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Classic Hollywood Style by Caroline Young Book Review

Classic Hollywood Style is a fascinating history of costume design from the golden era of Hollywood. Author Caroline Young places the designs from 34 classic films ranging from Camille in 1921 to The Thomas Crown Affair in 1968 within their social context including prevailing attitudes and influences from each decade. 

Young explores the work of classic Hollywood costume designers, including Travis Banton, Orry-Kelly, Walter Plunkett, Irene, Adrian, Edith Head, Jean-Louis, Paul Poiret and Natacha Rambova.

The costume design of each decade reflected the social climate of the time. The restrictive Hays Code, introduced in 1934, put an end to the revealing outfits of the 1920s. World War II resulted in a shortage in silk, now used for parachutes. Cotton became the preferred material and costume designer Adrian introduced shoulder pads.

Orry-Kelly design for Ingrid Bergman in “Casablanca” (1942)

In the 1950s the teenager was represented by actors including James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor and Natalie Wood. Jeans made the move from westerns to contemporary dramas and were worn by both male and female. The glamour of earlier decades was being replaced by a new realism that was finally allowed to flourish with the end of the restrictive Hays Code in 1968.

Travis Banton design, Paloma Gibson artwork for “Cleopatra” (1934)

Classic Hollywood Style is lavishly illustrated throughout its 224 pages with 180 beautiful photographs of an era that has long gone. An era of glamour and style. Caroline Young’s book is highly recommended to all who love classic Hollywood.

About the author: Caroline Young is an Edinburgh based writer and journalist who has written for national newspapers and women’s magazines, including Closer and The Daily Mail. Caroline studied English Literature and Film and TV Studies at Glasgow University, and in 2007 she gained a Masters in Journalism and Mass Communication from Griffith University, Brisbane. She has a great passion and knowledge for film and fashion, with Screenwriting and the Business of Film included as part of her Masters degree. Classic Hollywood Style is her first book.

Review copyright Paul Green 2012. Classic Hollywood Style published by Frances Lincoln Ltd. October 2012.

Make Your Movie by Barbara Freedman Doyle Book Review

Make Your Movie by Barbara Freedman Doyle (Focal Press 2012) details the “Business and Politics of Filmmaking” in a comprehensive and easy to understand manner. The author states, “This book is about the “soft skills” a person has to have to survive in the industry.” This book is so much more. It is a detailed, comprehensive look at the entire industry and makes for a fascinating read that will leave you much more informed than when you first picked up the book.

Doyle has a background in the film industry ranging from former Senior VP of Worldwide Production at Tri Star Pictures to Production Supervisor on projects for CBS, NBC, TNT, Showtime, Hallmark, Disney, 20th Century-Fox, and Morgan Creek Productions.

She covers every aspect of the filmmaking process from the importance of making contacts, ‘development hell’, agents and managers, raising money, setting up a production company, unions, location, casting, production, post production, festivals and distribution.

A stand-out feature of Doyle’s book are her interviews with influential people in the film industry. Their first hand experience gives the book a healthy dose of reality. Doyle isn’t interested in get-rich-quick fantasy stories but deals in cold, hard facts. It is her down-to-earth approach that gives the book its appeal. Agents, entertainment lawyers, creative executives, producers, location managers, directors, editors, and marketing executives including Walter Coblenz, Travis Knox, Shana Feste, Dawn Taubin and Jawal Nga pass on their expertise and advice to budding professionals.

For anyone thinking their novel or screenplay is just waiting to be discovered this book brings home the reality that only by repeated effort and good contacts will their work stand a chance of being successfully transferred to film. Not to forget sheer luck. This is a serious book with an everyman touch. The film industry is notoriously hard to break into but Doyle shows you the paths you need to walk to give your dream a chance of coming to fruition.

Highly recommended.

Review copyright Paul Green 2012. Thanks to Becky Sahm at Big Picture Media.

Brimstone

Brimstone – another Weird Western title from Zenescope by Michael Lent and Brian McCarthy.

“With his dying breath, an Indian Shaman unleashes an ancient curse upon his murderers, the miners of Brimstone, and the richest gold stake ever found in the High Sierras. A week later, the town is overrun and its communication lines cut. With all the honest men fighting the Civil War, the desperate mining investors put together a collection of outlaws, killers and thieves to re-take Brimstone … by any means necessary. Led by “The Viper,” a brooding gunslinger whose brutal exploits are the stuff of Western legend, the vicious posse finds the bullet-ridden town littered with dismembered corpses but its gold stores untouched. Zenescope describes the new Brimstone series as 28 Days Later meets Tombstone. In Brimstone, the most feared men in the West have finally found the very heart of fear.”

