"Portions of this book originally appeared in issues of Leonard Maltin's movie crazy"--T.p. verso.

Offers readers a comprehensive reference to the world of film, including thousands of alphabetically-arranged movie title entries containing plot summaries, along with information on performers, ratings, and running times.

Leonard Maltin is America's best-known film historian, film reviewer, and author of books that have sold more than 7 million copies. He remains a thought leader on past and present Hollywood through his website www.leonardmaltin.com, and a social media presence that includes an active Facebook page and a Twitter feed with more than 66,000 followers. In Hooked on Hollywood, Maltin opens up his personal archive to take readers on a fascinating journey through film history. He first interviewed greats of Hollywood as a precocious teenager in 1960s New York City. He used what he learned from these luminaries to embark on a 50-year (and counting) career that has included New York Times bestselling books, 30 years of regular appearances coast-to-coast on Entertainment Tonight, movie introductions on Turner Classic Movies, and countless other television and radio performances. Early Maltin interviews had literally been stored in his garage for more than 40 years until GoodKnight Books brought them to light for the first time in this volume to entertain readers and inform future film scholars. Teenaged Leonard Maltin landed one-on-ones with Warner Bros. sexy pre-Code siren Joan Blondell; Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated actor Burgess Meredith; Cecil B. DeMille's right-hand-man Henry Wilcoxon; Oscar-winning actor Ralph Bellamy; playwright, novelist, and MGM screenwriter Anita Loos; early screen heartthrob George O'Brien; classic Paramount director Mitchell Leisen; and others. Later in his career, Maltin sat down with men and women who worked inside the top studios during the heyday of movies and early television. This second set of in-depth interviews reveals what life was like under Louis B. Mayer, Jack Warner, Harry Cohn, and the other titans of Hollywood. What emerges is a fascinating and at times uproarious homage to Golden Era Hollywood. In addition, key feature articles from Maltin's newsletter Movie Crazy are published here for the first time, providing new perspectives on the Warner Bros. classics Casablanca and Gold Diggers of 1933 as well as many other masterpieces—and bombs—from Hollywood history. Finally, Maltin looks back at what he considers Hollywood's "overlooked" studio, RKO Radio Pictures, which gave us such classics as King Kong and the many dance musicals of Astaire and Rogers. In Leonard's unique and witty style, he looks at dozens of obscure RKO features from the 1930s, including saucy pre-Codes, musicals, comedies, and mysteries. Leonard Maltin's love of movies and vast knowledge about their history shines through from the first page to the last in this unique volume, which includes 150 rare photos and a comprehensive index.

Film historian and acclaimed New York Times bestselling biographer Scott Eyman has written the definitive, “captivating” (Associated Press) biography of Hollywood legend Cary Grant, one of the most accomplished—and beloved—actors of his generation, who remains as popular as ever today. Born Archibald Leach in 1904, he came to America as a teenaged acrobat to find fame and fortune, but he was always haunted by his past. His father was a feckless alcoholic, and his mother was committed to an asylum when Archie was eleven years old. He believed her to be dead until he was informed she was alive when he was thirty-one years old. Because of this experience, Grant would have difficulty forming close attachments throughout his life. He married five times and had numerous affairs. Despite a remarkable degree of success, Grant remained deeply conflicted about his past, his present, his basic identity, and even the public that worshipped him in movies such as Gunga Din, Notorious, and North by Northwest. This “estimable and empathetic biography” (The Washington Post) draws on Grant’s own papers, extensive archival research, and interviews with family and friends making it a definitive and “complex portrait of Hollywood’s original leading man” (Entertainment Weekly).

By the end of 1914, Charlie Chaplin had become the most popular actor in films, and reporters were clamoring for interviews with the comedy sensation. But no reporter had more access than Fred Goodwins. A British actor who joined Chaplin’s stock company in early 1915, Goodwins began writing short accounts of life at the studio and submitted them to publications. In February 1916 the British magazine Red Letter published the first of what became a series of more than thirty-five of Goodwins’s articles. Written in breezy prose, the articles cover a two-year period during which Chaplin’s popularity and creativity reached new heights. Only one copy of the complete series is known to exist, and its recent rediscovery marks a significant find for Chaplin fans. Charlie Chaplin’s Red Letter Days: At Work with the Comic Genius is a vivid account of the ebb and flow of life at the Chaplin studio. Goodwins was an astute observer who deepens our understanding of Chaplin’s artistry and sheds new light on his personality. He also provides charming and revealing portraits of Chaplin’s unsung collaborators, such as his beloved costar Edna Purviance, his burly nemesis Eric Campbell, and other familiar faces that populate his films. Goodwins depicts Chaplin in the white heat of artistic creation, an indefatigable imp entertaining and inspiring the company on the set. He also describes gloomy, agonizing periods when Chaplin was paralyzed with indecision or exhaustion, or simply frustrated that it was raining and they couldn’t shoot. Reproduced here for the first time, the articles have been edited by film historian David James and annotated by Chaplin expert Dan Kamin to highlight their revelations. Illustrated with a selection of rare images that reflect the Chaplin craze, including posters, sheet music, and magazine covers, Charlie Chaplin’s Red Letter Days provides a fascinating excursion into the private world of the iconic superstar whose films move and delight audiences to this day. It will appeal to movie fans, comedy buffs, and anyone who wants to know what really went on behind the scenes with Chaplin and his crew.

Roy Rogers' golden palomino, Trigger, was the perhaps the most famous horse in film--more popular than the man himself among certain fans. In its expanded second edition, this detailed look at the animals and men who created the legend of "the smartest horse in the movies" examines the life story of the original Trigger--and his doubles, particularly Little Trigger, the extraordinary trick horse. Movies in which Trigger appeared without Rogers are discussed. More than 200 photographs (90 new to this edition) and 30,000 words of additional material are included, covering unresolved aspects of Trigger's story, controversies surrounding the sale of the Roy Roger's Museum collection and the fate of his legacy.

Hollywood historian and film reviewer Leonard Maltin invites readers to pull up a chair and listen as he tells stories, many of them hilarious, of 50+ years interacting with legendary movie stars, writers, directors, producers, and cartoonists. Maltin grew up in the first decade of television, immersing himself in TV programs and accessing 1930s and '40s movies hitting the small screen. His fan letters to admired performers led to unexpected correspondences, then to interviews and publication of his own fan magazine. Maltin's career as a free-lance writer and New York Times-bestselling author as well as his 30-year run on Entertainment Tonight, gave him access to Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Sean Connery, Shirley Temple, and Jimmy Stewart among hundreds of other Golden Age stars, his interviews cutting through the Hollywood veneer and revealing the human behind each legend. Starstruck also offers a fascinating glimpse inside the Disney empire, and Maltin's tenure teaching USC's popular film course reveals insights into moviemaking along with access to past, current, and future stars of film, such as George Lucas, Kevin Feige, Quentin Tarantino, and Guillermo del Toro.