One of America's most beloved comic duos, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy have entertained generations of viewers with their unique, heartwarming brand of slapstick comedy. The pair's teamwork and friendship set their films apart, softening both pratfalls and hardships, and earning them a cherished place in cinema history. From their first joint on-screen appearance in 1921's The Lucky Dog through their work at the Hal Roach studios, their comic signature remained unique. But what made the films of Laurel and Hardy so enduring? In Laurel and Hardy's Comic Catastrophes: Laughter and Darkness in the Features and Short Films, Michael Bliss illustrates why these films continue to make audiences laugh. Combining an appreciation for the pleasure that these films elicit with a critical examination of what made them work, Bliss first investigates the milieu in which the pair's comedy takes place. The author then explores Stan and Ollie's friendship and their troubled-and troubling-relationships with women. The book also features a detailed discussion of Stan Laurel's approach to gag structure, while the remainder of the book focuses on many of the pair's silent and sound films, such as Duck Soup, Pack Up Your Troubles, Chickens Come Home, and The Music Box. By delving into the pair's films-including several neglected short films-in greater detail than any previous work, this volume provides readers with a fundamental understanding of Stan and Ollie's universal appeal. Featuring an extensive filmography, Laurel and Hardy's Comic Catastrophes will engage a wide audience, from film scholars to fans of humor everywhere.

Among the more than 180 science fiction films produced in the United States between 1950 and 1959, twenty were concerned with the notion of an invasion. Of these movies, a select number used the invasions as metaphors of issues that were of importance to America at the time, such as assaults upon individuality and marriage, and debates about the supremacy of the human race. In these films, the invasion may be real (The Day the Earth Stood Still and War of the Worlds), imagined (Invaders from Mars), or the result of a mental breakdown, as seems to be the case in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Real or not, all of these massive disturbances of the status quo tell us the same thing: In the 1950s, many Americans felt that things in their world weren t quite right, and this sense of unease was expressed in the country s art, notably these films. In Invasions USA: The Essential Science Fiction Films of the 1950s, Michael Bliss examines movies that stripped away the veneer of normality during a decade so often portrayed as the last innocent period in American history. From a young boy s nightmares about his alien-controlled parents and a young woman s whose fiance is replaced by an emotionless alien double to an extraterrestrial occupant who comes to warn mankind about its self-destructive ways, the plots of these films offer a variety of messages, both subtle and overt. Offering detailed discussions and analyses of the films in question, this book draws attention to a unique group of movies with profound messages. By exploring depictions of insecurities whether personal or political Bliss shows how these films spoke to American audiences deeply troubled by their circumstances. By examining incursions in these films whether literal, figurative, or just dreamed Invasions USA will appeal to science fiction buffs and film aficionados interested in this significant phenomena in movie and cultural history."

Originally a Hong Kong-based director, John Woo is now considered one of the ten most successful directors working in American films, receiving world-wide attention for his highly stylized violence in films such as The Killer (1989), Hard-Boiled (1992), Face/Off (1997), and Mission Impossible 2 (2000). While Woo is widely regarded as a master action director, scant attention has been paid to the manner in which Woo's films reflect the director's religious and ethical concerns. Through an examination of representative films from the director's Hong Kong and American periods, Michael Bliss demonstrates that Woo should be regarded as a predominantly religious director, in whose films action is the vehicle by virtue of which a concern with spirituality is dramatized. Contains a chapter on Chinese opera tradition as relates to Woo's films, an exclusive interview with John Woo, and a complete filmography.

One of the most innovative films ever made, Sam Peckinpah's motion picture The Wild Bunch was released in 1969. From the outset, the film was considered controversial because of its powerful, graphic, and direct depiction of violence, but it was also praised for its lush photography, intricate camera work, and cutting-edge editing. Peckinpah's tale of an ill-fated, aging outlaw gang bound by a code of honor is often regarded as one of the most complex and impactful Westerns in American cinematic history. The issues dealt with in this groundbreaking film -- violence, morality, friendship, and the legacy of American ambition and compromise -- are just as relevant today as when the film first opened. To acknowledge the significance of The Wild Bunch, this collection brings together some of the leading Peckinpah scholars and critics to examine what many consider to be the director's greatest work. The book's nine essays cover an array of topics. Explored are the function of violence in the film and how its depiction is radically different from what is seen in other movies, the background of the film's production, the European response to the film's view of human nature, and the strong sense of the Texas/Mexico milieu surrounding the film's action.

