Silent-film comedy pioneer Mack Sennett forbade his screenwriters from writing anything down, for fear they’d get inflated ideas about themselves as creative artists. The great midcentury director John Ford was known to answer studio executives’ complaints that he was behind schedule by tearing a handful of random pages from his script and tossing them over his shoulder. And Ken Russell was so contemptuous of Paddy Chayefsky’s screenplay for Altered States that Chayefsky insisted on having his name removed from the credits.Of course, popular impressions aside, screenwriters have been central to moviemaking since the first motion picture audiences got past the sheer novelty of seeing pictures that moved at all. Soon they wanted to know: What happens next? In this truly fresh perspective on the movies, veteran Oscar-winning screenwriter Marc Norman gives us the first comprehensive history of the men and women who have answered that question, from Anita Loos, the highest-paid screenwriter of her day, to Robert Towne, Quentin Tarantino, Charlie Kaufman, and other paradigm-busting talents reimagining movies for the new century.The whole rich story is here: Herman Mankiewicz and the telegram he sent from Hollywood to his friend Ben Hecht in New York: “Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots.” The unlikely sojourns of F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner as Hollywood screenwriters. The imposition of the Production Code in the early 1930s and the ingenious attempts of screenwriters to outwit the censors. How the script for Casablanca, “a disaster from start to finish,” based on what James Agee judged to be “one of the world’s worst plays,” took shape in a chaotic frenzy of writing and rewriting—and how one of the most famous denouements in motion picture history wasn’t scripted until a week after the last scheduled day of shooting—because they had to end the movie somehow.Norman explores the dark days of the Hollywood blacklist that devastated and divided Hollywood’s screenwriting community. He charts the rise of the writer-director in the early 1970s with names like Coppola, Lucas, and Allen and the disaster of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate that led the studios to retake control. He offers priceless portraits of the young William Hurt, Steven Spielberg, and Steven Soderbergh. And he describes the scare of 2005 when new technologies seemed to dry up the audience for movies, and the industry—along with its screenwriters—faced the necessity of reinventing itself as it had done before in the face of sound recording, color, widescreen, television, and other technological revolutions.Impeccably researched, erudite, and filled with unforgettable stories of the too often overlooked, maligned, and abused men and women who devised the ideas that others brought to life in action and words on-screen, this is a unique and engrossing history of the quintessential art form of our time.

    Although Lee Marvin is best known for his icy tough guy roles—such as his chilling titular villain in The ManWho Shot Liberty Valance or the paternal yet brutally realistic platoon leader in The Big Red One—very little is known of his personal life; his family background; his experiences in WWII; his relationship with his father, family, friends, wives; and his ongoing battles with alcoholism, rage, and depression, occasioned by his postwar PTSD. Now, after years of researching and compiling interviews with family members, friends, and colleagues; rare photographs; and illustrative material, Hollywood writer Dwayne Epstein provides a full understanding and appreciation of this acting titan’s place in the Hollywood pantheon in spite of his very real and human struggles.

    Finding the SECRET to a happy, peaceful life in self-love was worth the 13- year journey in a foreign country because without it, I may have never found THAT SECRET. Life is about the choices we make. Each choice decides about our destiny. WE are in charge of our destiny, especially when it comes to love and relationships...’Author's dream to live in England came true in 2004 but when she suddenly lost most of her belongings, health, career, money, home and her soulmate, she decided to share the story which led to this tragic moment. Will she find the courage, resilience and determination to start her life abroad all over? Will she make the right choices that life presents her with? How will she deal with poverty, pain, homelessness and betrayals whilst looking for love?Travel to around fifty European locations, fall in love, have your heart broken, fall in love again and find strength to keep going but never, ever give up on life! It truly is a brave record of one woman's relationships and heartbreaks, dealing with depression in the wake of Brexit and her life as a newly named 'immigrant' or simply an EU citizen. Are you truly ready for a journey to feel UNCONDITIONAL LOVE together with one brave 'Polish Girl' ? REVIEW FROM THE DAILY BRUNCH:THE MOST INSPIRING BOOK ON LOVE!'For me, ‘Polish Girl; In Pursuit of the English Dream’ is a true masterpiece of reflections on love and life, making me want to recommend it to everyone who is ready to set off on their own spiritual journey to find out more about their own soul together with one courageous, unique and life-loving Polish girl. I can guarantee that you will relate to at least one thing in her life story, if not a few. I wish there were more stories like this published which millions of people can so easily relate to. After all, the spiritual journey is what we are all here for. If we cannot evolve and learn from the past to have a better future, is life really worth living?'

