200 films reviewed and rated, covering all genres of movie comedy from slapstick to sardonic, from madness to manners. Featured comedians include Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, W.C. Fields, Will Rogers, Bob Hope, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Bing Crosby, The Three Stooges, Eddie Cantor, Charlie Chaplin, Jacques Tati, Sid Field, The Crazy Gang, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Jack Hulbert, Joe E. Brown, Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson, Clifton Webb, Red Skelton, Ronald Shiner, Cecil Kellaway, Norman Wisdom, Frankie Howerd, Toto, Arthur Askey, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Claudette Colbert, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Joan Davis, Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, Stanley Holloway, Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake.

Tom O'Regan's book is the first of its kind on Australian post-war cinema. It takes as its starting point Bazin's question 'What is cinema?'and asks what the construct of a 'national' cinema means. It looks at the broader concept from a different angle, taking film beyond the confines of 'art' into the broader cultural world. O'Regan's analysis situates Australian cinema in its historical and cultural perspective producing a valuable insight into the issues that have been raised by film policy, the cinema market place and public discourse on film production strategies. Since 1970 Australian film has enjoyed a revival. This book contains detailed critiques of the key films of this period and uses them to illustrate the recent theories on the international and Australian cinema industries. Its conclusions on the nature of the nation's cinema and the discourses within it are relevant within a far wider context; film as a global phenomenon.

In The Politics of Myth, Stephen Knight studies nine figures still vividly alive, all of them appearing in twenty-first century film and television. Analysing how they relate to the major themes of Power, Resistance and Knowledge, he shows how fact and fiction mix to help us explore and understand the complexities of our world. Surprising mythic shifts occur across time. Robin Hood can be a tough anti-authoritarian, a genial aristocrat, a Saxon patriot; Queen Elizabeth I has been seen as a Protestant heroine, a love-lorn lady, even a grumpy manipulator. From Merlin's multiple manifestations and Sherlock Holmes's smoking habits to the ongoing arguments about Ned Kelly, this book explores the richness and the range of figures of myth.

One of the central events of modern history, World War I has been poorly presented in English language films. Torn between the powerful isolationist movement in the U.S. and a growing hatred of the "Hun," contemporary films were mainly propaganda calling citizens to arms. The American film industry used the outbreak of the war and the government's interest in promoting patriotic sacrifice as a means to expand and take the lead in the film industry worldwide. More a business model than an art form, these early efforts claimed a place of respectability for film among the arts. Twenty years later, though films produced about the war were few, they were technically superior and generally carried conflicting messages about the war's mission and value, while focusing more on storyline than history. This study of English Language World War I films examines nearly 350 films from 1914 to 2014. Descriptions and critiques of each of the films are included, with stories and details about the actors and directors.

When most people think of movie musicals, films like "Singin' in the Rain", "Sound of Music", "The Red Shoes", "On the Town", "White Christmas", "Ziegfeld Follies", "Top Hat", "Funny Face" and "Funny Girl" immediately come to mind. Such films are included in this book, as are many of the works of major stars, including Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Gene Kelly, Betty Grable, Shirley Temple, Julie Andrews, Elvis Presley, Lucille Ball, Alice Faye, Jeanette MacDonald, Maurice Chevalier, Nelson Eddy, Doris Day, Dick Powell, Betty Hutton, Eleanor Powell, and Al Jolson. But attention is also drawn to less lavishly produced but very pleasant musical offerings from both major and minor studios (including perhaps the finest "B" musical ever made). In all, 125 pictures are reviewed and detailed with full cast and technical credits, plus songs and musical numbers, awards, release dates and other essential background information.

Sport in Australian Drama, first published in 1992, provides an intelligent view of Australian society at play.