Raoul Walsh

Raoul Walsh
Author: Marilyn Moss
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 534
Release: 2011-06-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0813133947

Raoul Walsh (1887–1980) was known as one of Hollywood’s most adventurous, iconoclastic, and creative directors. He carved out an illustrious career and made films that transformed the Hollywood studio yarn into a thrilling art form. Walsh belonged to that early generation of directors—along with John Ford and Howard Hawks—who worked in the fledgling film industry of the early twentieth century, learning to make movies with shoestring budgets. Walsh’s generation invented a Hollywood that made movies seem bigger than life itself. In the first ever full-length biography of Raoul Walsh, author Marilyn Ann Moss recounts Walsh’s life and achievements in a career that spanned more than half a century and produced upwards of two hundred films, many of them cinema classics. Walsh originally entered the movie business as an actor, playing the role of John Wilkes Booth in D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915). In the same year, under Griffith’s tutelage, Walsh began to direct on his own. Soon he left Griffith’s company for Fox Pictures, where he stayed for more than twenty years. It was later, at Warner Bros., that he began his golden period of filmmaking. Walsh was known for his romantic flair and playful persona. Involved in a freak auto accident in 1928, Walsh lost his right eye and began wearing an eye patch, which earned him the suitably dashing moniker “the one-eyed bandit.” During his long and illustrious career, he directed such heavyweights as Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Errol Flynn, and Marlene Dietrich, and in 1930 he discovered future star John Wayne.

Each Man in His Time

Each Man in His Time
Author: Raoul Walsh
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
Total Pages: 456
Release: 1974
Genre: Autobiography
ISBN:

"One of Hollywood's most prolific and respected action directors, Raoul Walsh was also one of the longest-lived figures in film, with a career that spanned almost a half-century. After running away from home as a boy and working in a variety of capacities, including as a cowboy in the West, Walsh drifted into stage acting in New York and later into motion pictures as an actor. He became an assistant director to D.W. Griffith and, in 1914, made his first movie. By the mid 1920s, Walsh had a reputation for direct, straightforward, no frills narrative, and his style was particularly suited to action films and outdoor dramas, although his biggest film of that decade was the fantasy epic The Thief of Bagdad, produced by and starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr., which continues to be shown seven decades later. His work in the 1930s, mostly for 20th Century-Fox, embraced comedy and drama in equal measure, but it was with Warner Bros., beginning at the end of the 1930s, that Walsh came into his own, directing such classics as The Roaring Twenties (1939), They Drive By Night (1940), High Sierra (1941), Desperate Journey (1942), and Northern Pursuit (1943), starring James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, and Errol Flynn. Despite his reputation as an action director, Walsh's movies were usually much more sophisticated than was typical for the genre -- he revelled in psychological themes, and he loved offbeat characterizations and unusual narrative structures, attributes best reflected in the dark Western drama Pursued (1947), starring Robert Mitchum, and the crime film White Heat (1949), with James Cagney. He also served as unofficial co-director on one of Humphrey Bogart's most interesting later movies, The Enforcer (1951). His later movies showed a slackening of style, and he never did seem as effective working in color as he did in black-and-white. Walsh lost an eye while working on In Old Arizona in 1929, and his deteriorating sight in the other eye led to his retirement in 1964"--Biography by Bruce Eder, from www.allmovie.com.

Celebrities in Los Angeles Cemeteries

Celebrities in Los Angeles Cemeteries
Author: Allan R. Ellenberger
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2001-05-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0786450193

In accord with the fascination that surrounds Hollywood celebrities and the increasing popularity of celebrity grave-hunting, this book serves as a guide to the final resting places of the many celebrities who are buried in Los Angeles County, California. It is arranged by cemetery, and provides the following information for each person: age at time of death; date and place of birth; date and place of death; cause of death; obituary headline of the deceased; inscription on grave marker; location of grave; and a film that the celebrity appeared in. Includes appendices, web site information, bibliography, and index.