     Attu was the westernmost island in the Aleutian chain, located one thousand miles from Alaska, and subject to brutal weather all year round. Prior to the war it had been home to two Americans and forty-five Aleut hunters and their families, but in June 1942 the Japanese had seized the island and now had over two-thousand troops on the barren island threatening the security of the U.S. mainland. The Battle of the Komandorski Islands in the Bering Sea on March 26, 1943, cleared the way for attempt to retake the island of Attu. Code-named Operation Landgrab, the U.S. military planned for the invasion to take place in May. Army planners had initially thought this would be a quick operation, but instead of being a short invasion it dragged on for over two weeks. The Japanese had realized that their options were limited and so launched a last-ditch banzai charge against the American frontline that was suffering from brutal Arctic conditions, equipment failures and food shortages. Although the U.S. military was able to recapture the island it had cost the lives of over five hundred American soldiers. Robert J. Mitchell, Sewell T. Tyng and Nelson Drummond’s book The Capture of Attu provides fascinating insight into this ferocious conflict. Part One of the book provides an overview of the military campaign while Part Two provides personal narratives of the soldiers who fought. This book attempts to put the reader on the battlefield with the ground soldier. Men who fought on Attu, officers and enlisted men, told their stories to Lieutenant Robert J. Mitchell of the 32d Infantry, one of the regiments engaged. These stories tell of the discomforts and perils, the failures and successes, the fear and courage, the many fights between small groups and the occasional humor, of which battle consists. Robert J. Mitchell served as a lieutenant in the US Army's 7th Infantry Division in World War II, being stationed on Attu Island off of Alaska as well as other areas of the Pacific. He was shot in the chest while on Attu and carried the bullet for the rest of his life. While recuperating, he wrote the stories of the other men in his hospital tent. For this he was made an aide to the general in charge of media for the rest of the war. He passed away in 1992. His co-authors Sewell T. Tyng and Nelson Drummond also served on Attu and passed away in 1946 and 1999 respectively. Their book The Capture of Attu was first published in 1944.

    This ultimate insider's guide reveals the secrets that none dare admit, told by a show biz veteran who's proven that you can sell your script if you can save the cat!

    But Olivier was as elusive in life as he was on the stage, a bold and practiced pretender who changed names, altered his identity, and defied characterization. In this mesmerizing book, acclaimed biographer Terry Coleman draws for the first time on the vast archive of Olivier’s private papers and correspondence, and those of his family, finally uncovering the history and the private self that Olivier worked so masterfully all his life to obscure. Beginning with the death of his mother at age eleven, Olivier was defined throughout his life by a passionate devotion to the women closest to him. Acting and sex were for him inseparable: through famous romances with Vivien Leigh and Joan Plowright and countless trysts with lesser-known mistresses, these relationships were constantly entangled with his stage work, each feeding the other and driving Olivier to greater heights. And the heights were great: at every step he was surrounded by the foremost celebrities of the time, on both sides of the Atlantic—Richard Burton, Greta Garbo, William Wyler, Katharine Hepburn. The list is as long as it is dazzling.Here is the first comprehensive account of the man whose autobiography, written late in his life, told only a small part of the story. In Olivier, Coleman uncovers the origins of Olivier’s genius and reveals the methods of the century’s most fascinating performer.

    and Fosse comes the revelatory account of the making of a modern American masterpiece Chinatown is the Holy Grail of 1970s cinema. Its twist ending is the most notorious in American film and its closing line of dialogue the most haunting. Here for the first time is the incredible true story of its making.In Sam Wasson's telling, it becomes the defining story of the most colorful characters in the most colorful period of Hollywood history. Here is Jack Nicholson at the height of his powers, as compelling a movie star as there has ever been, embarking on his great, doomed love affair with Anjelica Huston. Here is director Roman Polanski, both predator and prey, haunted by the savage death of his wife, returning to Los Angeles, the scene of the crime, where the seeds of his own self-destruction are quickly planted. Here is the fevered dealmaking of "The Kid" Robert Evans, the most consummate of producers. Here too is Robert Towne's fabled script, widely considered the greatest original screenplay ever written. Wasson for the first time peels off layers of myth to provide the true account of its creation.Looming over the story of this classic movie is the imminent eclipse of the '70s filmmaker-friendly studios as they gave way to the corporate Hollywood we know today. In telling that larger story, The Big Goodbye will take its place alongside classics like Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and The Devil's Candy as one of the great movie-world books ever written.Praise for Sam Wasson:"Wasson is a canny chronicler of old Hollywood and its outsize personalities...More than that, he understands that style matters, and, like his subjects, he has a flair for it." - The New Yorker "Sam Wasson is a fabulous social historian because he finds meaning in situations and stories that would otherwise be forgotten if he didn't sleuth them out, lovingly." - Hilton Als

