Come on in for a fun rewind to the golden age of Hollywood, its actors and ambiance. In a series of drawings from old images, both black and white and color, Alan has re-created the magical world of the 1920s and 30s through the movie stars of the era. Short biographical descriptions regarding the high points of the lives of the stars accompany the drawings. Page after page has memories of the men and women who started it all. Clara Bow, Lillian Gish, Theda Bara, Greta Garbo, Harold Lloyd, and the gang would love to see you and reminisce about the exciting times. Discovery awaits. A woman studio executive discovered Valentino, do you know the story? Did flappers change the world? The drawings can be viewed hundreds of times while we relish the youth and exuberance that drove millions forward into the future of the western world.

This book offers a different take on the early history of Warner Bros., the studio renowned for introducing talking pictures and developing the gangster film and backstage musical comedy. The focus here is on the studio’s sustained commitment to produce films based on stage plays. This led to the creation of a stock company of talented actors, to the introduction of sound cinema, to the recruitment of leading Broadway stars such as John Barrymore and George Arliss and to films as diverse as The Gold Diggers (1923), The Marriage Circle (1924), Beau Brummel (1924), Disraeli (1929), Lilly Turner (1933), The Petrified Forest (1936) and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). Even the most crippling effects of the Depression in 1933 did not prevent Warners’ production of films based on stage plays, many being transformed into star vehicles for the likes of Ruth Chatterton, Leslie Howard and Bette Davis.

This generously illustrated book explores the connections between Thomas Hart Benton’s art and Hollywood movies from groundbreaking perspectives. Thomas Hart Benton was a thoroughly American artist. His regionally focused paintings and murals depicted everyday American life as well as the country’s history. This volume focuses on one of the most American of Benton’s associations: Hollywood. Not only did Benton create commissioned murals and portraits of film stars and movies, but he also developed a style that was highly theatrical and narrative. This volume is the first to collect all the works conceived by Benton for the film industry. It includes related ephemera, photographs, and documents of Benton at work, along with a series of thought-provoking essays that explore a diverse array of topics—from Benton’s engagement with American identity from the 1920s to the 1960s, to parallels between Benton’s use of Old Master methods and film production techniques. Fans of Thomas Hart Benton will find surprising insights into his career, while those fascinated by Hollywood history will discover how one of America’s most revered artists shaped and was in turn influenced by the film industry.

Who were the flappers? What were talkies? What was the Harlem Renaissance? Covers the effect of prohibition and the newfound freedom of women on the popular culture of the era. The effects of the Great Depression, as well as the rise of communism and fascism is also discussed in terms of their impact on popular culture.

Deep in the Amazon basin hints of danger appear. People go missing, others are found with terrible wounds from an unknown source. A hard working anthropologist in the region is puzzled. Rumors from the Congo River frighten villagers into moving away. In the remote regions of Southwestern China, the People’s Liberation Army has started moving thousands of troops and heavy military equipment into the area, but places a news blackout over the district and will not disclose the reason for the maneuvers. In Washington, DC, hundreds of analysts watch and wait as information trickles into their domain. The bureaucracy is beginning to awaken to an unknown threat that looms over vast areas of the world. This hurried city of blurry eyed office workers, living and working out of sight of the public, are the brains and sensory receptors of the most powerful people in America. Two of them are buried deeply in the maze of offices that become the centers of the microscopic analysis of events around the globe. Patsy and Crag will soon be the center of the information flow that means life and death for the world, as a super invader awaits to spring its attack on an unsuspecting humanity. The adversary will not wait long. Both Patsy and Crag suffer personal turmoil and endure an abiding loneliness that may interfere with their perception of the danger. Can the world die because of the loneliness of two people? Patsy and Crag have to battle one another as well as the unknown evil lurking outside. Will their friends Cheryl and Becky help or hinder the search for answers in an erupting arena of horror? Will nations be pulled apart by the threats that will soon be upon them? The humans of earth are threatened by an enemy of countless numbers. Will they be overwhelmed or will they defend the earth to the last? The answers await in a traditional story of an invasion of earth, Savage Invasion!

Fully revised, updated, and extended, the fifth edition of Hollywood’s America provides an important compilation of interpretive essays and primary documents that allows students to read films as cultural artifacts within the contexts of actual past events. A new edition of this classic textbook, which ties movies into the broader narrative of US and film history This fifth edition contains nine new chapters, with a greater overall emphasis on recent film history, and new primary source documents which are unavailable online Entries range from the first experiments with motion pictures all the way to the present day Well-organized within a chronological framework with thematic treatments to provide a valuable resource for students of the history of American film