Who the Devil Made It

Who the Devil Made It
Author: Peter Bogdanovich
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 1127
Release: 2012-05-30
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0307817458

“A must have for any film nut.”—Details Peter Bogdanovich, award-winning director, screenwriter, actor and critic, interviews 16 legendary directors over a 15-year period. Their richly illuminating conversations combine to make this a riveting chronicle of Hollywood and picture making. Join him in conversations with: Robert Aldrich • George Cukor • Allan Dwan • Howard Hanks • Alfred Hitchcock • Chuck Jones • Fritz Lang • Joseph H. Lewis • Sidney Lumet • Leo McCarey • Otto Preminger • Don Siegel • Josef von Sternberg • Frank Tashlin • Edgar G. Ulmer • Raoul Walsh NOTE: This edition does not include photographs. Praise for Who the Devil Made It “Illuminating . . . These were (and sometimes are: a few yet breathe) men rooted in history as much as in Hollywood. Their collected memories make the past look fearfully rich beside a present that is poverty-stricken in everything except money.”—The New Yorker “Bogdanovich is one of America’s finest writers on the cinema. . . . Thank goodness [his] Who the Devil Made It has come along to remind us that films and writing about film were, at one time, focused on the work and not strictly on the bottom line.”—The Boston Globe “A treasure trove on the craft of directing.”—Newsday “Monumental . . . The directors’ reminiscences about technique, working methods, sources of ideas, and relationships with actors and studios are thoroughly entertaining.”—Publishers Weekly “A fine achievement that helps illuminate the art and craft of some remarkable directors . . . There are plenty of revealing anecdotes.”—Kirkus Reviews

Mean...Moody...Magnificent!

Mean...Moody...Magnificent!
Author: Christina Rice
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 391
Release: 2021-06-15
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0813181097

By the early 1950s, Jane Russell (1921–2011) should have been forgotten. Her career was launched on what is arguably the most notorious advertising campaign in cinema history, which invited filmgoers to see Howard Hughes's The Outlaw (1943) and to "tussle with Russell." Throughout the 1940s, she was nicknamed the "motionless picture actress" and had only three films in theaters. With such a slow, inauspicious start, most aspiring actresses would have given up or faded away. Instead, Russell carved out a place for herself in Hollywood and became a memorable and enduring star. Christina Rice offers the first biography of the actress and activist perhaps most well-known for her role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Despite the fact that her movie career was stalled for nearly a decade, Russell's filmography is respectable. She worked with some of Hollywood's most talented directors—including Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh, Nicholas Ray, and Josef von Sternberg—and held her own alongside costars such as Marilyn Monroe, Robert Mitchum, Clark Gable, Vincent Price, and Bob Hope. She also learned how to fight back against Howard Hughes, her boss for more than thirty-five years, and his marketing campaigns that exploited her physical appearance. Beyond the screen, Rice reveals Russell as a complex and confident woman. She explores the star's years as a spokeswoman for Playtex as well as her deep faith and work as a Christian vocalist. Rice also discusses Russell's leadership and patronage of the WAIF foundation, which for many years served as the fundraising arm of the International Social Service (ISS) agency. WAIF raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, successfully lobbied Congress to change laws, and resulted in the adoption of tens of thousands of orphaned children. For Russell, the work she did to help unite families overshadowed any of her onscreen achievements. On the surface, Jane Russell seemed to live a charmed life, but Rice illuminates her darker moments and her personal struggles, including her empowered reactions to the controversies surrounding her films and her feelings about being portrayed as a sex symbol. This stunning first biography offers a fresh perspective on a star whose legacy endures not simply because she forged a notable film career, but also because she effectively used her celebrity to benefit others.

Issues in Feminist Film Criticism

Issues in Feminist Film Criticism
Author: Patricia Erens
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 492
Release: 1990
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780253206107

"This anthology makes it abundantly clear that feminist film criticism is flourishing and has developed dramatically since its inception in the early 1970s." —Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism Erens brings together a wide variety of writings and methodologies by U.S. 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.

