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Searching for an introduction to the shadowy, intriguing world of
early 20th century gay-themed fiction? In Lost Gay Novels,
respected pop culture historian Anthony Slide resurrects fifty
early 20th century American novels with gay themes or characters
and discusses them in carefully researched, engaging prose. Each
entry offers you a detailed discussion of plot and characters, a
summary of contemporary critical reception, and biographical
information on the often-obscure writer. In Lost Gay Novels,
another aspect of gay life and society is, in the words the author,
uncloseted, providing you with an absorbing glimpse into the world
of these nearly forgotten books. Lost Gay Novels gives you an
introduction to: authors who aren't usually associated with
homosexuality, including John Buchan, James M. Cain, and Rex Stout
the history of gay publishing in the US and abroad gay themes in
novels published between 1917 and 1950with entries from nearly
every year! the ways in which the popular culture of the time
shaped the authors' attitudes toward homosexuality the difficulty
of finding detailed biographical information on little-known
authors If you're interested in gay studies or history, or even if
you're just looking for a comprehensive guide to titles you've
probably never heard of before, Lost Gay Novels will be a welcome
addition to your collection. The introduction from author
Slidecalled by the Los Angeles Times a one-man publishing
phenomenonprovides you with an overview to the basics of this
landmark collection. Themes found in many of the titles include
death, secrecy, and living a double life, and in reading the
entries you will discover just why these themes are so common. As
Slide says in his introduction: The approach of the novelist toward
homosexuality may not always be a positive one but the works are
important to an understanding of contemporary attitudes toward gay
men and gay society. Lost Gay Novels will help you further your own
understanding of the dynamic relationship between literature and
culture, and you will finish the book with a greater appreciation
of modern American gay fiction.
Now in Paperback! The New Historical Dictionary of the American
Film Industry is a unique reference work, a 'what's what' of the
history of filmmaking not only in Hollywood but throughout the
United States. More than 750 entries document the history of
studios, production companies and distributors, and provide
complete information on technical innovations, genres, industry
terms, and organizations. Included are entries on more than 100
film companies active in the 'teens, as well as all major Hollywood
studios, and major technical innovations such as CinemaScope and
Dolby Sound. General entries range from 'The Cold War' to
'Westerns' and include film series such as 'Andy Hardy' and 'The
Thin Man.' Extensive cross referencing and an index help the reader
locate information throughout the text. A completely revised and
updated edition of The American Film Industry, this new edition
furnishes an informed, experienced look behind the scenes of
filmmaking and an invaluable reference source. Paperback edition
available 2001.
Featuring more than 6,500 articles, including over 350 new entries,
this fifth edition of The Encyclopedia of British Film is an
invaluable reference guide to the British film industry. It is the
most authoritative volume yet, stretching from the inception of the
industry to the present day, with detailed listings of the
producers, directors, actors and studios behind a century or so of
great British cinema. Brian McFarlane's meticulously researched
guide is the definitive companion for anyone interested in the
world of film. Previous editions have sold many thousands of
copies, and this fifth instalment will be an essential work of
reference for universities, libraries and enthusiasts of British
cinema. -- .
Golden Age Hollywood screenwriter Charles Brackett was an
extremely observant and perceptive chronicler of the entertainment
industry during its most exciting years. He is best remembered as
the writing partner of director Billy Wilder, who once referred to
the pair as "the happiest couple in Hollywood," collaborating on
such classics as "The Lost Weekend" (1945) and "Sunset Blvd"
(1950).
In this annotated collection of writings taken from dozens of
Brackett's unpublished diaries, leading film historian Anthony
Slide clarifies Brackett's critical contribution to Wilder's films
and Hollywood history while enriching our knowledge of Wilder's
achievements in writing, direction, and style. Brackett's diaries
re-create the initial meetings of the talent responsible for
"Ninotchka" (1939), "Hold Back the Dawn" (1941), "Ball of Fire"
(1941), "The Major and the Minor" (1942), "Five Graves to Cairo"
(1943), "The Lost Weekend," and "Sunset Blvd," recounting the
breakthrough and breakdowns that ultimately forced these
collaborators to part ways. Brackett was also a producer, served as
president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and
the Screen Writers Guild, was a drama critic for the " New Yorker,"
and became a member of the exclusive literary club, the Algonquin
Round Table. Slide gives readers a rare, front row seat to the
Golden Age dealings of Paramount, Universal, MGM, and RKO and the
innovations of legendary theater and literary figures, such as
Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Edna Ferber, and Dorothy Parker.
