Arthur Penn: American Director is the comprehensive biography of one of the twentieth century's most influential filmmakers. Thematic chapters lucidly convey the story of Penn's life and career, as well as pertinent events in the history of American film, theater, and television. In the process of tracing the full spectrum of his career, Arthur Penn reveals the enormous scope of Penn's talent and his profound impact on the entertainment industry in an accessible, engaging account of the well-known director's life. Born in 1922 to a family of Philadelphia immigrants, the young Penn was bright but aimless - especially compared to his talented older brother Irving, who would later become a world-renowned photographer. Penn drifted into directing, but he soon mastered the craft in three mediums: television, Broadway, and motion pictures. By the time he made Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Penn was already a Tony-winning Broadway director and one of the prodigies of the golden age of television. His innovative handling of the story of two Depression-era outlaws not only challenged Hollywood's strict censorship code, it shook the foundation of studio system itself and ushered in the film revolution. His next films - Alice's Restaurant (1969), Little Big Man (1970), and Night Moves (1975) - became instant classics, summoning emotions from shock to sensuality and from confusion to horror, all of which reflected the complexity of the man behind the camera. The personal and creative odyssey captured in these pages includes memorable adventures in World War II; the chaotic days of live television; the emergence of Method acting in Hollywood; and experiences with Marlon Brando, Anne Bancroft, Warren Beatty, William Gibson, Lillian Hellman, and a host of other show business legends.

Breaking the Code reveals the efforts of director-producer Otto Preminger to bring his aesthetic vision to the screen even if it meant challenging the Production Code, a system of self-censorship that shaped the movies during the four decades it was in force. Along the way, Preminger sent shock waves through Hollywood and a network of exhibitors, publishers, and religious leaders who had personal, and even financial, stakes in the repression of artistic freedom. The process of telling this story began in 2003 when Arnie Reisman and Nat Segaloff thought it might be interesting to write a play about Preminger's efforts to get a Code seal for his 1954 romantic comedy The Moon is Blue, based on F. Hugh Herbert's 1951 play. In those days, no film could be shown that did not receive authorization from the Production Code Administration, and his film was deemed too "adult" for even adults to see. Preminger was met with opposition from administrator, Joseph Breen, who was prepared to go to war to save the rest of the country from its sensibilities. Along with their play Code Blue, which dramatizes the clash between these two evenly matched but wildly disparate titans, Breaking the Code chronicles the battle between Otto Preminger and the Code. Between 1953 and 1962, he fought the censorship of The Moon Is Blue, The Man with the Golden Arm, Anatomy of a Murder, and Advise and Consent. The details of each skirmish vary, but they cover the same issues: art versus commerce, freedom of speech versus censorship, and money versus principle. Times may have changed, but these battles continue. Breaking the Code is an attempt to go back and see how the walls can be made to crumble.