Errol Flynn


Book Description

Errol Flynn set the standard for the modern action hero in films like The Adventures of Robin Hood, Dodge City, and The Sea Hawk. This biography follows Flynn from his birth in Tasmania, Australia, in 1909, to his death in Vancouver, Canada, in 1959. Included is analysis of his films, discussion of the 1943 rape trial that changed his life, a survey of the FBI's infamous surveillance, and the first detailed account of his television appearances in the 1950s. First-hand interviews with Flynn's friends and colleagues are complemented by research from FBI files, correspondence, Flynn's diary, and other sources. Illustrated with rare and previously unpublished photographs, the study also gives attention to the historical backgrounds and cultural influences that contributed to Flynn's fame; the work takes an objective and analytical look at the actor's adventurous life. The study includes two appendices: the first is a collection of quotations from various celebrities, from memories of his talent and style to anecdotes about his wild pool parties. The second appendix is a filmography including all Flynn's work for film, stage, and television, with cast and crew information.




Film Nation


Book Description

Notable writers on literature and culture who occasionally penned opinion pieces on the movies prior to World War II include Clifton Fadiman, Mark Van Doren, Lincoln Kirstein, Edmund Wilson, Louise Bogan, and Paul Goodman. All of these critics wrote seriously about things other than the movies. Indeed, the early decades of film criticism drew many moonlighters who tried their hand at it for a few years, then moved on to their preferred metier. And such was the case with William Troy (1903-1961). Troy, a distinguished literary critic whose posthumous Selected Essays won a National Book Award in 1968, was also a much-loved professor at Bennington College, the New School, and New York University. Troy was the film critic of The Nation from 1933 to 1935. To that post he brought an educated, almost professional tone, which he sometimes used for comic effect. He approached each piece of film criticism as an occasion for some larger essayistic rumination. Indeed, his feeling for the carpentry of the short review is superb, as the reader will detect in his pieces on such important films as Buñuel's L'age d'Or, Lang's M, Duvivier's Poil de Carotte, Eisenstein's Que Viva México!, Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc, Cocteau's Blood of a Poet, Pudovkin's Mother, Flaherty's Man of Aran, Renoir's Madame Bovary, and Ford's The Informer. William Troy was thus one of Americas first full-time professional film critics, if not the best of the lot. He deserves some of the attention heretofore reserved for another important early critic, James Agee, who himself began writing movie reviews for The Nation in 1942. Published in conjunction with The Bookman: William Troy on Literature and Criticism, 1927-1950 (ISBN 978-1-78976-172-6), Film Nation is essential reading for cinephiles. Inclusion of a substantive index makes the work highly attractive for classroom adoption in the field of cinema studies.




Never Let Me Go


Book Description

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER • The moving, suspenseful, beautifully atmospheric modern classic from the acclaimed author of The Remains of the Day and Klara and the Sun—“a Gothic tour de force" (The New York Times) with an extraordinary twist. “Brilliantly executed.” —Margaret Atwood “A page-turner and a heartbreaker.” —TIME “Masterly.” —Sunday Times As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were. Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special—and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.




William Walton


Book Description

"Using first-hand accounts, including contemporary correspondence, articles and interviews, this account of Walton's life also draws on material newly available relating to his friends and associates. The reception of Facade and Walton's work in both films and radio are fully explored."--BOOK JACKET.




Beyond the Epic


Book Description

Two-time Academy Award winner Sir David Lean (1908–1991) was one of the most prominent directors of the twentieth century, responsible for the classics The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and Doctor Zhivago (1965). British-born Lean asserted himself in Hollywood as a major filmmaker with his epic storytelling and panoramic visions of history, but he started out as a talented film editor and director in Great Britain. As a result, he brought an art-house mentality to blockbuster films. Combining elements of biography and film criticism, Beyond the Epic: The Life and Films of David Lean uses screenplays and production histories to assess Lean’s body of work. Author Gene D. Phillips interviews actors who worked with Lean and directors who knew him, and their comments reveal new details about the director’s life and career. Phillips also explores Lean’s lesser-studied films, such as The Passionate Friends (1949), Hobson’s Choice (1954), and Summertime (1955). The result is an in-depth examination of the director in cultural, historical, and cinematic contexts. Lean’s approach to filmmaking was far different than that of many of his contemporaries. He chose his films carefully and, as a result, directed only sixteen films in a period of more than forty years. Those films, however, have become some of the landmarks of motion-picture history. Lean is best known for his epics, but Phillips also focuses on Lean’s successful adaptations of famous works of literature, including retellings of plays such as Brief Encounter (1945) and novels such as Great Expectations (1946), Oliver Twist (1948), and A Passage to India (1984). From expansive studies of war and strife to some of literature’s greatest high comedies and domestic dramas, Lean imbued all of his films with his unique creative vision. Few directors can match Lean’s ability to combine narrative sweep and psychological detail, and Phillips goes beyond Lean’s epics to reveal this unifying characteristic in the director’s body of work. Beyond the Epic is a vital assessment of a great director’s artistic process and his place in the film industry.