Through Brackett's witty, keen perspective, the political and
creative intrigue at the heart of Hollywood's most significant
films come alive, and readers will recognize their reach in the
Hollywood industry today.
The anti-Communist hysteria that began in the 1930s was further
empowered in 1938 when the House of Representatives established the
House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. Soon thereafter, the
creation of the blacklist in the late 1940s brought the Hollywood
film and television community into the fold. Provocatively
capturing the controversy and sentiments surrounding this period of
political imbalance, Actors on Red Alert explores the repercussions
of the blacklist through career interviews with five prominent
actors and actresses.
Alexander Knox (1907-1995) was a distinguished stage and screen
actor, who is best remembered today for his title performance in
the 1944 production of Wilson. He was active both in London's West
End and on Broadway, and began his Hollywood career in 1941 with
The Sea Wolf. Because of his liberal activities in the film
community, including co-founding of the Committee for the First
Amendment, Knox was "grey-listed," and forced to settle permanently
in the United Kingdom, where he became a familiar figure both in
films and on television. On Actors and Acting collects together
Knox's writings, published and unpublished, on various performers
with whom he worked or was familiar, and on the art and craft of
acting. Knox writes on Laurence Olivier, a close personal friend
with whom he appeared in the memorable 1940 production of Romeo and
Juliet. He discusses his performance as Wilson. Other actors and
actresses about whom Knox has many original things to say include
Sara Allgood, Dana Andrews, George Arliss, and Walter Huston.
Anthony Slide, a film historian and a personal friend of Alexander
Knox and his wife, actress Doris Nolan, edited On Actors and
Acting. Slide contributes a lengthy career overview and has also
compiled a complete filmography, documenting Knox's screen career
from his first film, The Gaunt Stranger in 1938, through his last,
Joshua Then and Now in 1985.
Impressed by the success of The Birth of a Nation, Robert
Goldstein, owner of a well-known Los Angeles costume supply house,
produced his own epic film drama, The Spirit of '76 and screened it
in Los Angeles shortly after America's entry into World War I. The
film was denounced as anti-British and treasonous. Arrested under
the Espionage Act, Goldstein became the first and only American
jailed for the crime of producing a patriotic film. Film historian
Tony Slide includes an introductory essay, reprints contemporary
documentation, and publishes a 1927 manuscript by Goldstein, in
which he fully documents the background to the film, its making,
his arrest and trial, and his later suffering.
This is a completely new, revised, and expanded version of the book
first published by Scarecrow in 1976. It documents the work of
America's first major film company, Vitagraph, from its beginnings
in the 1890s through its sale to Warner Bros. in 1925.
" Thomas Dixon has a notorious reputation as the writer of the
source material for D.W. Griffith's groundbreaking and
controversial 1915 feature film The Birth of a Nation. Perhaps
unfairly, Dixon has been branded an arch-conservative and a racist
obsessed with what he viewed as "the Negro problem." As American
Racist makes clear, however, Dixon was a complex, multitalented
individual who, as well as writing some of the most popular novels
of the early twentieth century, was involved in the production of
some eighteen films. Dixon used the motion picture as a propaganda
tool for his often outrageous opinions on race, communism,
socialism, and feminism. His most spectacular production, The Fall
of a Nation (1916), argues for American preparedness in the face of
war and boasts a musical score by Victor Herbert, making it the
first American feature film to have an original score by a major
composer. Like the majority of Dixon's films, The Fall of a Nation
has been lost, but had it survived, it might well have taken its
place alongside The Birth of a Nation as a masterwork of silent
film. Anthony Slide examines each of Dixon's films and discusses
the novels from which they were adapted. Slide chronicles Dixon's
transformation from a major supporter of the original Ku Klux Klan
in his early novels to an ardent critic of the modern Klan in his
last film, Nation Aflame. American Racist is the first book to
discuss Dixon's work outside of literature and provide a wide
overview of the life and career of this highly controversial
twentieth-century southern populist. Anthony Slide is the author of
numerous books, including Silent Players: A Biographical and
Autobiographical Study of 100 Silent Film Actors and Actresses.
