Book picks similar to
Monsters: A Celebration of the Classics from Universal Studios by Roy Milano
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In the Company of Legends
Joan Kramer - 2015
These were recognized as high-quality, definitive film portraits, which revitalized the genre and made it a mainstay of television programming.This is their insiders’ view of the famous and the powerful: Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Johnny Carson, Frank Sinatra, Lew Wasserman, Ronald Reagan, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Jane Fonda, Richard Dreyfuss, Audrey Hepburn, and Bette Davis, among others. Kramer and Heeley’s behind the scenes stories of the productions and the personalities involved are amusing, sometimes moving, often revealing, and have never been told before.
James Bond Encyclopedia
John Cork - 2007
Created in full collaboration with EON Productions, producers of the James Bond movies, this illustrated celebration of the worlds most famous super-spy examines every aspect of 007s world, with information on his history, style, and tastes, along with A-Z guides to his adversaries, allies, gadgets, cars, and of course, the ever-glamorous Bond women.DK
Conversations with Marilyn: Portrait of Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe - 1977
Scorsese on Scorsese
David Thompson - 1989
This revised edition contains material on GoodFellas, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence, and other projects up to Casino.
Behind the Horror: True Stories That Inspired Horror Movies
Lee Mellor - 2020
Uncover the twisted tales that inspired the big screen's greatest screams.Which case of demonic possession inspired The Exorcist? What horrifying front-page story generated the idea for A Nightmare on Elm Street? Which film was based on the infamous skin-wearing murderer Ed Gein?Unearth the terrifying and true tales behind some of the scariest Horror movies to ever haunt our screens, including the Enfield poltergeist case that was retold in The Conjuring 2 and the serial killers who inspired Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.Behind the Horror dissects these and other bizarre tales to reveal haunting real-life stories of abduction, disappearance, murder, and exorcism.
The Moose That Roared: The Story of Jay Ward, Bill Scott, a Flying Squirrel, and a Talking Moose
Keith Scott - 2000
The legendary Jay Ward and Bill Scott produced the gleeful wonder and cumulative joy that transcended the crude drawings and occasionally muddy sound. Jay Ward was the magnificent visionary, the outrageous showman, while Bill Scott was the genial, brilliant head writer, coproducer, and all-purpose creative whirlwind. With exclusive interviews, original scripts, artwork, story notes, letters and memos, Keith Scott has written the definitive history of Jay Ward Productions.The Moose That Roared tells the story of a rare and magical relationship between two artists wildly, exuberantly ahead of their time, and a fascinating account of the struggle to bring their vision of bad puns and talking animals to unforgettable life.
The Private Diaries of Catherine Deneuve: Close Up and Personal
Catherine Deneuve - 2005
Forty years later, Deneuve is still widely regarded as one of the grande dames of French cinema. Despite her international appeal, however, Denueve has always chosen to avoid the ferocious glare of Hollywood and seldom allows the public into her private life. In these memoirs, Deneuve takes the reader behind the scenes of her life and career in this fascinating collection of seven previously unpublished diaries that she kept while filming abroad. In her own words, Deneuve charts the shooting of films such as The April Fools; Tristana, directed by Luis Bunuel; Indochine; and Dancer in the Dark. Including a never before published interview with famed director Pascal Bonitzer, this memoir is an intimate look into Deneuve's life both on and off screen, and is every bit as riveting as her movie persona.
On Film-making: An Introduction to the Craft of the Director
Alexander Mackendrick - 2004
Alexander 'Sandy' Mackendrick directed classic Ealing comedies plus a Hollywood masterpiece, Sweet Smell of Success. But after retiring from film-making in 1969, he then spent nearly 25 years teaching his craft at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles.Mackendrick produced hundreds of pages of masterly handouts and sketches, designed to guide his students to a finer understanding of how to write a story, and then use those devices peculiar to cinema in order to tell that story as effectively as possible. Gathered and edited in this collection, Mackendrick's teachings reveal that he had the talent not only to make great films, but also to articulate the process with a clarity and insight that will still inspire any aspirant film-maker.
Raising Hell: Ken Russell and the Unmaking of the Devils
Richard Crouse - 2012
Featuring an exclusive interview with recently deceased director Ken Russell and new interviews with cast, crew, and historians, Raising Hell examines this beautifully blasphemous movie about an oversexed priest and a group of sexually repressed nuns in 17th century France. From the film’s inception through its headline-making production and controversial reception, Richard Crouse explores what it is about Russell’s rarely seen cult classic that makes it a cinematic treasure.
