Mystery Movie Series of 1940s Hollywood

Mystery Movie Series of 1940s Hollywood
Author: Ron Backer
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2010-05-17
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780786448647

Many of the 20th century’s most celebrated fictional sleuths appeared in Hollywood movie mystery series of the forties. This volume focuses on 19 series (146 films): The Saint, The Lone Wolf, Sherlock Holmes, The Shadow, Nick Carter, Michael Shayne, Ellery Queen, Boston Blackie, The Falcon, Mr. District Attorney, Wally Benton, Crime Doctor, The Whistler, Inner Sanctum, Dick Tracy, Philip Marlowe, Jack Packard and Doc Long, Steve Wilson and Lorelei Kilbourne and John J. Malone. For each series, there is an overview of the source material, the individual films, and the performers who acted in them. An overall review of each film is included, with a critique of the film’s quality and the cohesiveness of its plot. For movies based on written works, a comparison between the film and its literary original is offered.

Mystery Movie Series of 1940s Hollywood

Mystery Movie Series of 1940s Hollywood
Author: Ron Backer
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2014-01-10
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0786457007

Many of the 20th century's most celebrated fictional sleuths appeared in Hollywood movie mystery series of the forties. This volume focuses on 19 series (146 films): The Saint, The Lone Wolf, Sherlock Holmes, The Shadow, Nick Carter, Michael Shayne, Ellery Queen, Boston Blackie, The Falcon, Mr. District Attorney, Wally Benton, Crime Doctor, The Whistler, Inner Sanctum, Dick Tracy, Philip Marlowe, Jack Packard and Doc Long, Steve Wilson and Lorelei Kilbourne and John J. Malone. For each series, there is an overview of the source material, the individual films, and the performers who acted in them. An overall review of each film is included, with a critique of the film's quality and the cohesiveness of its plot. For movies based on written works, a comparison between the film and its literary original is offered.

Mystery Movie Series of 1930s Hollywood

Mystery Movie Series of 1930s Hollywood
Author: Ron Backer
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 387
Release: 2012-08-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0786490187

This companion volume to Mystery Movie Series of 1940s Hollywood (McFarland, 2010) focuses on 22 series and 167 individual films, primarily released during the 1930s. It was a decade that featured some of the most famous cinema detectives of all time, among them Charlie Chan, Nick and Nora Charles, Philo Vance, Nancy Drew, and such lesser known but equally entertaining figures as Hildegarde Withers, Torchy Blane, Mr. Moto, Mr. Wong, and Brass Bancroft. Each mystery movie series is placed within its historical context, with emphasis on its source material and the changes or developments within the series over time. Also included are reviews of all the series' films, analyzing the quality and cohesiveness of the mystery plotlines. For titles based on literary sources, a comparison between the film and the written work is provided.

Mystery Movie Series of 1940s Hollywood

Mystery Movie Series of 1940s Hollywood
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2010
Genre:
ISBN:

Many of the 20th century's most celebrated fictional sleuths appeared in Hollywood movie mystery series of the forties. This volume focuses on 19 series (146 films): The Saint, The Lone Wolf, Sherlock Holmes, The Shadow, Nick Carter, Michael Shayne, Ellery Queen, Boston Blackie, The Falcon, Mr. District Attorney, Wally Benton, Crime Doctor, The Whistler, Inner Sanctum, Dick Tracy, Philip Marlowe, Jack Packard and Doc Long, Steve Wilson and Lorelei Kilbourne, and John J. Malone. For each series, there is an overview of the source material, the individual films, and the performers who acted in them. An overall review of each film is included, with a critique of the film's quality and the cohesiveness of its plot. For movies based on written works, a comparison between the film and its literary original is offered.

Hollywood's Detectives

Hollywood's Detectives
Author: F. Mason
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2011-12-15
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0230358675

The study of Hollywood detectives has often overlooked the B-Movie mystery series in favour of hard-boiled film. Hollywood's Detectives redresses this oversight by examining key detective series of the 1930s and 1940s to explore their contributions to the detective genre.

