'Movie Classics - A Complete Guide to the Directors, Stars, Studios and Movie Genres' by Don Shiach

'Movie Classics - A Complete Guide to the Directors, Stars, Studios and Movie Genres' by Don Shiach, 2004. The book is dividend into four loose sections, the first, called 'The History of the Movies' begins with the work of the Lumiere brothers and charts the development of the narrative film, with particular reference to D.W.Griffith's The Birth of A Nation and goes on to explore the introduction/coming of sound. The chapter looks at the gangster genre from the 1920s, impact of WW1 and the issue of censorship. The next chapter, entitled The Directors, looks at John Ford, Nicolas Ray, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, Michael Curtiz, William Wyler, George Cukor, Billy Wilder, Josef Von Sternberg, Orson Welles, Douglas Sirk, Stanley Kubrick. In addition the chapter looks at directors of New Hollywood: Oliver Stone, Francis Coppola, Martin Scorsese. The chapter then goes on to look at international directors. The next chapter focus on the star image, iconography and marketing of the star/star persona, with particular reference to Marilyn Monroe, Rudolph Valentino, Clark Gable, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, W.C. Fields, Charles Chaplin, Woody Allen and Jean Harlow. The fourth chapter entitled: The Movie Years, charts the silent years of film (its stars, European influences and rise of Hollywood) The formation of the studios (MGM, Paramount, Fox, Warner Bros) and examines a range of genre films (gangster, action, film nior, horror, comedy). The last section of the book looks at Hollywood scandals (Errol Flynn, Frances Farmer, Clark Gable, Alfred Hitchcock, the Fatty Arbuckle affair, Paul Bern and Jean Harlow). The last part of the collection looks at 'Collecting Movie Memorabilia' and 'The Oscars'

Part of the Terry Hallett Collection