On the motion picture screen, Hollywood star Warren William (1894-1948) was a magnificent rogue, often deliciously immoral and utterly callous, yet remarkably likable in his wickedness. Off-screen, the actor was as humble and retiring as his film characters were mean and heartless. This biography examines William's life and career in detail, from his rural Minnesota roots through his service in World War I, his Broadway stage success, and his meteoric rise and gradual fall from Hollywood fame in the 1930s and 1940s. Also analyzed are his film persona and the curious mechanisms by which our culture "selects" certain film personalities to remember and others to forget. Featured is a wealth of biographical material never before available, including rare candid photos of William's early years. Interviews with his surviving nieces provide intimate family details and personal remembrances.

The thinkers of ancient Egypt, Greece and India recognized that numbers governed much of what they saw in their world and hence provided an approach to its divine creator. Robert Lawlor sets out the system that determines the dimension and the form of both man-made and natural structures, from Gothic cathedrals to flowers, from music to the human body. By also involving the reader in practical experiments, he leads with ease from simple principles to a grasp of the logarithmic spiral, the Golden Proportion, the squaring of the circle and other ubiquitous ratios and proportions. This book is part of the Art and Imagination series, gloriously illustrated paperbacks which cover Eastern and Western religion and philosophy, including myth and magic, alchemy and astrology. The distinguished authors bring a wealth of knowledge, visionary thinking and accessible writing to each intriguing subject.

'Kellogg's, Pep, the Super delicious cereal presents' - ""The Adventures of Superman"". 'Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a bound'. The openings and closings to radio programs of all types, from comedies (""Blondie"", ""The Jack Benny Program"", and ""Lum and Abner"") to mysteries (""Inner Sanctum Mysteries"" and ""The Black Chapel"") to game shows (""Can You Top This?"" and ""Truth or Consequences"") to serials (""Second Husband"" and ""Bachelor's Children"") to crime dramas (""The Falcon"", ""Eno Crime Clues"", ""The Green Hornet"", and ""Mr. and Mrs. North"") to westerns (""Gunsmoke"", ""Wild Bill Hickok"", and ""Hawk Larabee"") that were aired between 1931 and 1972, are included in this work. The programs are listed alphabetically, and each entry has a brief introductory paragraph that provides information about the storyline, principal cast, sponsors and air dates. Commercials have been included if the programs were under regular sponsorship. Also included are an index and three appendices (sponsors, slogans and jingles and World War II announcements).

This work identifies 436 American silent films released between 1909 and 1929 that engaged the issues of militant labor and revolutionary radicalism. It begins with an extended introduction and analytical chapters that investigate the ways in which the American motion picture industry portrayed the interrelationships between labor radicals, exploitative capitalists, socialist idealists and Bolsheviks during this critical twenty-year period.

Each entry contains a detailed plot synopsis, citations to primary sources, coding indicating the presence or absence of 14 predominant discernible biases (including anti- and pro-capitalism, socialism, revolution and labor), and subject coding keyed to 64 related terms and concepts (including agitators, Bolshevism, bombs, female radicals, militias, mobs, political refugees, and strikes). These statistical data included in the filmography are presented in a series of charts and are fully integrated into the historical-critical text. Total number and percentage statistics for the instances of these coded biases and traits are given per year, per era, and overall.

American films, like America itself, have long been fascinated by the threat of outsiders posing as citizens to destroy the American way of life. This book tracks real-world fears appearing in the movies--Nazi agents, Japanese-American spies, Communist Party subversives, Islamic sleeper cells--as well as the science-fiction threats that play to the same fears, such as alien body-snatchers and android doppelgangers. The work also examines fears inspired by World War I German spies, the Japanese-American internment and the McCarthyite witch-hunts and shows how these issues, and others, played out on screen.

From Thomas Hamilton to contemporary artists Tom Normand traces the 200 year history of the Royal Scottish Academy. Featuring both men and women, short summaries precede each reproduction and orient the reader to particular points of interest within each art work. The artist’s history is related side by side with that of the Academy and, as such, they complement descriptions of the paintings. The book chronologically captures different periods as they influenced the style of what was produced in the Academy. Looking forward Normand states that ‘the Academy, in its history, has been a vital part of that international role, freely exhibiting the newest and the best of modern art and respecting the multi-dimensional approaches of contemporary art’. It is this vitality in the Scottish art scene that will sustain its visual culture in the future and place it on the international stage.

Between 1783 and 1860, more than 100,000 enslaved African Americans escaped across the border between slave and free territory in search of freedom. Most of these escapes were unaided, but as the American anti-slavery movement became more militant after 1830, assisted escapes became more common. Help came from the Underground Railroad, which still stands as one of the most powerful and sustained multiracial human rights movements in world history. This work examines and interprets the available historical evidence about fugitive slaves and the Underground Railroad in Kentucky, the southernmost sections of the free states bordering Kentucky along the Ohio River, and, to a lesser extent, the slave states to the immediate south. Kentucky was central to the Underground Railroad because its northern boundary, the Ohio River, represented a three hundred mile boundary between slavery and nominal freedom. The book examines the landscape of Kentucky and the surrounding states; fugitive slaves before 1850, in the 1850s and during the Civil War; and, their motivations and escape strategies and the risks involved with escape. The reasons why people broke law and social convention to befriend fugitive slaves, common escape routes, crossing points through Kentucky from Tennessee and points south, and specific individuals who provided assistance - all are topics covered.