Wax Museum Movies

Wax Museum Movies
Author: George Higham
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2020-09-18
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1476640114

Spanning over a century of cinema and comprised of 127 films, this book analyzes the cinematic incarnations of the "uncanniest place on earth"--wax museums. Nothing is as it seems at a wax museum. It is a place of wonder, horror and mystery. Will the figures come to life at night, or are they very much dead with corpses hidden beneath their waxen shells? Is the genius hand that molded them secretly scarred by a terrible tragedy, longing for revenge? Or is it a sinner's sanctum, harboring criminals with countless places to hide in plain sight? This chronological analysis includes essential behind the scenes information in addition to authoritative research comparing the creation of "real" wax figures to the "reel" ones seen onscreen. Publicly accessible or hidden away in a maniac's lair, wax museums have provided the perfect settings for films of all genres to thrillingly play out on the big screen since the dawn of cinema.

Brian Donlevy, the Good Bad Guy

Brian Donlevy, the Good Bad Guy
Author: Derek Sculthorpe
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2016-12-21
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1476666571

Brian Donlevy (1901-1972) was an underrated film actor with surprising range and a little-heralded gift for comedy. Often typecast as a villain, he played the definitive bad guy in such films as Destry Rides Again, Union Pacific and Beau Geste (all in 1939). He showed his versatility in the title role of Preston Sturges' political satire The Great McGinty (1940) and impressed both New York critics and the Soviet government as the cooly authoritative Major Caton in Wake Island (1942). Donlevy was fondly remembered as globe-trotting U.S. Special Agent Steve Mitchell in the television series Dangerous Assignment (1952) and as Professor Quatermass in two acclaimed science fiction films. This first ever biography of Donlevy covers his colorful early life as a boy soldier, his years playing comedy roles on Broadway and his long career in Hollywood.

A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Film Noir

A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Film Noir
Author: John Grant
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 830
Release: 2023-09-21
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1493081659

Featuring rumpled PIs, shyster lawyers, corrupt politicians, double-crossers, femmes fatales, and, of course, losers who find themselves down on their luck yet again, film noir is a perennially popular cinematic genre. This extensive encyclopedia describes movies from noir's earliest days – and even before, looking at some of noir's ancestors in US and European cinema – as well as noir's more recent offshoots, from neonoirs to erotic thrillers. Entries are arranged alphabetically, covering movies from all over the world – from every continent save Antarctica – with briefer details provided for several hundred additional movies within those entries. A copious appendix contains filmographies of prominent directors, actors, and writers. With coverage of blockbusters and program fillers from Going Straight (US 1916) to Broken City (US 2013) via Nora Inu (Japan 1949), O Anthropos tou Trainou (Greece 1958), El Less Wal Kilab (Egypt 1962), Reportaje a la Muerte (Peru 1993), Zift (Bulgaria 2008), and thousands more, A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Film Noir is an engrossing and essential reference work that should be on the shelves of every cinephile.

From Radio to the Big Screen

From Radio to the Big Screen
Author: Hal Erickson
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2014-05-23
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1476615586

There was a time when "American popular entertainment" referred only to radio and motion pictures. With the coming of talking pictures, Hollywood cashed in on the success of big-time network radio by bringing several of the public's favorite broadcast personalities and programs to the screen. The results, though occasionally successful, often proved conclusively that some things are better heard than seen. Concentrating primarily on radio's Golden Age (1926-1962), this lively history discusses the cinematic efforts of airwave stars Rudy Vallee, Amos 'n' Andy, Fred Allen, Joe Penner, Fibber McGee & Molly, Edgar Bergen, Lum & Abner, and many more. Also analyzed are the movie versions of such radio series as The Shadow, Dr. Christian and The Life of Riley. In addition, two recent films starring contemporary radio headliners Howard Stern and Garrison Keillor are given their due.

Classic Horror Films and the Literature That Inspired Them

Classic Horror Films and the Literature That Inspired Them
Author: Ron Backer
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2015-05-11
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1476620210

Classic horror films such as Dracula, Frankenstein and The Picture of Dorian Gray are based on famous novels. Less well known--even to avid horror fans--are the many other memorable films based on literary works. Beginning in the silent era and continuing to the present, numerous horror films found their inspiration in novels, novellas, short stories and poems, though many of these written works are long forgotten. This book examines 43 works of literature--from the famous to the obscure--that provided the basis for 62 horror films. Both the written works and the films are analyzed critically, with an emphasis on the symbiosis between the two. Background on the authors and their writings is provided.