of touch, she explores how props are suspended backstage between motion and meaning. Her final chapters consider the curtain as theatre's means for attempting to divide real and imaginary worlds.
If ghosts hover where secrets--secrets of the past, secrets from oneself, secrets of life and death--are kept, then, according to Rayner, "theatre is where ghosts best make their appearances and let communities and individuals know that we live amid secrets hiding in plain sight."
Alice Rayner is associate professor of drama at Stanford University and author of, most recently, "To Act, To Do, To Perform: Drama and the Phenomenology of Action."

Created in 2006 as a spinoff of Doctor Who, the internationally popular BBC television series Torchwood is a unique blend of science fiction and fantasy, with much more of an adult flavor than its progenitor. The series' "omnisexual" protagonist, maverick 51st-century time agent Captain Jack Harkness, leads a team of operatives from the present-day Torchwood Institute, a secret organization dedicated to battling supernatural and extraterrestrial criminals. With its archetypal characters, adult language, subversive humor and openly homosexual and bisexual storylines, Torchwood provides a wealth of material for scholarly analysis and debate.

Using Torchwood as its focal point, this timely collection of essays by a range of experts and enthusiasts provides an interpretive framework for understanding the continually developing forms and genres of contemporary television drama.

In the past, the examination of myth has traditionally been the study of the "Primitive" or the "Other." More recently, myth has been increasingly employed in movies and in television productions. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Star Trek television and movie franchise. This collection of essays on Star Trek brings together perspectives from scholars in fields including film, anthropology, history, American studies and biblical scholarship. Together the essays examine the symbolism, religious implications, heroic and gender archetypes, and lasting effects of the Star Trek "mythscape."

Reviled by critics but beloved by an extraordinarily faithful audience, Hee Haw was seen in over 15 million homes a week during the height of its popularity. Many years after going off the air, Hee Haw remains the longest running variety show of its type in television history, having aired for nearly 600 episodes during its decades-long run. This book tells the complete story of how one of America's classic television programs was created by two Canadians in Beverly Hills.

Series co-creator John Aylesworth provides an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at some of Hee Haw's best--and worst--moments, from the show's shoestring beginnings in a tiny Nashville studio; to the "Great Country Massacre of 1971," which saw the cancellation of Hee Haw, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and several other "country shows" on CBS; to its unprecedented success in syndication. Richly illustrated with dozens of the author's personal photographs and memorabilia, the book also includes one appendix providing a complete list of Hee Haw episodes from 1969 to 1992.

This is the first book to explore the notion of sacred places from the perspective of performance studies and presents both practice-as-research accounts alongside theoretical analysis. It is multidisciplinary, bringing together religious studies, philosophy and anthropological approaches under the umbrella of performance studies. By focusing on practice and performance rather than theology it also expands the notion of sacred places to non-religious contexts. This new collection offers a multi-layered and contemporary approach to the question of sacred sites, their practices, politics and ecologies. The overarching critical framework of inquiry is performance studies, a multidisciplinary methodological perspective that stresses the importance of investigating the practices and actions through which things are conducted and processes activated. This is an innovative perspective that recognizes the value, function and role that practices and their materialities have in the constitution of special places, their developments in culture, and the politics in place for the conservation of their sense of specialness. The questions investigated are: what is a sacred place? Is a place inherently sacred or does it become sacred? Is it a paradigm, a real location, an imaginary place, a projected condition, a charged setting, an enhanced perception? What kind of practices and processes allow the emergence of a sacred place in human perception? And what is its function in contemporary societies? The book is divided into three sections that evidence the three approaches that are generally engaged with and through which sacred places are defined, actualized and activated: Crossing, Breathing and Resisting. There is a strong field of international contributors including practitioners and academics working in the United Kingdom, the United States, Poland and Australia. Primary interest will be students, academics and practitioners studying or working in theatre and performance studies; fine art; architecture; cultural and visual studies; geography; religious studies; and psychology. Potential for classroom use, and very strong potential for inclusion on reading lists as a secondary text for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in fine art, live art, performance art, performance and theatre studies.

Rising to the Surface traces Lenny Henry's career through the 80s and 90s. The 16-year-old who won a talent competition, now has to navigate his way through the seas of professional comedy, learning his craft through sheer graft and hard work. We follow Lenny through a period of great creativity - prize-winning tv programmes, summer seasons across Britain, the starring role in a Hollywood film, and stand-up gigs in New York. But with each rise there is a fall, the most traumatic being the death of his mother. But by the end of the book he has been able to rise through a sea of troubles and breaks out to the surface to accept the Golden Rose of Montreaux for his work in television.

To paraphrase silent movie queen Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder's classic 1950 film ""Sunset Boulevard"", 'The Epic Miniseries are Big! It's television that got small'! This is especially true when one compares such iconic epic miniseries as ""Rich Man, Poor Man"" (1976), ""Roots"" (1977), ""Holocaust"" (1978), ""Shogun"" (1980), ""The Winds of War"" (1983), and ""War and Remembrance"" (1988-89) to the formulaic sitcoms, hospital dramas, and reality shows making up today's television programming. This work traces the historical development, evolution, decline, and surprising rebirth of the epic miniseries. Topics covered in this title include the role of HBO and other cable networks in reviving the miniseries genre; producer/director Dan Curtis' obsessive, decade-long quest to produce what is likely the ultimate American epic miniseries in ""The Winds of War"" and ""War and Remembrance""; and, the powerful influence of foreign miniseries on American productions, among others.

