Hollywood's Lost Backlot

Author: Steven Bingen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 149303362X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
Hollywood is a transitory place. Stars and studios rise and fall. Genres and careers wax and wane. Movies and movie moguls and movie makers and movie palaces are acclaimed and patronized and loved and beloved, and then forgotten. And yet… And yet one place in Southern California, built in the 1920s by (allegedly murdered) producer Thomas Ince, acquired by Cecil B. DeMille, now occupied by Amazon.com, has been the home for hundreds of the most iconic and legendary films and television shows in the world for a remarkable and star-studded fifty years. This bizarre, magical place was the location for Tara in Gone with The Wind, the home of King Kong and Superman, of Tarzan and Batman, of the Green Hornet, of Elliot Ness, of Barney Fife, of Tarzan, of Rebecca, of Citizen Kane, of Hogan’s Heroes and Gomer Pyle, of Lasse, of A Star is Born and Star Trek, and at least twice, of Jesus Christ. For decades, every conceivable star in Hollywood, from Clark Gable to Warren Beatty, worked and loved and gave indelible performances on the site. And yet, today, it is completely forgotten. Pretty much anyone alive today, from college professors to longshoremen, have probably heard of Paramount and of MGM, of Warner Bros. and of Universal, and of Disney and Fox and Columbia, but the place where many of these studio’s beloved classics were minted is today as mysterious and unknowable as the sphinx. Hollywood’s Lost Backlot: 40 Acres of Glamour and Mystery will, for the first time ever, unwind the colorful and convoluted threads that make for the tale of one of the most influential and photographed places in the world. A place which most have visited, at least on screen, and which has contributed significantly and unexpectedly to the world’s popular culture, and yet which few people today, paradoxically, have ever heard of.

MGM

Author: Steven Bingen
Publisher: Santa Monica Press
ISBN: 1595808930
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 1157

Book Description
M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot is the illustrated history of the soundstages and outdoor sets where Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer produced many of the world’s most famous films. During its Golden Age, the studio employed the likes of Garbo, Astaire, and Gable, and produced innumerable iconic pieces of cinema such as The Wizard of Oz, Singin’ in the Rain, and Ben-Hur. It is estimated that a fifth of all films made in the United States prior to the 1970s were shot at MGM studios, meaning that the gigantic property was responsible for hundreds of iconic sets and stages, often utilizing and transforming minimal spaces and previously used props, to create some of the most recognizable and identifiable landscapes of modern movie culture. All of this happened behind closed doors, the backlot shut off from the public in a veil of secrecy and movie magic. M-G-M: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot highlights this fascinating film treasure by recounting the history, popularity, and success of the MGM company through a tour of its physical property. Featuring the candid, exclusive voices and photographs from the people who worked there, and including hundreds of rare and unpublished photographs (including many from the archives of Warner Bros.), readers are launched aboard a fun and entertaining virtual tour of Hollywood’s most famous and mysterious motion picture studio.

Warner Bros.

Author: Steven Bingen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1589799623
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
Movie studios are the wondrous, almost magical locales where not just films, but legends, are created. Unfortunately, these celebrity playgrounds are, and always have been, largely hidden from public view. Although some movie studios offer tours, few guests from outside the Hollywood community have ever been witness to the artistry, politics, and scandals that routinely go on behind the soundstage walls and away from the carefully orchestrated scenes visible to them from their tram carts. In this book, studio staff historian and Hollywood insider Steven Bingen throws open Hollywood’s iron gates and takes you inside the greatest and yet most mysterious movie studio of them all: Warner Bros. Long home to the world’s biggest stars and most memorable films and television shows, the Warner Bros. Studio lot functions as a small city and is even more fascinating, glamorous, and outrageous than any of the stars or movies that it has been routinely minting for more than ninety years. Accompanied by stunning behind-the-scenes photos and maps, and including a revealing backstory, this book is your ticket to a previously veiled Hollywood paradise.

The Art of the Hollywood Backdrop

Author: Richard M. Isackes
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 194139308X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
"Once a guarded cinematic secret, this definitive history reveals for the first time the art and craft of Hollywood's hand painted-backdrops, and pays homage to the scenic artists who brought them to the big screen." -- Slipcase.

Thomas Ince

Author: Brian Taves
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813134226
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 386

Book Description
Ince turned movie-making into a business enterprise. Progressing from actor to director and screenwriter, he revolutionized the motion picture industry through developing the role of the producer. Taves chronicles Ince's life from the stage to his sudden death as he was about to join forces with media tycoon William Randolph Hearst. He explores Ince's impact on Hollywood's production system, the Western, his creation of the first American movies starring Asian performers, and his cinematic exploration of the status of women in society.

Paramount

Author: Steven Bingen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1630762016
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Book Description
Paramount: City of Dreams brings to life the operations of the world’s grandest movie lot as never before by opening its famous gates and revealing – for the first time – the wonderful myriad of soundstages and outdoor sets where, for one hundred years, Paramount has produced the world’s most famous films. With hundreds and hundreds of rare and unpublished photographs in color and black & white, readers are launched aboard a fun and entertaining “virtual tour” of Hollywood’s first, most famous and most mysterious motion picture studio. Paramount is a self-contained city. But unlike any community in the real world, this city’s streets and lawns, its bungalows and backlots, will be familiar even to those who have never been there. Now, for the first time, these much-filmed, much-haunted acres will be explored and the mysteries and myths peeled away – bringing into focus the greatest of all of Hollywood’s legendary dream factories.