Raoul Walsh

Raoul Walsh
Author: Carlos Losilla
Publisher: Ediciones Cátedra
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2020-03-12
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 8437641179

"Murieron con las botas puestas" y "El último refugio", "Al rojo vivo" y "El mundo en sus manos", son algunas de las películas más populares de Raoul Walsh (1887-1980), uno de los cineastas esenciales del cine clásico americano. Sin embargo, Walsh también fue el director de "Mi chica y yo" y "Amores en Hollywood", "The Man I Love" y "The Revolt of Mamie Stover", "Pursued" y "Los implacables", quizá no tan apreciadas ni conocidas, pero igualmente imprescindibles no solo para entender su obra como conviene, sino también para comprender el cine de su tiempo, que abarca desde el amanecer del cine mudo hasta los primeros balbuceos de la modernidad. Por eso en este libro pueden hallarse análisis de todas ellas y de muchas más, en lo que constituye un recorrido vertiginoso y zigzagueante por la carrera de un artista cuyo tema preferido fue el del propio cine: los movimientos y las pasiones del cuerpo, y del espíritu, así como el modo en que las imágenes son capaces de reflejarlos.

Movies and Methods

Movies and Methods
Author: Bill Nichols
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 770
Release: 1976
Genre: Film criticism
ISBN: 9780520054097

VOLUME 2: "Movies and Methods," Volume II, captures the developments that have given history and genre studies imaginative new models and indicates how feminist, structuralist, and psychoanalytic approaches to film have achieved fresh, valuable insights. In his thoughtful introduction, Nichols provides a context for the paradoxes that confront film studies today. He shows how shared methods and approaches continue to stimulate much of the best writing about film, points to common problems most critics and theorists have tried to resolve, and describes the internal contraditions that have restricted the usefulness of post-structuralism. Mini-introductions place each essay in a larger context and suggest its linkages with other essays in the volume. A great variety of approaches and methods characterize film writing today, and the final part conveys their diversity--from statistical style analysis to phenomenology and from gay criticisms to neoformalism. This concluding part also shows how the rigorous use of a broad range of approaches has helped remove post-structuralist criticism from its position of dominance through most of the seventies and early eighties. -- Publisher description.

Cinema by Design

Cinema by Design
Author: Lucy Fischer
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2017-03-14
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0231544227

Art Nouveau thrived from the late 1890s through the First World War. The international design movement reveled in curvilinear forms and both playful and macabre visions and had a deep impact on cinematic art direction, costuming, gender representation, genre, and theme. Though historians have long dismissed Art Nouveau as a decadent cultural mode, its tremendous afterlife in cinema proves otherwise. In Cinema by Design, Lucy Fischer traces Art Nouveau's long history in films from various decades and global locales, appreciating the movement's enduring avant-garde aesthetics and dynamic ideology. Fischer begins with the portrayal of women and nature in the magical "trick films" of the Spanish director Segundo de Chomón; the elite dress and décor design choices in Cecil B. DeMille's The Affairs of Anatol (1921); and the mise-en-scène of fantasy in Raoul Walsh's The Thief of Bagdad (1924). Reading Salome (1923), Fischer shows how the cinema offered an engaging frame for adapting the risqué works of Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley. Moving to the modern era, Fischer focuses on a series of dramatic films, including Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger (1975), that make creative use of the architecture of Antoni Gaudí; and several European works of horror—The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), Deep Red (1975), and The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears (2013)—in which Art Nouveau architecture and narrative supply unique resonances in scenes of terror. In later chapters, she examines films like Klimt (2006) that portray the style in relation to the art world and ends by discussing the Art Nouveau revival in 1960s cinema. Fischer's analysis brings into focus the partnership between Art Nouveau's fascination with the illogical and the unconventional and filmmakers' desire to upend viewers' perception of the world. Her work explains why an art movement embedded in modernist sensibilities can flourish in contemporary film through its visions of nature, gender, sexuality, and the exotic.