The fascinating memoir of influential French filmmaker Alice Guy
Blache, one of the industry's most significant pioneers and a
trailblazer for female directors. Alice Guy Blache (1873-1968) is a
unique pioneer of the motion picture, being not only a female
filmmaker but also one of the first, if not the first, to make a
narrative film. Her career spanned from 1894, when she became
secretary to the legendary Leon Gaumont, through 1920, working in
both her native France and the United States. In all, she was
responsible for approximately 1,000 films, possibly more than any
other director or producer. The Memoirs of Alice Guy Blache was
first published in 1976, and to a large extent led to her
rediscovery after decades of relative obscurity. Guy Blache writes
of her beginnings in the motion picture industry, her direction not
only of silent films but also some of the earliest synchronized
sound motion pictures, her marriage and journey to the United
States, the founding of her own studio in New Jersey, her fame, and
the sad journey into obscurity in the 1920s. Her story reveals both
the opportunities and the ultimate rejection facing a woman
director in the early years of the twentieth century. These
first-hand and original memoirs are enhanced with a complete
filmography, an epilogue by her daughter Simone, a brief biography
of her director husband, Herbert Blache, a remembrance by feminist
actress/writer Madame Olga Petrova, and a sampling of contemporary
articles on the director. Through it all, Alice Guy Blache's
personal charm, good humor, and modesty shines.
""Ravished Armenia"" and the Story of Aurora Mardiganian is the
real-life tale of a teenage Armenian girl who was caught up in the
1915 Armenian genocide, the first genocide in modern history.
Mardiganian (1901-1994) witnessed the murder of her family and the
suffering of her people at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. Forced
to march over fourteen hundred miles, she was sold into slavery.
When she escaped to the United States, Mardiganian was then
exploited by the very individuals whom she believed might help. Her
story was published in book form and then used as the basis for a
1918 feature film, in which she herself starred. The film Ravished
Armenia, also known as Auction of Souls, is a graphic retelling of
Aurora Mardiganian's story, with the teenager in the central role,
supported by Anna Q. Nilsson and Irving Cummings and directed by
Oscar Apfel. Only twenty minutes of the film--the first to deal
with the Armenian genocide--is known to survive, but it proves to
be a stunning production, presenting its story in newsreel style.
This revised edition of Anthony Slide's ""Ravished Armenia"" and
the Story of Aurora Mardiganian also contains an annotated reprint
of Mardiganian's original narrative and, for the first time, the
full screenplay. In his introduction, Slide recounts the making of
the film and Mardiganian's life in the United States, involving a
cast of characters including Henry Morgenthau, Mrs. George W.
Vanderbilt, Mrs. Oliver Harriman, and film pioneer William Selig.
The introduction also includes original comments by Aurora
Mardiganian, whom Slide interviewed before her death. Acclaimed
Armenian Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan, who created a video art
installation about Mardiganian in 2007, provides a foreword.
"The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville" provides a unique record of
what was once America's preeminent form of popular entertainment
from the late 1800s through the early 1930s. It includes entries
not only on the entertainers themselves, but also on those who
worked behind the scenes, the theatres, genres, and historical
terms. Entries on individual vaudevillians include biographical
information, samplings of routines and, often, commentary by the
performers. Many former vaudevillians were interviewed for the
book, including Milton Berle, Block and Sully, Kitty Doner, Fifi
D'Orsay, Nick Lucas, Ken Murray, Fayard Nicholas, Olga Petrova,
Rose Marie, Arthur Tracy, and Rudy Vallee. Where appropriate,
entries also include bibliographies. The volume concludes with a
guide to vaudeville resources and a general bibliography.Aside from
its reference value, with its more than five hundred entries, "The
Encyclopedia of Vaudeville" discusses the careers of the famous and
the forgotten. Many of the vaudevillians here, including Jack
Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Jimmy Durante, W. C. Fields,
Bert Lahr, and Mae West, are familiar names today, thanks to their
continuing careers on screen. At the same time, and given equal
coverage, are forgotten acts: legendary female impersonators Bert
Savoy and Jay Brennan, the vulgar Eva Tanguay with her billing as
"The I Don't Care Girl," male impersonator Kitty Doner, and a host
of "freak" acts.
Frank Lloyd: Master of Screen Melodrama is the first book-length
study of one of the most prominent of studio directors from
Hollywood's "golden age," whose career spanned the years from 1913
through 1955. Among the director's greatest works are Oliver Twist
with Jackie Coogan, The Sea Hawk with Milton Sills, The Divine Lady
with Corinne Grifffith, and two Academy Award winners for Best
Picture, Cavalcade and Mutiny on the Bounty. They are all discussed
in detail here, along with other prominent Frank Lloyd productions,
including East Lynne, Berkeley Square, Wells Fargo, and The Howards
of Virginia. Frank Lloyd himself won two Academy Awards, and yet he
has failed up to now to receive the attention he deserves together
with recognition of his masterly creation of screen melodrama. With
his latest book, which includes a complete filmography and a
sampling of writings by Frank Lloyd, award-winning historian
Anthony Slide sets the record straight and honors one of
Hollywood's best.
