Best of
Film

1990

Sunset Boulevard


Billy Wilder - 1990
    Billy Wilder collaborated on the screenplay with the very able Charles Brackett, and with D. M. Marshman Jr., who later joined the team. Together they created a film both allusive and literate, with Hollywood's worst excesses and neuroses laid out for all to see. After viewing Sunset Boulevard Louis B. Mayer exclaimed: "We should throw this Wilder out of town!" The New York Times, however, gave the movie a rave review, praising "that rare blend of pungent writing, expert acting, masterly direction, and unobtrusively artistic photography." The film was nominated for Best Picture, and Wilder won an Academy Award for Best Story and Best Screenplay.This facsimile edition of Sunset Boulevard makes it possible to get as much pleasure from reading the highly intelligent screenplay as from seeing the film. Jeffrey Meyers's introduction provides an intriguing array of background details about Wilder, the film's casting and production, and the lives of those connected to what has become a classic.

Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen


David J. Skal - 1990
    It's recognition factor rivals, in its own perverse way, the familiarity of Santa Claus. Most of us can recite without prompting the salient characteristics of the vampire: sleeping by day in its coffin, rising at dusk to feed on the blood of the living; the ability to shapeshift into a bat, wolf, or mist; a mortal vulnerability to a wooden stake through the heart or a shaft of sunlight. In this critically acclaimed excursion through the life of a cultural icon, David Skal maps out the archetypal vampire's relentless trajectory from Victorian literary oddity to movie idol to cultural commidity, digging through the populist veneer to reveal what the prince of darkness says about us all.

Images: My Life in Film


Ingmar Bergman - 1990
    Bergman's career spanned 40 years and produced over 50 films, many of which are considered classics. Over 200 photos.

Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff: The Expanded Story of a Haunting Collaboration, with a Complete Filmography of Their Films Together


Gregory William Mank - 1990
    Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff starred in dozens of black-and-white horror films, and over the years managed to collaborate on and co-star in eight movies. Through dozens of interviews and extensive archival research, this greatly expanded new edition examines the Golden Age of Hollywood, the era in which both stars worked, recreates the shooting of Lugosi and Karloff's mutual films, examines their odd and moving personal relationship and analyzes their ongoing legacies. Features include a fully detailed filmography of the eight Karloff and Lugosi films, full summaries of both men's careers and more than 250 photographs, some in color.

On the Track: A Guide to Contemporary Film Scoring


Fred Karlin - 1990
    Covering all styles and genres, the authors, both noted film composers, cover everything from the nuts-and-bolts of timing, cuing, and recording through balancing the composer's aesthetic vision with the needs of the film itself. Unlike other books that are aimed at the person "dreaming" of a career, this is truly a guide that can be used by everyone from students to technically sophisticated professionals. It contains over 100 interviews with noted composers, illustrating the many technical points made through the text.

Behind the Mask of Innocence: Films of Social Conscience in the Silent Era


Kevin Brownlow - 1990
    This is the definitive history of silent films, documenting many that have been lost or forgotten.

Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges: His Life in His Words


Preston Sturges - 1990
    At the height of his career, Sturges had not only won an Academy Award but was also one of the most highly paid executives in the country.The only account of his life in his own words, Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges unveils the source of his extraordinary creativity: a life that was every bit as antic and unconventional as his movies.

The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907


Charles Musser - 1990
    He considers social and economic as well as aesthetic aspects of the beginnings of movie making.

Kovacsland: Biography Of Ernie Kovacs


Diana Rico - 1990
    Kovacsland is an engrossing and entertaining portrait of a television pioneer. Index; photographs.

A Youth in Babylon: Confessions of a Trash-Film King


David F. Friedman - 1990
    Friedman, the emperor of exploitation films. He perfected the fine art of sleaze & delightfully admits that he has hurled more garbage at the public than anyone else before or since. This book is as much his story as it's the history of an idea that in recent times has enjoyed a remarkable rebirth. He writes with gusto of the glory days when there were taboos to be broken & untold amounts of money to be made. He fondly remembers his cinematic forebears, who sold titillation under the guise of moral instruction. He brought the genre to new highs & lows, producing such films as She Freak, Blood Feast, The Defilers, Scum of the Earth, Space Thing, Color Me Blood Red & the classic 2000 Maniacs. Whether sexy, gory or merely shocking, these films played for years to packed theatres & drive-ins. This book captures the core of basic integrity, the wicked sense of humor & the unerring sense of showmanship of this American original. A Youth in Babylon is the definitive book on the history of American exploitation films & a unique contribution to motion picture history.

