There are over fifty Chan films and an additional three Spanish language Chan films. This guide reviews the forty-four extant Chan films. Entries, alphabetically arranged, include a unique annotated cast list, a comparative rating system, production information, analysis and plot synopsis, a performance critique, and a collection of Chan sayings, which vary from film to film. An introduction discusses the history and literary origins of the Chan films and the formulaic devices common to the films.

Film scholars and fans of the Charlie Chan films will appreciate the extensive information each review provides. Each film is given a star rating, and several appendices provide additional information such as the lost films of Charlie Chan, actors who played Chan, and Chan on television.

Grotesques, angels, Beast-Man, and the Medusa are among the marvelous cast of characters analyzed in this volume. Originally presented at the 7th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts held in 1986, these essays are stimulating responses by scholars to a range of creative works by Mark Strand, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Kafka, Tolkein, Henry James, Julio Cortazar, Sherwood Anderson, Ursula Le Guin, I.B. Singer, Joyce, and others. Examining both mainstream and fantasy literature from many nations, the authors zero-in on the myriad shapes of the fantastic and study the world of SF and film. Five sections treat the fantastic from various enlightening perspectives and seven figures illustrate the essays' provocative theses. In Part I, Discovery and Interpretation, five authors sleuth out surprising elements of fantasy in poetry, short fiction, and a neo-Romantic fairy tale. Also in Part I, an inquiry is made of fantasy in the post-modernist movement. The Inexplicable Reality of Part II refers to deaths that are anything but terminal and four essays chronicle fantastic occurrences whose scientific rationale is tenuous at best. The fifth article traces the elusiveness of fantasy in a number of authors and works. Beast-Man, angels, the Medusa, and other Marvelous Beings are the subject of six essays in Part III. In Part IV, Fantasy in Symbiosis with other Forms, six essays consider the combination of fantasy with murder mystery, with taoism, with the symbolism of the tarot, with Freudian dreams, and with other genres. In the final section, From Fantasy to Science Fiction: Critical Considerations, essays address fantasy and Science Fiction in film, present a discussion between 2 critics of science fiction, and view the history and development of the contemporary SF novel. Series Editor Marshall B. Tymn's selected bibliography of criticism on the fantastic supplements the bibliographies that follow each essay and completes this remarkable work: fascinating reading for generalists; a necessity for students and scholars, aestheticians and critics of the fantasy and SF genres in literature, film, and art.

Skinner reveals how the Roman Catholic Church, through its agency, the National Legion of Decency, dominated the American film censorship scene in tandem with the Production Code Administration. In its heyday in the 1930s and 40s, the Legion claimed a membership of over eleven million Americans--about one moviegoer in twelve--and brought movie moguls such as David O. Selznick and Howard Hughes to their knees in determined campaigns to bar what it deemed unsuitable entertainment. Some of the most controversial titles in the annals of movie censorship, including The Outlaw, Duel in the Sun, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and The Pawnbroker, are featured as targets of clerical wrath in this study which covers four decades of film history.

Jesters and fools have existed as important and consistent figures in nearly all cultures. Sometimes referred to as clowns, they are typological characters who have conventional roles in the arts, often using nonsense to subvert existing order. But fools are also a part of social and religious history, and they frequently play key roles in the rituals that support and shape a society's system of beliefs. This reference book includes alphabetically arranged entries for approximately 60 fools and jesters from a wide range of cultures. Included are entries for performers from American popular culture, such as Woody Allen, Mae West, Charlie Chaplin, and the Marx Brothers; literary characters, such as Shakespeare's Falstaff, Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, and Singer's Gimpel; and cultural and mythological figures, such as India's Birbal, the American circus clown, the Native American Coyote, Taishu Engeki of Japan, Hephaestus, Loki the Norse fool, schlimiels and schlimazels, and the drag queen. The entries, written by expert contributors, are critical as well as informative. Each begins with a biographical, artistic, religious, or historical background section, which places the subject within a larger cultural and historical context. A description and analysis follow. This section may include a discussion of the fool's appearance, gender role, ethical and moral roles, social function, and relationship to such themes as nature, time, and mortality. The entry then discusses the critical reception of the subject and concludes with an extensive bibliography of general works.

In this examination of the psychology of terror, Iaccino uses Jungian archetypes to analyze significant works in the horror film genre. In the past, Jungian archetypes have been used to interpret mythologies, to examine great works of literature, and to explain why sexual stereotypes persist in our society. Here, for the first time, Iaccino applies such models as the "Cursed Wanderers," the "Warrior Amazons," the "Random Destroyers," and the "Techno-Myths" to highlight recurrent themes in a wide range of films, from early classics such as Nosferatu to the contemporary Nightmare on Elm Street and Alien series. With this innovative approach, Iaccino gains a new perspective on the psychology of the often powerful compulsion to be scared.

