Zanuck

This volume provides an insider's view of Hollywood's most glamorous era and the elements of film production.

Beginning with The Jazz Singer (1927) and 42nd Street (1933), legendary Hollywood film producer Darryl F. Zanuck (1902–1979) revolutionized the movie musical, cementing its place in American popular culture. Zanuck, who got his start writing stories and scripts in the silent film era, worked his way to becoming a top production executive at Warner Bros. in the later 1920s and early 1930s. Leaving that studio in 1933, he and industry executive Joseph Schenck formed Twentieth Century Pictures, an independent Hollywood motion picture production company. In 1935, Zanuck merged his Twentieth Century Pictures with the ailing Fox Film Corporation, resulting in the combined Twentieth Century-Fox, which instantly became a new major Hollywood film entity. The Golden Age Musicals of Darryl F. Zanuck: The Gentleman Preferred Blondes is the first book devoted to the musicals that Zanuck produced at these three studios. The volume spotlights how he placed his personal imprint on the genre and how—especially at Twentieth Century-Fox—he nurtured and showcased several blonde female stars who headlined the studio’s musicals—including Shirley Temple, Alice Faye, Betty Grable, Vivian Blaine, June Haver, Marilyn Monroe, and Sheree North. Building upon Bernard F. Dick’s previous work in That Was Entertainment: The Golden Age of the MGM Musical, this volume illustrates the richness of the American movie musical, tracing how these song-and-dance films fit within the career of Darryl F. Zanuck and within the timeline of Hollywood history.

Profiles the genius filmmaker who steered Twentieth Century-Fox to the forefront of Hollywood studios and whose turbulent private life frequently spilled over into his business affairs

From New York Times bestselling author Scott Eyman, this is the story one of the most influential studios in film history, from its glory days under the leadership of legendary movie mogul Darryl F. Zanuck up to its 2019 buyout by Disney. March 20, 2019 marked the end of an era -- Disney took ownership of the movie empire that was Fox. For almost a century before that historic date, Twentieth Century-Fox was one of the preeminent producers of films, stars, and filmmakers. Its unique identity in the industry and place in movie history is unparalleled -- and one of the greatest stories to come out of Hollywood. One man, a legendary producer named Darryl F. Zanuck, is the heart of the story. This narrative tells the complete tale of Zanuck and the films, stars, intrigue, and innovations of the iconic studio that was.

Souvenir program book made to commemorate this 1962 film. Contains photographs from the movie and of all the characters, including: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Eddie Albert, Richard Burton, Sean Connery, Peter Lawford, Rod Steiger, Stuart Whitman, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Curt Jürgens; directors: Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki; and producer Darryl F. Zanuck.

In this first critical biography of Preston Sturges, Diane Jacobs brings to life the great comic filmmaker whose career Andrew Sarris described as "one of the most brilliant and bizarre bursts of creation in the history of the American cinema." Jacobs uses letters and manuscripts never before revealed, as well as interviews with people who knew Sturges—including three of his wives—to portray this fascinating, contradictory man. In addition to discussing his major films, she also examines heretofore unknown work and shows that Sturges was highly creative even near the end of his life, a time when many believed he had lost his touch. Sturges secured his place in film history as the creator of such classic films as The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, and The Palm Beach Story. In 1939 he became the first screenwriter to win the right to direct his own script—the result was the Oscar-winning The Great McGinty. Creator of Unfaithfully Yours, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, and Hail the Conquering Hero, he was the third highest-paid man in the United States by the late 1940s. He owned a swank Hollywood restaurant and was known as an ebullient raconteur as well as a world-famous filmmaker. A little over a decade later, Sturges died in New York, impoverished and rejected by Hollywood. The euphoria of success, the fitfulness of luck, the promise and poignancy of the American Dream—the themes of Sturges's work also marked the man. Diane Jacobs achieves a singular success in illuminating his extraordinary life. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992.

Spanning four decades and more than a thousand films, the creative output of Darryl D. Zanuck was astonishing and unparalleled. With The Jazz Singer he supervised the innovation of film sound. With The Public Enemy and Little Caesar he reinvented the gangster film. With 42nd Street he reinvigorated the musical. He set the standard for film biography with pictures such as Young Mr. Lincoln and The Story of Alexander Graham Bell . He innovated CinemaScope. And he molded the star images of James Cagney, Shirley Temple, Tyrone Power, Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe, and Rin Tin Tin.In this major new biography, George F. Custen illuminates Zanuck's evolution into one of the most influential producers in American film. He explains what set him apart from rivals Irving Thalberg and David O. Selznick, how he developed the gritty realism that came to redefine motion pictures, and how he brilliantly predicted and capitalized on changing public tastes.Zanuck was a man of enormous energy and eccentricity, commanding his studio with a sawed-off polo mallet. Dozens of his memorable films—including I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang , The Grapes of Wrath, Gentleman's Agreement, All About Eve, The Day the Earth Stood Still , and The Robe —have come to represent the era in which they were made. Hard-boiled or nostalgic, historical or pure Hollywood, Zanuck's films and Zanuck himself have become legends of the cinema. But what exactly was this producer's contribution to the films he made? How did he rise from being a writer of silent serials to become head of production at Warner Brothers by his mid-twenties, and then to form his own studio, Twentieth Century-Fox at age thirty-three?Twentieth Century's Fox tells the whole story—from Zanuck's boyhood to his tumultuous years with the feuding Warners, his battles with the censors and with his own actors, and the legendary acting-out of scenes during story conferences in his famous green office. Along the way, Custen treats us to inside stories about actors such as Edward G. Robinson, Gregory Peck, and Marilyn Monroe. In never-before-published story conference notes, telegrams, and surprisingly candid anecdotes, he reveals how—more than any producer before or since—this diminutive, enigmatic fellow from Wahoo, Nebraska, changed the way we look at film.Custen highlights the studio as the context of production. Zanuck's ability to shape the producer's role and the organizational style during the golden years of the studio system—with its own peculiar methods, clearly delineated rules, and pecking order—was the crucible out of which he forged a unique vision of American film and American culture.

Before she was a glamorous actress, before she was a war-time pin-up star, even before she was Carole Landis, she was Frances Lillian Ridste, an insecure young girl from Wisconsin. She was strikingly beautiful, talented, and on her way to becoming a movie star, yet she spent her entire life searching for love. Though she appeared in more than 60 films during her short career, Landis was better known for her extraordinary beauty and many romantic relationships than for her acting or comedic timing. Like many starlets of the time, Landis worked her way up from uncredited bit parts (and according to rumors, from the casting couch) to leading roles in such films as Topper Returns (1940) and My Gal Sal (1942) over the course of her 11-year career. She spent more time visiting troops during World War II—traveling hundreds of thousands of miles and coming near death twice—than any other Hollywood star. Despite her seemingly glamorous and carefree life, Landis was unable to build a lasting relationship, a fact that contributed to her suicide at 29. This work examines Landis’s life and career in Hollywood, focusing on how her movie career affected her short, unhappy life.