In A Lonely Place

Dix Steele is back in town, and 'town' is post-war LA. His best friend Brub is on the force of the LAPD, and as the two meet in country clubs and beach bars, they discuss the latest case: a strangler is preying on young women in the dark. Dix listens with interest as Brub describes their top suspect, as yet unnamed. Dix loves the dark and women in equal measure, so he knows enough to watch his step, though when he meets the luscious Laurel Gray, something begins to crack. The American Dream is showing its seamy underside.

Although film noir is traditionally associated with the mean streets of the Dark City, this volume explores the genre from a new angle, focusing on non-urban settings. Through detailed readings of more than 100 films set in suburbs, small towns, on the road, in the desert, borderlands and the vast, empty West, the author investigates the alienation expressed by film noir, pinpointing its motivation in the conflict between desires for escape, autonomy and freedom--and fears of loneliness, exile and dissolution. Through such films as Out of the Past, They Live by Night and A Touch of Evil, this critical study examines how film noir reflected radical changes in the physical and social landscapes of postwar America, defining the genre's contribution to the eternal debate between the values of individualism and community.

The story behind the movie.

Austin’s thriving film culture, renowned for international events such as SXSW and the Austin Film Festival, extends back to the early 1970s when students in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin ran a film programming unit that screened movies for students and the public. Dubbed CinemaTexas, the program offered viewers a wide variety of films—old and new, mainstream, classic, and cult—at a time when finding and watching films after their first run was very difficult and prohibitively expensive. For each film, RTF graduate students wrote program notes that included production details, a sampling of critical reactions, and an original essay that placed the film and its director within context and explained the movie’s historical significance. Over time, CinemaTexas Program Notes became more ambitious and were distributed around the world, including to luminaries such as film critic Pauline Kael. This anthology gathers a sampling of CinemaTexas Program Notes, organized into four sections: “USA Film History,” “Hollywood Auteurs,” “Cinema-Fist: Renegade Talents,” and “America’s Shadow Cinema.” Many of the note writers have become prominent film studies scholars, as well as leading figures in the film, TV, music, and video game industries. As a collection, CinemaTexas Notes strongly contradicts the notion of an effortlessly formed American film canon, showing instead how local film cultures—whether in Austin, New York, or Europe—have forwarded the development of film studies as a discipline.

A riveting novel from the author of the critically acclaimed Learning to Swim and an Anthony Award nominee for Best Novel While she's watching the crew build the Winter Carnival ice palace, Troy Chance sees a body encased in the frozen lake—a man she recognizes as the boyfriend of one of her roommates. When she is assigned to write a feature on his life and mysterious death, Troy discovers he was the missing son of a wealthy Connecticut family. Trying to unravel what brought him to this Adirondack village, she joins forces with his girlfriend and his sister, who comes to town to find answers. But as Troy digs deeper, it’s clear someone doesn’t want the investigation to continue. And when she uncovers long-buried secrets that could shatter the serenity of the small town and many people’s lives, she’ll be forced to decide how far her own loyalties reach. “Sara J. Henry brilliantly draws us into a terrifying but ultimately affirmative novel in which love, friendship, and the shining truth about who we really are redeem an otherwise hopeless universe.” —Howard Frank Mosher, award-winning author of God’s Kingdom

From the dead-end highways of Monte Hellman to the sword-wielding skeletons of Ray Harryhausen; from Frankenstein to Warren Oates - this wonderfully eclectic collection of interviews and essays on movies and the people who make them ranges widely through Hollywoods old and new, yet certain themes and faces keep recurring. Included are career-overview interviews with 14 cult figures, including actors RICHARD WIDMARK, HARRY DEAN STANTON, BRUCE DERN, DAVID CARRADINE, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, BURT YOUNG and ELLIOTT GOULD; and filmmakers MONTE HELLMAN, ARTHUR PENN, ROGER CORMAN, WALTER HILL, JOHN MILIUS, OLIVER STONE and RAY HARRYHAUSEN. Elsewhere come pieces on Stanley Kubrick as a boy photographer; Sir Ian McKellen discussing his performance as Frankenstein-director James Whale; explorations of the pre-Hollywood writing careers of horror auteur Val Lewton and maverick legend Sam Fuller; sketches of figures ranging from John Wayne to Warren Oates; considerations of films including Dracula, Freaks, Sunset Boulevard and In A Lonely Place...and much more. For film lovers and film scholars alike, an intriguing, lyrical and provocative collection.

A fictionalized history of the infamous, if little-known outside Florida, Prohibition-era gangster John Ashley and his moll, Laura Upthegrove.