The Paramount Story

Author: John Douglas Eames
Publisher: Random House Value Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Book Description
Complete history of the studio and its 2805 films.

Twentieth Century Fox

Author: Michael Troyan
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1630761435
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 737

Book Description
Here it is: the first-time look at the remarkable American multinational mass media empire and its century of entertainment—the story of Twentieth Century Fox (1915–2015). Or, to borrow the title of a classic 1959 Fox film, The Best of Everything. This is the complete revelatory story—bookended by empire builders William Fox and Rupert Murdoch—aimed as both a grand, entertaining, nostalgic and picture-filled interactive read and the ultimate guide to all things Twentieth Century Fox. The controversies and scandals are here, as are the extraordinary achievements. Among other firsts, the book offers fun tours of its historic production and ranch facilities including never-before-told stories about its stars and creative personalities (Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, James Dean, and Shirley Temple got started there). Finally, it is the first such work approved by the company and utilizing its own unique resources. The authors primarily tell a celebratory tale, but most importantly, an accurate one.

The Movie Musical!

Author: Jeanine Basinger
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 1101874066
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 657

Book Description
Irresistible and authoritative, The Movie Musical! is an in-depth look at the singing, dancing, happy-making world of Hollywood musicals, beautifully illustrated in color and black-and-white--an essential text for anyone who's ever laughed, cried, or sung along at the movies. Leading film historian Jeanine Basinger reveals, with her trademark wit and zest, the whole story of the Hollywood musical--in the most telling, most incisive, most detailed, most gorgeously illustrated book of her long and remarkable career. From Fred Astaire, whom she adores, to La La Land, which she deplores, Basinger examines a dazzling array of stars, strategies, talents, and innovations in the history of musical cinema. Whether analyzing a classic Gene Kelly routine, relishing a Nelson-Jeanette operetta, or touting a dynamic hip hop number (in the underrated Idlewild), she is a canny and charismatic guide to the many ways that song and dance have been seen--and heard--on film. With extensive portraits of everyone from Al Jolson, the Jazz Singer; to Doris Day, whose iconic sunniness has overshadowed her dramatic talents; from Deanna Durbin, that lovable teen-star of the '30s and '40s; to Shirley T. and Judy G.; from Bing to Frank to Elvis; from Ann Miller to Ann-Margret; from Disney to Chicago . . . focusing on many beloved, iconic films (Top Hat; Singin' in the Rain; Meet Me in St. Louis; The Sound of Music) as well as unduly obscure gems (Eddie Cantor's Whoopee!; Murder at the Vanities; Sun Valley Serenade; One from the Heart), this book is astute, informative, and pure pleasure to read.

Easy Riders Raging Bulls

Author: Peter Biskind
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439126615
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 516

Book Description
In 1969, a low-budget biker movie, Easy Rider, shocked Hollywood with its stunning success. An unabashed celebration of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll (onscreen and off), Easy Rider heralded a heady decade in which a rebellious wave of talented young filmmakers invigorated the movie industry. In Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Peter Biskind takes us on the wild ride that was Hollywood in the '70s, an era that produced such modern classics as The Godfather, Chinatown, Shampoo, Nashville, Taxi Driver, and Jaws. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls vividly chronicles the exuberance and excess of the times: the startling success of Easy Rider and the equally alarming circumstances under which it was made, with drugs, booze, and violent rivalry between costars Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda dominating the set; how a small production company named BBS became the guiding spirit of the youth rebellion in Hollywood and how, along the way, some of its executives helped smuggle Huey Newton out of the country; how director Hal Ashby was busted for drugs and thrown in jail in Toronto; why Martin Scorsese attended the Academy Awards with an FBI escort when Taxi Driver was nominated; how George Lucas, gripped by anxiety, compulsively cut off his own hair while writing Star Wars, how a modest house on Nicholas Beach occupied by actresses Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt became the unofficial headquarters for the New Hollywood; how Billy Friedkin tried to humiliate Paramount boss Barry Diller; and how screenwriter/director Paul Schrader played Russian roulette in his hot tub. It was a time when an "anything goes" experimentation prevailed both on the screen and off. After the success of Easy Rider, young film-school graduates suddenly found themselves in demand, and directors such as Francis Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, George Lucas, and Martin Scorsese became powerful figures. Even the new generation of film stars -- Nicholson, De Niro, Hoffman, Pacino, and Dunaway -- seemed a breed apart from the traditional Hollywood actors. Ironically, the renaissance would come to an end with Jaws and Star Wars, hugely successful films that would create a blockbuster mentality and crush innovation. Based on hundreds of interviews with the directors themselves, producers, stars, agents, writers, studio executives, spouses, and ex-spouses, this is the full, candid story of Hollywood's last golden age. Never before have so many celebrities talked so frankly about one another and about the drugs, sex, and money that made so many of them crash and burn. By turns hilarious and shocking, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is the ultimate behind-the-scenes account of Hollywood at work and play.