    During its Golden Age, the studio employed the likes of Garbo, Astaire, and Gable, and produced innumerable iconic pieces of cinema such as The Wizard of Oz, Singin’ in the Rain, and Ben-Hur.It is estimated that a fifth of all films made in the United States prior to the 1970s were shot at MGM studios, meaning that the gigantic property was responsible for hundreds of iconic sets and stages, often utilizing and transforming minimal spaces and previously used props, to create some of the most recognizable and identifiable landscapes of modern movie culture.All of this happened behind closed doors, the backlot shut off from the public in a veil of secrecy and movie magic. M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot highlights this fascinating film treasure by recounting the history, popularity, and success of the MGM company through a tour of its physical property.Featuring the candid, exclusive voices and photographs from the people who worked there, and including hundreds of rare and unpublished photographs (including many from the archives of Warner Bros.), readers are launched aboard a fun and entertaining virtual tour of Hollywood’s most famous and mysterious motion picture studio.

    Ronnie and Reggie Kray are school ground bullies brought up by a domineering mother and two devoted aunts. National Service and spells in prison expose the brutality that helps establish the twin brothers as the kings of 1960s gangland London.Philip Ridley's original, uncut screenplay, almost as notorious as its subject matter is a stylised meditation on maternal love, childhood, violence and homoeroticism and takes its place as one of the masterpieces of contemporary cinema.

    This collection of profiles and interviews turns the spotlight on those unsung heroes, whose faces were often better known than their names. Maltin’s engaging conversations with such notables as Billy Gilbert, Gale Sondergaard, Hans Conried and Una Merkel evoke a bygone era as we see what life was like for these versatile players. Looking for anecdotes about W.C. Fields or Clark Gable? This book is for you. You’ll also learn about Bess Flowers, “the queen of the dress extras” and Rex Ingram, the black actor whose imposing presence eclipsed the stereotyping of the period. This well-illustrated e-book edition features a brand-new introduction by Leonard Maltin.

    Kenneth Turan’s fifty-four favorite films embrace a century of the world’s most satisfying romances and funniest comedies, the most heart-stopping dramas and chilling thrillers.Turan discovered film as a child left undisturbed to watch Million Dollar Movie on WOR-TV Channel 9 in New York, a daily showcase for older Hollywood features. It was then that he developed a love of cinema that never left him and honed his eye for the most acute details and the grandest of scenes.Not to be Missed blends cultural criticism, historical anecdote, and inside-Hollywood controversy. Turan’s selection of favorites ranges across all genres. From All About Eve to Seven Samurai to Sherlock Jr., these are all timeless films—classic and contemporary, familiar and obscure, with big budgets and small—each underscoring the truth of director Ingmar Bergman’s observation that “no form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul.”

    National award winning film journalist Anupama Chopra tells the fascinating story of how a four-line idea grew to become the greatest blockbuster of Indian cinema.

    Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds, which dissects such Argento cult films as Two Evil Eyes, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Suspiria, and Deep Red, includes a new introduction discussing Argento’s most recent films, from The Stendahl Syndrome to Mother of Tears; an updated filmography; and an interview with Argento.

    Now, for the first time ever, Vanity Fair presents a one-of-a-kind collection featuring thirteen behind-the- scenes stories on some of cinema's most iconic films-including pictures as varied as All About Eve, Cleopatra, Sweet Smell of Success, Rebel Without a Cause, and Saturday Night Fever. For pop-culture fanatics and movie buffs alike, Vanity Fair's Tales of Hollywood is an irresistible glimpse at how classic films-and box office bombs-are made.

    Long out of print, a new, expanded paperback edition was published in 2000 to mark the movie's 25th Anniversary, featuring a 22-page behind-the-scenes photo album, a new afterword by Gottlieb updating readers on the fates of thefilmmakers, and an introduction by Peter Benchley.Now, on the occasion of the movie's 30th Anniversary, The Jaws Log is available for the first time in an affordably-priced hardcover edition with a new foreword by the author.