The Many Cinemas Of Michael Curtiz

Hollywood—Casablanca , Yankee Doodle Dandy , The Sea Hawk , White Christmas, and Mildred Pierce, to name only a few. The most prolific and consistently successful Hollywood generalist with an all-embracing interest in different forms of narrative and spectacle, Curtiz made around a hundred films in an astonishing range of genres: action, biopics, melodramas/film noir, musicals, and westerns. But his important contributions to the history of American film have been overlooked because his broadly varied oeuvre does not present the unified vision of filmmaking that canonical criticism demands for the category of “auteur.” Exploring his films and artistic practice from a variety of angles, including politics, gender, and genre, The Many Cinemas of Michael Curtiz sheds new light on this underappreciated cinematic genius. Leading film studies scholars offer fresh appraisals of many of Curtiz’s most popular films, while also paying attention to neglected releases of substantial historical interest, such as Noah’s Ark , Night and Day, Virginia City, Black Fury, Mystery of the Wax Museum, and Female. Because Curtiz worked for so long and in so many genres, this analysis of his work becomes more than an author study of a notable director. Instead, The Many Cinemas of Michael Curtiz effectively adds a major chapter to the history of Hollywood’s studio era, including its internationalism and the significant contributions of European émigrés.

Michael Curtiz (1888-1962) was without doubt one of the most important directors in film history, yet he has never been granted his deserved recognition and no full-scale work on him has previously been published. The Casablanca Man surveys Curtiz' unequalled mastery over a variety of genres which included biography, comedy, horror, melodrama, musicals, swashbucklers and westerns, and looks at his relationship with the Hollywood studio moguls on the basis of unprecedented archive research at Warner Brothers. Concentrating on Curtiz' best-known films - Casablanca, Angels With Dirty Faces, Mildred Pearce and Captain Blood among them - Robertson explores Curtiz' practical creative struggles and his friendships and rivalries with other film celebrities including Errol Flynn, Bette Davis and James Cagney, and his discovery of future stars. Casablanca Man is the first comprehensive critical exploration of Curtiz' entire career and, linking his European work and his subsequent American work into a coherent whole, Robertson firmly re-establishes Curtiz' true standing in the history of cinema.

Academy Award--winning director Michael Curtiz (1886--1962) -- whose best-known films include Casablanca (1942), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945) and White Christmas (1954) -- was in many ways the anti-auteur. During his unprecedented twenty-seven year tenure at Warner Bros., he directed swashbuckling adventures, westerns, musicals, war epics, romances, historical dramas, horror films, tearjerkers, melodramas, comedies, and film noir masterpieces. The director's staggering output of 180 films surpasses that of the legendary John Ford and exceeds the combined total of films directed by George Cukor, Victor Fleming, and Howard Hawks. In the first biography of this colorful, instinctual artist, Alan K. Rode illuminates the life and work of one of the film industry's most complex figures. He begins by exploring the director's early life and career in his native Hungary, revealing how Curtiz shaped the earliest days of silent cinema in Europe as he acted in, produced, and directed scores of films before immigrating to the United States in 1926. In Hollywood, Curtiz earned a reputation for his explosive tantrums, his difficulty communicating in English, and his disregard for the well-being of others. However, few directors elicited more memorable portrayals from their casts, and ten different actors delivered Oscar-nominated performances under his direction. In addition to his study of the director's remarkable legacy, Rode investigates Curtiz's dramatic personal life, discussing his enduring creative partnership with his wife, screenwriter Bess Meredyth, as well as his numerous affairs and children born of his extramarital relationships. This meticulously researched biography provides a nuanced understanding of one of the most talented filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age. Paperback edition features a new afterword by the author.

An inside look at the making of Casablanca offers fresh insights into and revelations about the people, the period, and the countless details that all had a hand in shaping the quintessential movie-lover's movie.

THE CHRISTMAS MOVIE BOOK Christmas and the world of cinema: two things that go together like mincemeat pies and mulled wine. There are few categories of film which have captured the imagination of young and old for so many years, or which have brought with them such nostalgic charm and warm sentiment. But what is it about the Christmas movie that has proven to be so creatively adaptive over the years, and why has the genre remained so perennially popular amongst audiences all across the world? This new study charts the evolution of the Christmas film, starting in 1945 with The Bells of St Mary's (Leo McCarey), and continuing up to the present day with the 3D version of A Christmas Carol (Robert Zemeckis, 2009). From the silver screen magic of It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street to the madcap seasonal comedy of Home Alone and Elf, by way of White Christmas and Black Christmas, this book considers a wide selection of some of the most enduring festive movies from the past seven decades. With a detailed exploration of each film's themes and cultural influences, The Christmas Movie Book also features a comprehensive timeline of key works in the genre, a filmography, notes, and illustrations, and examines why it is that these well-loved classics continue to enrapture generations of movie-goers. Thomas Christie has a life-long fascination with films and the people who make them. Currently reading for a PhD in Scottish Literature, he lives in Scotland with his family. He holds a first-class Honours degree in Literature and a Masters degree in Humanities, specialising with distinction in British Cinema History, from the Open University in Milton Keynes, England. Tom is the author of Liv Tyler, Star in Ascendance: Her First Decade in Film (2007), The Cinema of Richard Linklater (2008), John Hughes and Eighties Cinema (2009) and Ferris Bueller's Day Off: Pocket Movie Guide (2010), all of which are also published by Crescent Moon Publishing. For more details about Tom and his work, visit his website at: www.tomchristiebooks.co.uk. Also www.crmoon.com. 'Thomas Christie's scholarship is as always immaculate. Full marks to him for another informative, well written and erudite guide to a neglected director and episode of film history.' (Review of John Hughes and Eighties Cinema) Douglas J. Allen (Lecturer in Social Sciences, Motherwell College) 384 pages. Fully illustrated. With filmography, timeline, bibliography and notes.

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 account of photography and cinema shows how the two media are not separate but in fact have influenced each other since their inception. David Campany explores photographers on screen, photographic and filmic stillness, photographs in film, the influence of photography on cinema, and the photographer as a filmmaker"--OCLC