An examination of the cinematic and cultural discourse surrounding work, the worker, organized labor, and the working class in 20th century America, this book analyzes a number of films within the historical context of labor and politics. Looking at both comedies (Modern Times, Gung Ho, Office Space) and dramas (The Grapes of Wrath, On the Waterfront, F.I.S.T., Blue Collar, Norma Rae, and Matewan), it reveals how these films are not merely products of their times, but also producers of ideological stances concerning the status of capitalism, class struggle, and democracy in America. Common themes among the films include the myth of the noble worker, the shifting status of the American Dream, and the acceptability of reform versus the unacceptability of revolution in affecting economic, political, and social change in America.

A number of thrillers made in the 1920s and 1930s have become available again thanks to new technology. There are a few, however, that remain elusive to most, if not all, movie buffs. This book covers 21 thrillers from those decades that are well-regarded and eagerly sought, but difficult to find - ""The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu"" (1923), ""The Unknown Purple"" (1923), ""The Sorrows of Satan"" (1926), ""While London Sleeps"" (1926), ""The Monkey Talks"" (1927), ""The Chinese Parrot"" (1927), ""Stark Mad"" (1929), ""The Unholy Night"" (1929), ""High Treason"" (1929), ""The Spider"" (1931), ""Eran Trece"" (1931), ""The Monkey's Paw"" (1933), ""Trick for Trick"" (1933), ""Deluge"" (1933), ""The Vanishing Shadow"" (1934), ""The Witching Hour"" (1934), ""Double Door"" (1934), ""Black Moon"" (1934), ""Le Golem"" (1936), ""The Scarab Murder Case"" (1937), and ""Sh! The Octopus"" (1937). For each film, the author provides such details as the production company, running time, release date(s), cast and production credits, a synopsis, and commentary.

In the early days of radio, producers, directors and scriptwriters were well aware of the listening public's fascination with subject matter that was tinged with almost any form of wrongdoing. Stories that compared right and wrong, portrayed crime and punishment, and showed the characters upholding law and order kept audiences of every age hooked on this type of program for more than thirty years. This work covers over 300 syndicated radio mystery and adventure serials that aired in the early or middle twentieth century. To be included in the book, a series must have included one or more characters who regularly appeared in occupations or avocations that fought against espionage, theft, murder, and other criminal activities. Each entry includes the name of the series, air dates (stations and times are noted), the sponsor, extant episodes, cast information (such as the directors, writers, composers, announcers, lead actors and supporting actors), and a brief synopsis.

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.

In 1935 Sidney Kingsley's play about streetwise urban kids, Dead End, opened on Broadway featuring 14 adolescent actors. For two years on Broadway and then on tour, Kingsley's play delivered its social commentary contrasting affluent neighborhoods and tenement slums on New York City's East River. The film industry picked up the story and in 1937 released Dead End, which spawned 23 more years of films and serials featuring the Dead End kids and their offshoots, Little Tough Guys, East Side Kids and the Bowery Boys. This chronicle follows the street kids through the many assorted incarnations, shifting casts and studios. First the reader is introduced to how the original play and film came about. A cast list and analysis of each production follows. For the major players, the author provides a biography and filmography, and several of these entries include a tribute from a friend or family member. Brief biographical profiles are given for other actors. Sketches of the ""Dead End"" revivals of 1978 and 2005 follow.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It is often claimed that the French invented cinema. Dominating the production and distribution of cinema until World War 1, when they were supplanted by Hollywood, the French cinema industry encompassed all genres, from popular entertainment to avant-garde practice. The French invented the "auteur" and the "ciné-club"; they incubated criticism from the 1920s to our own day that is unrivalled; and they boast more film journals, fan magazines, TV shows, and festivals devoted to film than anywhere else. This Very Short Introduction opens up French cinema through focusing on some of its most notable works, using the lens of the New Wave decade (1958-1968) that changed cinema worldwide. Exploring the entire French cinematic oeuvre, Dudley Andrew teases out distinguishing themes, tendencies, and lineages, to bring what is most crucial about French Cinema into alignment. He discusses how style has shaped the look of female stars and film form alike, analysing the "made up" aesthetic of many films, and the paradoxical penchant for French cinema to cruelly unmask surface beauty in quests for authenticity. Discussing how French cinema as a whole pits strong-willed characters against auteurs with high-minded ideas of film art, funded by French cinema's close rapport to literature, painting, and music, Dudley considers how the New Wave emerged from these struggles, becoming an emblem of ambition for cinema that persists today. He goes on to show how the values promulgated by the New Wave directors brought the three decades that preceded it into focus, and explores the deep resonance of those values today, fifty years later. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.