Thorne Smith is a unique figure in American literature, one who
thrived during prohibition, creating comic novels that ridiculed
the morality of the times and involved extensive drinking, nudity,
frivolity, and general debauchery. A Man Named Smith: The Novels
and Screen Legacy of Thorne Smith is the first book-length study of
Thorne Smith's work. It provides background information on his life
and early death, discusses all of his novels in detail and also
provides extensive new documentation on their screen adaptations,
including Topper, Night Life of the Gods and Turnabout. Also
discussed is Thorne Smith's brief time in Hollywood at MGM in 1933,
and the influence that his books have had on late films and
television productions. As an added bonus, reprinted here in its
entirety is the 1934 promotional monograph, Thorne Smith: His Life
and Times with a Note on His Books & a Complete Bibliography.
Cultural Historian Anthony Slide, who has been described by the Los
Angeles Times as a one-man publishing phenomenon, strikes again
with a book guaranteed to contain something OFFENSIVE for everyone.
Chapters on subjects as varied as CAMP, FASCISM in Hollywood, Hedda
Hopper and the PORKY'S movies. The latest topical jokes on Helen
Keller, Eleanor Roosevelt and the Challenger disaster. Subjects
such as ALCOHOL, DRUG and SPOUSAL ABUSE, COMMUNISM, ETHNICITY, GAYS
and LESBIANS and RELIGION. Commentary on leading figures of the
era, including Father Coughlin, Kinky Friedman, Tom Lehrer and John
Wayne. They are all here in this QUIRKY, OUTRAGEOUS, informative,
and above all, ENTERTAINING overview of POLITICAL INCORRECTNESS and
BAD TASTE in 20th century popular entertainment, including film,
theatre, music, radio, television and vaudeville.
The first Latin American actor to become a superstar, Ramon
Novarro was for years one of Hollywood's top actors. Born Ramon
Samaniego to a prominent Mexican family, he arrived in America in
1916, a refugee from civil wars. By the mid-1920s, he had become
one of MGM's biggest box office attractions, starring in
now-classic films, including "The Student Prince," "Mata Hari," and
the original version of "Ben-Hur." He shared the screen with the
era's top leading ladies, such as Greta Garbo, Myrna Loy, Joan
Crawford, and Norma Shearer, and became Rudolph Valentino's main
rival in the "Latin Lover" category. Yet, despite his considerable
professional accomplishments, Novarro's enduring hold on fame stems
from his tragic death---his bloodied corpse was found in his house
on Halloween 1968 in what has become one of Hollywood's most
infamous scandals.
A lifelong bachelor, Novarro carefully cultivated his image as a
man deeply devoted to his family and to Catholicism. His murder
shattered that persona. News reports revealed that the dashing
screen hero had not only been gay, but was dead at the hands of two
young male hustlers. Since then, details of his murder have
achieved near mythic proportions, obscuring Novarro's professional
legacy. "Beyond Paradise" presents a full picture of the man who
made motion picture history. Including original interviews with
Novarro's surviving friends, family, co-workers, and the two men
convicted of his murder, this biography provides unique insights
into an early Hollywood star---a man whose heart was forever in
conflict with his image and whose myth continues to fascinate
today.
The fan magazine has often been viewed simply as a publicity
tool, a fluffy exercise in self-promotion by the film industry. But
as an arbiter of good and bad taste, as a source of knowledge, and
as a gateway to the fabled land of Hollywood and its stars, the
American fan magazine represents a fascinating and indispensable
chapter in journalism and popular culture.
Anthony Slide's "Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine" provides the
definitive history of this artifact. It charts the development of
the fan magazine from the golden years when "Motion Picture Story
Magazine" and "Photoplay" first appeared in 1911 to its decline
into provocative headlines and titillation in the 1960s and
afterward. Slide discusses how the fan magazines dealt with gossip
and innuendo, and how they handled nationwide issues such as
Hollywood scandals of the 1920s, World War II, the blacklist, and
the death of President Kennedy. Fan magazines thrived in the
twentieth century, and they presented the history of an industry in
a unique, sometimes accurate, and always entertaining style.
This major cultural history includes a new interview with 1970s
media personality Rona Barrett, as well as original commentary from
a dozen editors and writers. Also included is a chapter on
contributions to the fan magazines from well-known writers such as
Theodore Dreiser and e. e. cummings. The book is enhanced by an
appendix documenting some 268 American fan magazines and includes
detailed publication histories.
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