Films, Cinema

At the height of her celebrity, Madeleine Carroll (1906-1987) was the world's highest-paid actress. She worked alongside such greats as Laurence...

In an era of reboots, restarts and retreads, J.J. Abrams' Star Trek trilogy--featuring new, prequel adventures of Kirk, Spock and the rest of th...

From the 1950s through the 1970s, disaster films were among the most popular on any genre. Audiences loved the thrill and spectacle of these movies...

In this jam-packed jamboree of conversations, more than 60 movie veterans describe their experiences on the sets of some of the world's most bel...

Peplum or sword-and-sandal films--an Italian genre of the late 1950s through the 1960s--featured ancient Greek, Roman and Biblical stories with ...

Sir Christopher Lee (1922-2015) was one of the most beloved actors of the past sixty years. He appeared in more than 200 feature films--from Ham...

Mars has long served as a blank canvas for illustrating society's aspirations and anxieties--a science fiction setting for exploring our future ...

In his remarkable 50-year career, D-Day veteran, international film publicist and executive and production associate Charles Jerry Juroe met, kn...

During the 1960s, many models, Playboy centerfolds, beauty queens, and Las Vegas showgirls went on to become decorative actresses appearing scan...

Vampire narratives are generally thought of as adult or young adult fare, yet there is a long history of their appearance in books, film and ot...

Harry Potter, A Fish Called Wanda, Inspector Morse, Downton Abbey and X Men are just a few of the films that have become synonymous with the world ...

The all too brief career of film star Olive Borden (1906-1947) is chronicled in this definitive biography. Apprenticing in short slapstick silent c...

Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Auntie Em in The Wizard of Oz --all were unforgettable characters who played an int...

Previous biographies of American actress Frances Farmer (1913-1970) have downplayed her professional achievements to emphasize her turbulent per...

Ray Harryhausen's animated creatures sparkled with predatory alertness and subtle quirks of behavior that stamped each with a distinct and memorabl...

Though best known for its horror films, Hammer produced a wide variety of movies in many genres. The British studio was famous for its exciting ...

Despite being a mediocre actress with less than classic beauty, Theda Bara was one of Hollywood's leading performers in the early years of cinem...

Arnold made some of the most enduring science fiction films of the 1950s--It Came from Outer Space, Creature from the Black Lagoon, and The Incredi...

Illustrating the multifaceted art of screenwriting, this guide expertly navigates its vital aspectsdramatic structure, the creation of character, a...

For fifty years, the newsreel was a fixture in American movie theaters. Released twice a week, less than ten minutes long, each had news footage...

A complete guide to all phases of documentary production, this is an essential handbook for student filmmakers and professional documentarians a...

From the obscure 1958 Sonja Henie vehicle Hello London to the 2000 Academy Award winner Gladiator, the screen career of dynamic British actor Ol...

This collection of interviews, all conducted by the author, focuses on the children of Hollywood legends. Each child (and, in one case, grandchi...

Having entered the world in 1896 as a poverty-stricken child named Naftaly (Nathan) Birnbaum, George Burns rose from New York's Lower East Side ...

Throughout the 1930s, 40s and 50s, several independent film production companies (referred to a poverty row studios) turned out hundreds of B movie...

This reference work provides production company-written plot synopses or, when a synopsis was not available, trade paper reviews of 476 films ab...

Pity the extras. Mostly overlooked and forgotten. Especially those in the major Hollywood films 1913 to 1945--right through the dream factory's ...

Film history is merged with psychiatric history seamlessly, to show how and why bad depictions of mind doctors (especially hypnotists) occur in ...

With his rugged features and earthy sex appeal, Victor Mature ushered in a new breed of postwar Hollywood actor, far removed from the debonair m...

   Much has been written (and rewritten) about classic horror and science fiction films like Nosferatu and Metropolis, as well as not-so-classic pi...

In 1975, after his two Godfather epics, Francis Ford Coppola went to the Philippines to film Apocalypse Now. He scrapped much of the original scrip...

American dancer, singer and actress Gwen Verdon (1925-2000) won four Tony awards for her work on Broadway and also appeared in films and on tele...

The films of the New French Extremity have been reviled by critics but adored by fans and filmmakers. Known for graphically brutal depictions of se...

A number of thrillers made in the 1920s and 1930s have become available again thanks to new technology. There are a few, however, that remain el...

Proposing a fresh theoretical approach to the study of cinematic portrayals of the Middle Ages, this book uses both semiotics and historiography...