Escape Me Never (Mills & Boon Modern)


Book Description

Mills & Boon proudly presents THE SARA CRAVEN COLLECTION. Sara’s powerful and passionate romances have captivated and thrilled readers all over the world for five decades making her an international bestseller.




H. D. & Bryher


Book Description

H.D. & Bryher: An Untold Love Story of Modernism takes on the daring task of examining the connection between two queer women, one a poet and the other a historical novelist, living from the late 19th century through the 20th century. When they met in 1918, H.D. was a modernist poet, married to a shell-shocked adulterous poet, and pregnant by another man. She fell in love with Bryher, who was entrapped by her wealthy secretive family. Their bond grew over Greek poetry, geography, ancient history and literature, the telegraph, and telepathy. They felt their love-and their true identities existed invisibly- a giddy, and disturbing element to their relationship; they lived off and on in distant geographies, though in near continual contact. This book exposes why literary history has occluded this love story of the world wars and poetic modernism.




Enter the Players


Book Description

"Each player is discussed in a brief biography, followed by a complete list of every play and character they performed in New York. Also included are plays and musicals that were heading to New York but closed before opening. Cast replacements are indicated as well as Tony nominations and awards. Within Enter the Players, each actor comes alive as his or her career is revealed step-by-step, role-by-role. This book is an invaluable reference work and provides hours of fascinating browsing for anyone who loves theatre."--BOOK JACKET.




Korngold and His World


Book Description

A brand-new look at the life and music of renowned composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957) was the last compositional prodigy to emerge from the Austro-German tradition of Mozart and Mendelssohn. He was lauded in his youth by everyone from Mahler to Puccini and his auspicious career in the early 1900s spanned chamber music, opera, and musical theater. Today, he is best known for his Hollywood film scores, composed between 1935 and 1947. From his prewar operas in Vienna to his pathbreaking contributions to American film, Korngold and His World provides a substantial reassessment of Korngold’s life and accomplishments. Korngold struggled to reconcile the musical language of his Viennese upbringing with American popular song and cinema, and was forced to adapt to a new life after wartime emigration to Hollywood. This collection examines Korngold’s operas and film scores, the critical reception of his music, and his place in the milieus of both the Old and New Worlds. The volume also features numerous historical documents—many previously unpublished and in first-ever English translations—including essays by the composer as well as memoirs by his wife, Luzi Korngold, and his father, the renowned music critic Julius Korngold. The contributors are Leon Botstein, David Brodbeck, Bryan Gilliam, Daniel Goldmark, Lily Hirsch, Kevin Karnes, Sherry Lee, Neil Lerner, Sadie Menicanin, Ben Winters, Amy Wlodarski, and Charles Youmans. Bard Music Festival 2019 Korngold and His World Bard College August 9–11 and 16–18, 2019




Popular Filmgoing in 1930s Britain


Book Description

In the 1930s there were close to a billion annual admissions to the cinema in Britain and it was by far the most popular paid-for leisure activity. This book is an exploration of that popularity. John Sedgwick has developed the POPSTAT index, a methodology based on exhibition records which allows identification of the most popular films and the leading stars of the period, and provides a series of tables which will serve as standard points of reference for all scholars and specialists working in the field of 1930s cinema. The book establishes similarities and differences between national and regional tastes through detailed case study analysis of cinemagoing in Bolton and Brighton, and offers an analysis of genre development. It also reveals that although Hollywood continued to dominate the British market, films emanating from British studios proved markedly popular with domestic audiences.