Africa has internal cultural resources that have positively influenced its development. "Community in Motion" explores the relationship between theatre and Freirian pedagogy. It underscores the urgency of refocusing development strategies on human rather than technical resources by showing how culture has traditionally played an important role in African development, and demonstrates the similarities between traditional African cultural paradigms and Freirian pedagogy.

The author describes selected significant Theatre for Development programs in diverse parts of Africa and determines the extent that these programs find congruence with the teachings of Paulo Freire. Case studies of Botswana, Zambia, Nigeria, and Kenya explore in detail the ongoing work in Zimbabwe, specifically the Zimbabwe Association of Community Theatre (ZACT). ZACT's work is analyzed in the context of Freirian pedagogy in order to highlight the development of a community-based theatre operation that is national in its scope and international in its influences.

The success of clown comedy is dependent on the comic or comics who take center stage. These comics are usually identified with a specific comedic shtick, physical or visual humor, and their underdog status. This study by film scholar Wes Gehring presents a brief, historical overview of major figures in the genre, including W. C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, Bob Hope, and Woody Allen. The comedians discussed are drawn from four genre periods: the silent era, the depression era, the post-World War II period, and the modern era.

One of a handful of great Shakespearean roles, the part of Richard of Gloucester has maintained its importance from the beginning of its performance history in the late 1690s and has assumed an identity extending even beyond the play. The range of interpretation has been startling, with many actors also taking liberties with the text. Most of the greatest Shakespearean actors have tried the part, though some have carefully avoided it. Successful Richards have had to create an archetype of evil who nonetheless must be comprehended in vivid human terms. Among the most memorable Richards are David Garrick, William Frederick Cooke, Edmund Kean, J.B. Booth, William Charles Macready, Edwin Booth, Richard Mansfield, Robert Mantell, John Barrymore, Alec Guiness, Laurence Olivier, Christopher Plummer, Ian Holm, Antony Sher, and Anton Lesser. This dynamic stage history of Richard III covers all major English and American interpretations and some foreign-language productions to the present day, setting the stage in the context of prevailing theatrical practices within each era. Focusing on the play and role as vehicles for actors and theatre practitioners, Richard's Himself Again demonstrates how theatrical issues have shaped the acting norm, which in turn has been reshaped by the individual performers. While utilizing volumes of source material including promptbooks, biographies, memoirs, and reviews, Scott Colley injects his own spirit into the narrative, achieving a lively, personable tone. The resulting book will appeal to theatregoers as well as to academic and professional specialists.

This revealing study looks at the influences and creative impulses that shape one of today's most progressive, thoughtful filmmakers. Charlie Kaufman got his start in television, but it was his first film, the eccentric Being John Malkovich, that won notice for his unique storytelling style. With the aid of a plethora of contributions from those with whom the writer has worked, Charlie Kaufman: Confessions of an Original Mind presents the intriguing story of that movie and others as it examines one of the most innovative voices in modern film. This exhaustive study of Kaufman's life and work is organized chronologically to cover his early influences as well as his most-recent ventures. Highlights include explorations of Kaufman's collaboration with Being John Malkovich director Spike Jonze—who stood him up for their first meeting—and the writer's conflict with George Clooney (about whom Kaufman says, "I can tell you that George Clooney is my least favorite person"). There are analyses of Human Nature, Adaptation, and the hauntingly beautiful Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which led to an Academy Award. The book also studies Kaufman's sound plays for Theatre of the New Ear and his directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York.

This ground-breaking work brings dance into current discussions of the African presence in American culture. Dixon Gottschild argues that the Africanist aesthetic has been invisibilized by the pervasive force of racism. This book provides evidence to correct and balance the record, investigating the Africanist presence as a conditioning factor in shaping American performance, onstage and in everyday life. She examines the Africanist presence in American dance forms particularly in George Balanchine's Americanized style of ballet, (post)modern dance, and blackface minstrelsy. Hip hop culture and rap are related to contemporary performance, showing how a disenfranchised culture affects the culture in power.

“For Blue there are no boundaries or solutions.” —Derek Jarman Originally released as a feature film in 1993, the year before the acclaimed artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman’s death due to an AIDS-related illness, Blue is a daring and powerful work of art. The film - and this highly-anticipated book’s text - serve as iconoclastic responses to the lack of political engagement with the AIDS crisis. Written poetically and surrealistically, Jarman’s text moves through myriad scenes, some banal, others fantastical. Stories of quotidian life––getting coffee, reading the newspaper, and walking down the sidewalk––escalate to visions of Marco Polo, the Taj Mahal, or blue fighting yellow. Facing death and a cascade of pills, Jarman presents his illness in delirium and metaphors. He contemplates the physicality of emotions in lyrical prose as he grounds this story in the constant return to Blue - a color, a feeling, a funk. Michael Charlesworth’s compelling introduction brings Blue into conversation with Jarman’s visual paintings as never before.