Rainbow's End: The Judy Garland Show


Coyne S. Sanders - 1990
    Reprint.

Porridge: The Complete Scripts and Series Guide


Dick Clement - 1990
    His portrayal of Fletch, the experienced, cynical old lag, won the nation's heart when the series first hit our screens in 1973.This complete companion is the only book to tell the behind-the-scenes story of how the series came to be made and is packed full of never-before-published photographs and interviews with the cast and crew. It is also the only book to bring together the original scripts from all three series, making this the essential souvenir for all the millions of Porridge fans.

Edge of Darkness


Troy Kennedy Martin - 1990
    One of the most ambitious and popular BBC drama series ever, Edge of Darkness received six BAFTA awards after it was first broadcast in 1985, and writer Troy Kennedy Martin's achievement in creating a "green" vision of things to come makes this an important text for the 1990s.Ron Craven, a Yorkshire policeman, makes a private investigation into the circumstances of his daughter's mysterious death, and is drawn into an international nuclear network, whose deadly secret he feels compelled to expose in the interests of the human race.This book contains all six episodes, with a detailed and challenging introduction by the author on the factual background to the series.

Twin Peaks


Angelo Badalamenti - 1990
    The matching folio to the popular TV show features lyrics by director David Lynch and music by Angelo Badalamenti, plus many great photos from the series!

Tarkovsky: Cinema as Poetry


Maya Turovskaya - 1990
    She has had access to the archives of Mosfilm Studios where the early drafts and notes on his films are kept.

Video Trash and Treasures II: Cheesy Trash and Classic Sleaze-Psychos, Loose Women, Fast Cars, Aliens-The Very Best


L.A. Morse - 1990
    Video Trash & Treasures II is back, exploring brand new territory in the Video Unknown."This is dangerous, and it's stupid."Containing another 500 obscure and offbeat movies from your local video store, arranged in 26 all new Festivals devoted to Action Extravaganza, Chiller Thrillers, and Sleaze Classics.Tough Cops and Violent VigilantesBimbos Behind BarsNinja NonsenseMystery, Suspense and IntriguePLUS120 Certified Buried Treasures -- small movies that deserve bigger audiences, cult favorites, and genuine curiosities.Bill Forsyth & HandMade FilmsPsychos in Love & Bad Girls DormitoryMS. 45 & Double Agent 73"Video Trash & Treasures...indulges in an orgy of unrepented film excess. Even those who don't entirely share Morse's fascination with garishness and gore may find themselves captivated by his infectious enthusiasm... As its title indicates, Video Trash & Treasures discovers some previously unexpected gold in them thar cinematic hills." -- The Toronto Sun

Changing Images of Pictorial Space: A History of Spatial Illusion in Painting


William V. Dunning - 1990
    It traces the evolution of the conception and the depiction of space in European and American painting and the ways in which this evolution reflects ideological changes in society over 2000 years.

Joe Bob Goes Back To The Drive-In


Joe Bob Briggs - 1990
    Used his Notoriety to become the host of "Drive-In Theatre" on The Movie Channel, one of the highest rated shows on cable TV. Been kicked out of the "Babtist" Church for the general overall condition of his soul. Preached the drive-in gospel in theaters coast-to-coast, including the Berea, Ohio, High School Auditorium. Increased the price of this book by two dollars over what he charged for the original "Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" (four ex-wives).

How I Made A Hundred Movies In Hollywood And Never Lost A Dime


Roger Corman - 1990
    He also discusses his distribution of the Bergman, Fellini, and Truffaut movies that later won Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Film category. Corman alumni—John Sayles, Martin Scorsese, Jack Nicholson, Vincent Price, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, Peter Fonda, Joe Dante, and Jonathan Demme, among others—contribute their recollections to give added perspective to Corman's often hilarious, always informative autobiography.

James Dean: Behind the Scene


Leith Adams - 1990
    Hundreds of photographs taken on the sets of 'East of Eden', 'Rebel Without a Cause', and 'Giant', as well as frame enlargements from the films make up a collage of his screen and private personalities.

Three Screenplays: Avalon / Tin Men / Diner


Barry Levinson - 1990
    Three screenplays set in Baltimore deal with five friends in the 50s, a rivalry between two aluminum siding salesmen, and an immigrant family adjusting to life in America.