Largely neglected by Hollywood during the early 1990s, the youth market began receiving increased attention from American media industries by the end of the twentieth century. Boosted by the launch of teen-focused network the WB, teen television moved from daytime slots to prime time, while teen-oriented films began to flood the box office and teen pop stars grew to dominate music charts and sales. This book focuses on the resurgence of the teen/youth market from the late 1990s to the 2000s, highlighting Hollywood's attempts to exploit the millennial teen market across a range of media platforms. Specifically, the book examines the impact of contemporary social, institutional, and technological changes such as the emergence of a teen demographic, increased media conglomeration, and the rise of digital technologies on the aesthetic traits of contemporary teen-oriented entertainment texts.

One of Hollywood's first African American movie stars, James Edwards catapulted to stardom following his breakout role in 1949's ""Home of the Brave"". In his superlative performance as a U.S. soldier experiencing racial prejudice during combat in the South Pacific, Edwards proved that African American actors could do far more than play the bumbling sidekick, the jovial song-and-dance man, or the illiterate plantation hand. Edwards went on to roles in Stanley Kubrick's breakthrough indie ""The Killing"", John Frankenheimer's ""The Manchurian Candidate"", and his final appearance in Franklin J. Schaffner's ""Patton"". This book tells the story of Edwards' life and career, describing his unlikely climb to fame following a serious war injury and detailing how the little known native of Muncie, Indiana, paved the way for the careers of Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, and other African American stars to follow.

Most often remembered for her graceful hand gestures, expressive eyes, and body language on the silent screen, ZaSu Pitts was much more than a run-of-the-mill actress. Also an excellent cook, Pitts was often known to give homemade candies to her coworkers, and her extensive collection of candy recipes was even published posthumously with 1963's ""Candy Hits"" by Zasu Pitts. This affectionate study of both her private life off-screen and her public persona details how the multi-talented actress become one of filmdom's favorite comediennes and character players. The book includes many rare photographs.

The story of the motion picture industry during World War II comes to life with details of more than 450 films and the contributions of those who lived and worked through that era. This illustrated narrative combines a historical perspective of the war--and the events that followed--with chronological synopses of the films that reflect those turbulent years. Included are such efforts as Casablanca, The Battle of Midway and Der Fuhrer's Face. Also acknowledged are several recent film and TV productions as well as the men and women who continue adding to the lore of a somber yet fascinating period in history.

This collection of essays focuses on two sub-genres of reality television: dating shows, like ""The Bachelor"", ""Joe Millionaire"", and the earlier ""Love Connection""; and makeover reality shows, like ""The Swan"" and ""Are You Hot? The Search for America's Sexiest People"". Each author explores a different aspect of one or both of these types of shows, focusing especially on the cultural interaction between the text - dating and makeover shows - and society. Five of the essays utilize audience analysis to discern the ways in which actual, as opposed to idealized, viewers relate to these genres. The others cover a wide range of critical methodologies - including textual, rhetorical, cultural, and ideological approaches - to analyze a broad spectrum of dating and makeover shows.

Since its inception as an art form, anime has engaged assiduously with themes, symbols and narrative strategies drawn from the realm of magic. In recent years, the medium has increasingly turned to magic specifically as a metaphor for the exploration of a wide range of cultural, philosophical and psychological concerns. This book first examines a range of Eastern and Western approaches to magic in anime, addressing magical thinking as an overarching concept which unites the titles under scrutiny despite their generic and tonal diversity. It then explores the collusion of anime and magic with reference to specific topos. A close study of cardinal titles is complemented by allusions to ancillary productions in order to situate the medium's fascination with magic within an appropriately broad historical context.

More than a history of Western movies, The American West on Film intertwines film history, the history of the American West, and American social history into one unique volume. The American West on Film chronicles 12 Hollywood motion pictures that are set in the post–Civil War American West, including The Ox-Bow Incident, Red River, High Noon, The Searchers, The Magnificent Seven, Little Big Man, and Tombstone. Each film overview summarizes the movie's plot, details how the film came to be made, the critical and box-office reactions upon its release, and the history of the time period or actual event. This is followed by a comparison and contrast of the filmmakers' version of history with the facts, as well as an analysis of the film's significance, then and now. Relying on contemporary accounts and historical analysis as well as perspectives from filmmakers, historians, and critics, the author describes what it took to get each movie made and how close to the historical truth the movie actually got. Readers will come away with a better understanding of how movies often reflect the time in which they were made, and how Westerns can offer provocative social commentary hidden beneath old-fashioned "shoot-em-ups."

Spiritualists in the nineteenth century spoke of a place they called the 'Borderland', a shadowy threshold where the living communed with the dead, and where those in the material realm could receive comfort or advice from another world. Drawing upon the skilled performances of mostly female actors and performers, the 'borderland' became a theatre, of sorts, in which dramas of revelation and recognition were produced in the forms of seances, trances, and spiritualist lectures. This book examines some of the most fascinating American and British actresses of the Victorian era, whose 'borderland' performances fairly mesmerized their audiences of amused skeptics and ardent believers. The book also focuses on the transformative possibilities of the spiritualist theatre, revealing how the performances allowed Victorian women to speak, act, and create outside the boundaries of their restricted social and psychological roles.

This work features interviews with 51 leading ladies who starred in B-westerns, A-westerns, and television westerns. Some were well-known and others were not, but they all have fascinating stories to tell and they talk candidly about their careers and the many difficulties that went along with their jobs. Back then, conditions were often severe, locations were often harsh, and pay was often minimal. The actresses were sometimes the only females on location and they had to provide their own wardrobe and do their own make-up, as well as discourage the advances of over-affectionate co-stars. Despite these difficulties, most of the women interviewed for this agree that they had fun. Claudia Barrett, Virginia Carroll, Francis Dee, Lisa Gaye, Marie Harmon, Kathleen Hughes, Linda Johnson, Ruta Lee, Colleen Miller, Gigi Perreau, Ann Rutherford, Ruth Terry, and June Vincent are among the 51 actresses interviewed.