Theatre was one of many German institutions experiencing profound change in the aftermath of World War I. Grange contends that had comedy not prevailed throughout the turbulent years of the ill-fated Weimar experiment in democracy, much of theatre would have died along with the republic itself. Audiences attended performances of comedies in numbers far surpassing those of any other form of theatre.

Theatre was one of many German institutions experiencing profound change in the aftermath of World War I. Grange contends that had comedy not prevailed throughout the turbulent years of the ill-fated Weimar experiment in democracy, much of theatre would have died along with the republic itself. Audiences attended performances of comedies in numbers far surpassing those of any other form of theatre. Industrial comedy describes the most important and most predominant form of comedy on German stages from 1919 to 1933. Discoveries, reversals, mistaken identities, and abrupt plot twists were its stock-in-trade. Scholars and students of theatre as well as modern German history will find this a fascinating look at why Germans were laughing, and what they were laughing at, as their society crumbled around them.

This Discover the Dinosaurs 5-pencil set includes a fascinating range of dinosaurs, from diplodocuses and plesiosaurs to old favourites such as T-rexes, stegosaurus and triceratops! Throughout this activity book, kids will have hours of fun with colouring activities, how-to-draws, word searches, connect the dots, memory games and more!

The easy-to-follow directions build drawing skills and confidence. Best of all, the five adorable pencil toppers make this colouring and activity book an ideal gift!

Scholarly work on the impact of an active audience on theatrical and dance performance is a relatively new phenomenon, one that until now has manifested itself largely in the form of scattered dialogue on the subject. "Audience Participation: Essays on Inclusion in Performance" serves as a corrective to this. While the passive audience has long been acknowledged in works on response theory and audience studies for its contribution to the performance event, performance styles that use the audience as an active contributing creative force have been appended to the studies as merely variations on a theme.

This anthology brings together essays on direct audience participation in the work of fourteen widely varied theatrical and dance artists, covering performance genres of the past and present, popular entertainment and high art. Its comprehensiveness and uniqueness make it an important contribution to the literature on theater and its many forms and facets.

The second edition of Mario Falsetto's extensive analysis of Kubrick's films carefully examines the filmmaker's oeuvre in its entirety--from smaller, early films (The Killing) through mid-career masterpieces (Dr. Strangelove; 2001: A Space Odyssey; A Clockwork Orange), later films such as Full Metal Jacket, and his final work, 1999's Eyes Wide Shut. The author, offering close readings supported by precise shot descriptions, shows us how Kubrick's body of work represents a stylistically and thematically consistent cinematic vision, one that merges formal experimentation with great philosophical complexity. Falsetto explores many of Kubrick's often-used devices, including the long-take aesthetic, voice-overs, and moving camera, and discusses the thematic uses to which these techniques are applied. Finally, he presents the very first formal analysis of Eyes Wide Shut, the director's final, very much underrated masterwork.

Although children's theatre has been a part of American culture from early times, historians have not always included it in the documentation of our theatrical heritage. Sometimes more the product of the educator and the social worker than the producer or the theatre artist, theatre with and for young people has been neglected in traditional theatre history studies; yet as early as 1792 Charles Stearns began creating his plays and dialogues for school children. The traditions and success of eighteenth-century school drama inspired social workers to explore similar activities in their playground and settlement house work, and at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, professional producers began experimenting more vigorously with the commercial possibilities of children as audience. This book is a collection of essays by leading authorities in the field on various aspects of the historical development of children's theatre in the United States. The discussions focus on the marked differences that have occurred from group to group and examine the ways in which children's theatre began to find definition, as theorists and writers such as Winifred Ward and Charlotte Chorpenning strove to articulate the differences between the child as participant in creative drama and the child as audience member. The introduction provides a review of early concepts and the evolution of present-day thought, and the essays illuminate facets of the rich and varied history of American theatre with and for children. This trailblazing study will serve as the beginning of a fuller understanding of the field and a challenge to others to document the missing pieces.

Welcome to the uncertain world of "Radio 2.0"—where podcasts, mobile streaming, and huge music databases are the new reality, as are tweeting deejays and Apple's Siri serving as music announcer—and understand the exciting status this medium has, and will continue to have, in our digitally inclined society. How did popular radio in past decades—from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Fireside Chats" in the 1930s through Top 40 music and Rush Limbaugh's talk radio empire—shape American society? How did devices and systems like the iPhone, Pandora, and YouTube turn the radio industry upside-down? Does radio still have a future, and if so, what will we want it to look like? Radio 2.0: Uploading the First Broadcast Medium covers the history and evolution of Internet radio, explaining what came before, where Internet radio came from, and where it is likely headed. It also gives readers a frame of reference by describing radio from its introduction to American audiences in the 1920s—a medium that brought people together through a common experience of the same broadcast—and shows how technologies like digital music and streaming music services put into question the very definition of "radio." By examining new radio and media technologies, the book explores an important societal trend: the shift of media toward individualized or personalized forms of consumption.