The Look Of Horror: Scary Moments From Scary Movies


Jonathan Sternfield - 1990
    Showcases some of the most memorable and horrifying moments in film history, featuring monsters, madmen, aliens, demons, and other-worldly creatures from favorite scary movies.

Renoir on Renoir: Interviews, Essays, and Remarks


Jean Renoir - 1990
    Renoir's career in cinema, which straddled the transition from silent film to the talkies, has influenced a subsequent generation of filmmakers. Between 1954 and 1967, Renoir was interviewed by such eminent filmmakers and theorists as Jacques Rivette, Francois Truffaut and Jacques Becker. The interviews were originally recorded and published in the distinguished French film review Cahiers du Cin�ma, and shown on French television. They are an engaging account of Renoir's deep commitment to his chosen profession. Providing additional information on his ideas and theories on screen writing and directing, Renoir's essays also include lively anecdotes of the genesis and evolution of each of his films. They reveal behind-the-scenes of some of the masterpieces of French cinema.

The Complete James Bond Movie Encyclopedia


Steven Jay Rubin - 1990
    This compendium of 007 lore charts the famous faces, fascinating facts, and exotic locales that make up the timeless world of Britain's deadliest secret agent.

Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative


Thomas Elsaesser - 1990
    Only recently have film scholars and historians begun to study these early years of cinema in their own right and not simply as first steps towards the classical narrative cinema we now associate with Hollywood.The essays in this collection trace the fascinating history of how the cinema developed its forms of storytelling and representation and how it evolved into a complex industry with Hollywood rapidly acquiring a dominant role. These issues can be seen to arise from new readings of the so-called pioneers--Melies, Lumiere, Porter, and Griffith--while also suggesting new perspectives on major European filmmakers of the 1910s and 20s.Editor Thomas Elsaesser complements the contributions from leading British, American, and European scholars with introductory essays of his own that provide a comprehensive overview of the field. The volume is the most authoritative survey to date of a key area of contemporary film research, invaluable to historians as well as to students of cinema.

The Hollywood Eye: What Makes Movies Work


Jon Boorstin - 1990
    Here he examines these elements using his own experiences as well as the experiences of legend ary filmmakers to demonstrate how the moviemaking process works. 100 black-an d-white illustrations.

Three Films of W.C. Fields: Never Give a Sucker an Even Break / Tillie and Gus / The Bank Dick


W.C. Fields - 1990
    Field's work is a model for writers and performers. Each script is a masterpiece of comic writing. This is a selection of three screenplays of his films, "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break", "Tillie and Gus" and "The Bank Dick".

Dances With Wolves: The Illustrated Story of the Epic Film


Kevin Costner - 1990
    The fascinating official pictorial moviebook (over 300,000 copies sold of the first edition) of the seven-time Oscar®-winning film (including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay) takes readers behind the scenes to tell the complete story of the epic film, in a combination of screenplay and narrative, surrounded by text, photo, and art features on the Plains Indians, the frontier, and the Civil War history on which the movie was based. Includes articles by star/co-producer/director Kevin Costner, author Michael Blake, coproducer Jim Wilson and more than 170 photos and drawings—plus the complete cast and credits. Over 200 illustrations, 100 in color.Author Biography: Kevin Costner won the Oscar for Best Director and, with co-producer Jim Wilson, won Best Picture for Dances With Wolves. He has since starred in, produced, and directed many major motion pictures. Michael Blake wrote the novel Dances With Wolves and the sequel The Holy Road.

My Indecision Is Final: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Goldcrest Films, the Independent Studio That Challenged Hollywood


Jake Eberts - 1990
    

Modernist Montage: The Obscurity of Vision in Cinema and Literature


P. Adams Sitney - 1990
    It argues that the act of vision and visual experience are problematized in literary modernism.

Writers In Hollywood, 1915-1951


Ian Hamilton - 1990
    Looks at the history of screenwriters under the old studio system, and explains why they received so little credit for their contributions.

Hollywood Musicals Year by Year


Stanley Green - 1990
    This book provides a world of information, facts, and trivia about cinema's favorite musicals. Beginning with The Jazz Singer and moving through the years, this illustrated book documents more than 300 movies. Each entry includes the screenplay writer, producer, director, choreographer, cast list, song list, release date, plot summary, and interesting notes surrounding the production, cast, and spin-offs that the movie inspired. Hollywood Musicals Year by Year also contains many photographs of memorable moments in celluloid history.

Nature's Thumbprint: The New Genetics of Personality


Peter B. Neubauer - 1990
    Destined to be one of the most widely discussed and controversial books of 1990.

