This biography of Susan Hayward, one of Hollywood's leading ladies of the 1940s and 1950s, covers her childhood, school years, early modeling career, and development as an actress. It also documents her personal life, including her marriages and attempted suicide, and her illness and death at the age of 56. It provides an analysis of each of her feature films with comments from contemporary reviewers, and places Hayward and her films in the context of Hollywood and motion picture history. The filmography gives cast and production credits for both motion pictures and television movies.

This is the essential guide for anyone interested in film. Now in its second edition, the text has been completely revised and expanded to meet the needs of today's students and film enthusiasts. Some 150 key genres, movements, theories and production terms are explained and analyzed with depth and clarity. Entries include:* auteur theory* Blaxploitation* British New Wave* feminist film theory* intertextuality* method acting* pornography* Third World Cinema* Vampire movies.

This revised and updated edition of a successful and established text provides a much-needed historical overview of French cinema from its roots through to the political and social developments in the 1990s and beyond.

In what may be the most in-depth study yet published of a film star's body of work, Susan Hayward charts the career of Simone Signoret, one of the great Frech actresses of the 20th Century.Signoret- who won an Oscar in 1960 for her performance in Room at the Top- was a key figure in French cinema for 40 years. But it is not so much her longevity that impresses, as it is the quality of work she produced as her career progressed. She started out as a stunningly beautiful woman, winning major international awards five times for her roles, and yet was only moderately in demand during those years. From the 1960s onwards, when her looks began to decline significantly, Signoret was in greater demand, and produced most of her output. She insisted on playing roles consonant with her real age, and often chose to play roles that portrayed wher as even more ugly than she had become.Simore Signoret: The Star as Cultural Sign is a remarkable achievement, a labor of love from one of the world's leading scholars of French cinema.

This fascinating collection looks at the career and films of Luc Besson, one of the most acclaimed figures in international cinema. Contributions have been assembled from all over the world, and their different approaches reflect this geographical diversity. Films covered range from Besson’s first feature, La Dernier Combat, to the international blockbusters The Fifth Element and Joan of Arc. The essays range from looking at costume design to musical scores, and the final chapter offers a transcript of a previously unpublished interview with the man himself. He is the only French director to have crossed over successfully during the 1990s into the blockbuster spectacular we associate with Hollywood cinema and yet this is only the second book in English on this major international director. The Films of Luc Besson will make fascinating reading for anyone interested in the career and films of the "master of spectacle."