Here is the first biography to appear in fifty years of Harvey Cushing, a giant of American medicine and without doubt the greatest figure in the history of brain surgery. Drawing on new collections of intimate personal and family papers, diaries and patient records, Michael Bliss captures Cushing's professional and personal life in remarkable detail. Bliss paints an engaging portrait of a man of ambition, boundless, driving energy, a fanatical work ethic, a penchant for self-promotion and ruthlessness, more than a touch of egotism and meanness, and an enormous appetite for life. Equally important, Bliss traces the rise of American surgery as seen through the eyes of one of its pioneers. The book describes how Cushing, working in the early years of the 20th century, developed remarkable new techniques that let surgeons open the skull, expose the brain, and attack tumors-all with a much higher rate of success than previously known. Indeed, Cushing made the miraculous in surgery an everyday event, as he and his team compiled an astonishing record of treating more than two thousand tumors. Moreover, Cushing was also a leading authority on the pituitary gland and a pioneer of endocrinology. And in his spare time, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his massive two-volume biography of William Osler, who was Cushing's colleague. This is the definite Cushing biography, an epic narrative of high surgical adventure. Written by a prize-winning medical historian and acclaimed author, it captures the highs and lows of an extraordinary life, illuminating the contributions of a surgeon who has earned an enduring place in the pantheon of medical history.

The Word Made Flesh is an exploration of the thematic concerns and the underlying humanism and morality found in Martin Scorsese's films. It contains individual chapters on fifteen Scorsese films, the most complete Scorsese filmography available, and a host of illustrations. Generally acknowledged as one of the most important and influential directors of his generation, Scorsese has directed a wide range of films, from documentaries to musicals to comedies to dramas. Although Scorsese has a well-known penchant for violence, as in the films Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Cape Fear, he is also a master of the character study. The Word Made Flesh is an essential addition to any film collection.

The discovery of insulin at the University of Toronto in 1921-2 was one of the most dramatic events in the history of the treatment of disease. Insulin, discovered by the Canadian research team of Frederick Banting, Charles Best, James Collip, and John Macleod, was a wonder drug with the ability to bring diabetes patients back from the brink of death. It was no surprise that in 1923 the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded for its discovery. In this engaging and award-winning account, historian Michael Bliss draws on archival records and personal adventures to recount the fascinating story behind the discovery of insulin - a story as much filled with fiery confrontation and intense competition as medical dedication and scientific genius. With a new preface by Michael Bliss and a foreword by Alison Li, the special centenary edition of The Discovery of Insulin honours the one hundredth anniversary of insulin's discovery and its continued significance a century later.

William Osler was born in a parsonage in backwoods Canada on July 12, 1849. In a life lasting seventy years, he practiced, taught, and wrote about medicine at Canada's McGill University, America's Johns Hopkins University, and finally as Regius Professor at Oxford. At the time of his death in England in 1919, many considered him to be the greatest doctor in the world. Osler, who was a brilliant, innovative teacher and a scholar of the natural history of disease, revolutionised the art of practicing medicine at the bedside of his patients. He was idolised by two generations of medical students and practitioners for whom he came to personify the ideal doctor. But much more than a physician, Osler was a supremely intelligent humanist. In both his writings and his personal life, and through the prism of the tragedy of the Great War, he embodied the art of living. It was perhaps his legendary compassion that elevated his healing talents to an art form and attracted to his private practice students, colleagues, poets (Walt Whitman for example) politicians, royalty, and nameless ordinary people with extraordinary conditions. William Osler's life lucidly illuminates the times in which he lived. Indeed, this is a book not only about the evolution of modern medicine, the training of doctors, holism in medical thought, and the doctor-patient relationship, but also about humanism, Victorianism, the Great War, and much else. Meticulously researched, drawing on many new sources and offering new interpretations, William Osler: A Life in Medicine brings to life both a fascinating man and the formative age of twentieth-century medicine. It is a classic biography of a classic life, both authoritative and highly readable.

For too long the history of Canadian society has been hidden in secondhand bookstores, the dark corners of library stacks, and the privacy of the occasional graduate seminar. Contrary to what often seems the common impression, there is a richness and distinctiveness to our labour history, our urban development, our traditions of regional and cultural conflict, our movements for social reform and justice - to all that vast range of topics, events, issues, and ideas that comprise the social history of a nation. The demands of teachers and students and indeed the general public for material relevant to Canadian social history have been matched only by the frustrations raised by the inaccessibility, sometimes the apparent non-existence, of documents basic to a new understanding of our heritage. It is now time that this heritage be retrieved and made available to everyone. It is the purpose of this new series, The Social History of Canada, to help meet these demands. The titles in the series, including The Rapids, will be issued in a common format, in both hardcover and paperback editions, and will deal with all areas of social history. Most of these volumes will consist of a reissue of classic works now out of print - novels, histories, investigations, polemics, tracts; others will contain a compilation of documents in areas where there are no worthwhile book-length studies. Each work will have a new introduction by a scholar who is a specialist in the field. It is hoped that this series will simultaneously enrich our knowledge of the past and lay the groundwork for future advances in scholarship and historical consciousness