When Hollywood Had a King: The Reign of Lew Wasserman, Who Leveraged Talent into Power and Influence
Connie Bruck - 2003
The Music Corporation of America was founded in Chicago in 1924 by Dr. Jules Stein, an ophthalmologist with a gift for booking bands. Twelve years later, Stein moved his operations west to Beverly Hills and hired Lew Wasserman. From his meager beginnings as a movie-theater usher in Cleveland, Wasserman ultimately ascended to the post of president of MCA, and the company became the most powerful force in Hollywood, regarded with a mixture of fear and awe. In his signature black suit and black knit tie, Was-serman took Hollywood by storm. He shifted the balance of power from the studios—which had seven-year contractual strangleholds on the stars—to the talent, who became profit partners. When an antitrust suit forced MCA’s evolution from talent agency to film- and television-production company, it was Wasserman who parlayed the control of a wide variety of entertainment and media products into a new type of Hollywood power base. There was only Washington left to conquer, and conquer it Wasserman did, quietly brokering alliances with Democratic and Republican administrations alike. That Wasserman’s reach extended from the underworld to the White House only added to his mystique. Among his friends were Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa, mob lawyer Sidney Korshak, and gangster Moe Dalitz—along with Presidents Johnson, Clinton, and especially Reagan, who enjoyed a particularly close and mutually beneficial relationship with Wasserman. He was equally intimate with Hollywood royalty, from Bette Davis and Jimmy Stewart to Steven Spielberg, who began his career at MCA and once described Wasserman’s eyeglasses as looking like two giant movie screens.The history of MCA is really the history of a revolution. Lew Wasserman ushered in the Hollywood we know today. He is the link between the old-school moguls with their ironclad studio contracts and the new industry defined by multimedia conglomerates, power agents, multimillionaire actors, and profit sharing. In the hands of Connie Bruck, the story of Lew Wasserman’s rise to power takes on an almost Shakespearean scope. When Hollywood Had a King reveals the industry’s greatest untold story: how a stealthy, enterprising power broker became, for a time, Tinseltown’s absolute monarch.From the Hardcover edition.
Marilyn Monroe: The Biography
Donald Spoto - 1993
The book reveals new details of every aspect of her life, from her guarded childhood, and her relationships with men and marriages, to her mysterious death. Spoto comments on previous books about Marilyn, and puts to rest questions regarding Monroe's connection with the Kennedys.
Was This Man a Genius?: Talks With Andy Kaufman
Julie Hecht - 2001
But between 1978 and 1979, acclaimed New Yorker short story writer Julie Hecht attempted to arrange an interview with him, hoping to discover how he came to do what he did. The one-hour interview turned into innumerable surreal meetings and phone conversations with her subject; but she couldn't always tell when his act was on. Whether driving recklessly on icy roads, or drawing the author unaware into his schemes and dada-esque pranks on unsuspecting waiters and college students, Andy Kaufman never seemed to separate himself from his stage personality--or personalities. Was This Man a Genius? is the culmination of a series of bizarre, frequently hilarious meetings; In describing them Hecht, herself a master of wit and observation, illuminates the enigma of Andy Kaufman's work and life.
How to Survive a Horror Movie
Seth Grahame-Smith - 2007
Be Very Afraid.From ghosts, vampires, and zombies to serial killers, cannibalistic hillbillies, and haunted Japanese videocassettes, How to Survive a Horror Movie shows how to defeat every obstacle found in scary films. Readers will discover:- How to Perform an Exorcism - What to Do If You Did Something Last Summer - How to Persuade the Skeptical Local Sheriff - How to Vanquish a Murderous Doll - How to Survive an Alien Invasion - How to Tell If You've Been Dead Since the Beginning of the Movieand much, much more. Complete with useful instructions, insane illustrations, and a list of 100 important films to study, How to Survive a Horror Movie is essential reading for prom queens, jocks, teenage babysitters, and anyone employed by a summer camp.
The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film
W.K. Stratton - 2019
Stratton’s definitive history of the making of The Wild Bunch, named one of the greatest Westerns of all time by the American Film Institute.Sam Peckinpah’s film The Wild Bunch is the story of a gang of outlaws who are one big steal from retirement. When their attempted train robbery goes awry, the gang flees to Mexico and falls in with a brutal general of the Mexican Revolution, who offers them the job of a lifetime. Conceived by a stuntman, directed by a blacklisted director, and shot in the sand and heat of the Mexican desert, the movie seemed doomed. Instead, it became an instant classic with a dark, violent take on the Western movie tradition. In The Wild Bunch, W.K. Stratton tells the fascinating history of the making of the movie and documents for the first time the extraordinary contribution of Mexican and Mexican-American actors and crew members to the movie’s success. Shaped by infamous director Sam Peckinpah, and starring such visionary actors as William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Edmond O’Brien, and Robert Ryan, the movie was also the product of an industry and a nation in transition. By 1968, when the movie was filmed, the studio system that had perpetuated the myth of the valiant cowboy in movies like The Searchers had collapsed, and America was riled by Vietnam, race riots, and assassinations. The Wild Bunch spoke to America in its moment, when war and senseless violence seemed to define both domestic and international life. The Wild Bunch is an authoritative history of the making of a movie and the era behind it.
Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman
Sam Wasson - 2010
Here, for the first time, Sam Wasson presents the woman behind the little black dress that rocked the nation in 1961. The first complete account of the making of Breakfast at Tiffany's, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. reveals little-known facts about the cinema classic: Truman Capote desperately wanted Marilyn Monroe for the leading role; director Blake Edwards filmed multiple endings; Hepburn herself felt very conflicted about balancing the roles of mother and movie star. With a colorful cast of characters including Truman Capote, Edith Head, Givenchy, "Moon River" composer Henry Mancini, and, of course, Hepburn herself, Wasson immerses us in the America of the late fifties before Woodstock and birth control, when a not-so-virginal girl by the name of Holly Golightly raised eyebrows across the country, changing fashion, film, and sex for good. Indeed, cultural touchstones like Sex and the City owe a debt of gratitude to Breakfast at Tiffany's.In this meticulously researched gem of a book, Wasson delivers us from the penthouses of the Upper East Side to the pools of Beverly Hills, presenting Breakfast at Tiffany's as we have never seen it before—through the eyes of those who made it. Written with delicious prose and considerable wit, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. shines new light on a beloved film and its incomparable star.