The Movie List Book: Hundreds of Fun and Fascinating Lists of Films by Their Settings and Major Themes


Richard B. Armstrong - 1990
    Romero's Night of the Living Dead and you want to contrast it with similar movies about flesh-eating ghouls. You could diligently pore through a variety of reference sources on Romero and the horror genre, or you could begin your search by turning in this work to the GHOULS entry (as differentiated from the ZOMBIES entry, both cross-referenced and carefully explained): There, a number of films are listed following a mini-essay on the topic overall. The over 450 such entries range from unusual occupations in movies (Bounty Hunters and Librarians, for instance) to subjects (Automobiles, or Trumpet Players), themes (Reincarnation, Lookalikes), settings (Hospitals, Tunnels), happenstances (Dates in Title, Long Running Times), film series (the Range Busters, Carry On...), and characters (Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan)-and more! All in all an invaluable service to fan and scholar alike.

Love & Human Remains


Brad Fraser - 1990
    A flip book with Fraser’s critically accalaimed play "Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love," as well as the screenplay, Love and Human Remains.

Issues in Feminist Film Criticism


Patricia B. Erens - 1990
    and British feminist film scholars. The twenty-seven essays represent some of the most influential work on Hollywood film, women's cinema, and documentary filmmaking to appear during the past decade and beyond.Contributors include Lucie Arbuthnot, Linda Artel, Pam Cook, Teresa de Lauretis, Mary Ann Doane, Elizabeth Ellsworth, Lucy Fischer, Jane Gaines, Mary C. Gentile, Bette Gordon, Florence Jacobowitz, Claire Johnston, E. Ann Kaplan, Annette Kuhn, Julia Lesage, Judith Mayne, Sonya Michel, Tania Modleski, Laura Mulvey, B. Ruby Rich, Gail Seneca, Kaja Silverman, Lori Spring, Jackie Stacey, Maureen Turim, Diane Waldman, Susan Wengraf, Linda Williams, and Robin Wood.

Pier Paolo Pasolini: Cinema as Heresy


Naomi Greene - 1990
    Naomi Greene reveals to English-speaking readers the diverse talents that made him one of the most controversial European intellectuals of the postwar era, at the center of political and cultural debates still vital to our time. Greene presents Pasolini's films to the English-speaking world in full detail and in a rich critical context, using them to trace the evolution of his ideas and the details of his troubled personal life from 1950, when he settled in Rome, to 1975, the year of his brutal murder, apparently at the hands of a young male prostitute. In her concise and sympathetic book, Greene intelligently explicates the political and social context within which Pasolini became both a leading figure and a significant heretic. He was an atheist who directed one of the few genuinely profound biblical films in the cinema, a communist who severely criticized many of the radical movements of modern Italy. Though he publicly acknowledged his homosexuality, he privately referred to it as his sickness. As the book well documents, Pasolini was not a rebel but rather an authentic heretic who worked in contradiction to both his medium and milieu.--ChoiceOriginally published in 1990.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Deep Red/Original Edition (Deep Red)


Chas Balun - 1990
    

Behind the Scenes: The Making of The Maltese Falcon, Singin' in the Rain, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Stagecoach, A Streetcar Named ... Din, High Noon, Laura, Lost Horizon


Rudy Behlmer - 1990
    

Lateshows


Frank Moorhouse - 1990
    I also thought I moved with what was called the Fast Crowd but I have begun to face up to the slowing of the Fast Crowd. My friends now not only move with a more leisurely pace, I observe, but with an undignified lack of urgency, are slower to rise from their chairs, and also, I have noticed, they have begun to procreate. The Late Family had arrived in my life. For some of my friends the Late Family had replaced the Late Show. THE MOVIE This is a story about how the flow of life is made into stories, how stories become films, how the making of stories and films itself becomes stories, and how stories become the flow of life. THE CABARET VOLTAIRE It occurs to me that the telephone answering machine is something of a wall, albeit a friendly wall. Robert Frost's neighbour says that good fences make good neighbours. Good greetings on a telephone answering machine make good telephone neighbours. But as Frost says, 'Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down.' I suppose some people do not like the wall to joke. There will always be those types. The telephone answering machine could be seen as the dog Cerberus barking at the gates of Hades. The dog Cerberus didn't stop people coming into Hades - he stopped people going out. The telephone answering machine is Cerberus trying to prevent the people who come down the dark tunnel of the telephone from getting away. It holds them by their voice, seizes them by their throat.