Issue # 6 cover art by Anthony Spay

© 2011 Zenescope, All Rights Reserved

Sir Edward Grey Witchfinder: Lost and Gone Forever

Dark Horse Comics’ latest Weird Western was released February 2.

“In the hellish frontiers of the American Wild West, nineteenth–century occult investigator Edward Grey hunts down a fiendish member of the Heliopic Brotherhood of Ra. What he finds is a town harboring bloodthirsty criminals and terrible supernatural horrors!”

Veteran comic book artist John Severin provides the artwork. Two variant covers for issue # 1 are provided by Severin and Mike Mignola, who also wrote the first issue with John Arcudi.

Click on the link below to read the six-page preview :

Witchfinder: Lost and Gone Forever #1 (John Severin cover) :: Profile :: Dark Horse Comics.

Entire contents trademarked (® or TM) and copyrighted (©) 1986-2011 by Dark Horse Comics Inc. and its respective Licensors. Dark Horse, Dark Horse Comics, and the Dark Horse logo are trademarks of Dark Horse Comics, Inc., registered in various categories and countires.

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Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities and the Ghastly Fiend of London

Cover Artist: Kyle Hotz : Issue # 2

Eric Powell and Kyle Hotz are back with a sequel to their Dark Horse series from 2005 Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities. The new adventures take them to Victorian London on a hunt for Jack the Ripper.
 
Take a look at the three-page Preview for issue # 2.
 
 ”The world believes the notorious outlaw Billy the Kid was killed by Pat Garrett, but in reality the Kid is very much alive, the hired gun of Fineas Sproule’s traveling spectacle of biological curiosities–or “freaks,” as Billy calls them. In their latest adventure, Billy and crew confront their most vicious challenge yet: Jack the Ripper!”
 
(® or TM) and copyrighted (©) 1986-2008 by Dark Horse Comics Inc. and its respective Licensors. Dark Horse, Dark Horse Comics, and the Dark Horse logo are trademarks of Dark Horse Comics, Inc., registered in various categories and countries.

Frankie Stein in the Wild West

I was looking through my collection of British Annuals when I came across the Whoopee! Book of Frankie Stein 1976. And to my amazement discovered a Weird West comic adventure. Frankie Stein was a humor strip in typical British tradition, created by Ken Reid. He first appeared in Wham! # 4 (July 11, 1964) where we see him come to life after Professor Cube decides to make a playmate for his son from a mixure of formaldehyde, baking powder, epsom salts and a few nuts and bolts.

Artist Robert Nixon replaced Reid when the strip transferred from Wham! to Shiver & Shake. Characters in British comics would often change publisher and titles as comics folded and merged.

In this story he travels through time in a telephone box. He dials 1860 and finds himself in the Wild West. Sound familiar? Except this story was many years before the telephone box time travel adventures of Bill and Ted.

After being elected Sheriff he rids the town of Black Jake and moves on to 1350 and the Knights of the Round Table. Silly but fun.

Copyright IPC Magazines Ltd.

Merkabah Rider 2: The Mensch With No Name – Review

For those unfamiliar with Edward M. Erdelac’s first book in the series he includes a recap of the backstory to the Merkabah Rider in “The Infernal Napoleon” which opens the book and serves as Episode Five in the series of short stories.

When his master Adon decided on the road of darkness and murdered the San Francisco Essenes, the Rider became the last survivor of the mystical order. Over the last ten years he has been on a mission to track down Adon and exact revenge.  With the help of “Solominic seals mystically embossed” on his blue spectacle lenses the Rider can see beyond everyday reality.  Capable of astral travel the Rider must protect himself from “spiritual assault on his ethereal form” and preserve the wisdom and tradition from the time of Solomon as he travels the American Southwest in 1880.

Edward Erdelac presents us with four stories divided into Episodes in his latest volume. “The Infernal Napoleon” sees the Rider confront half-demons born to a succubus from sex with a human – collectively known as the shedim. In “The Damned Dingus” the Rider encounters the walking dead stripped of flesh by a creature lurking in the tunnels of a cave in Elk Mountain, near Las Vegas. “The Outlaw Gods” involves the Rider helping Apache Indians find out why some of them have disappeared in the depths of night. The truth is, as always, supernatural in origin. The Rider descends into hell in the final story “The Pandaemonium Ride” where he seeks help from the Adversary.

The stories are at their best when paying homage to pulp fiction roots. The passage from ‘The Damned Dingus” :  ”Into the edge of the firelight rode a red and gleaming man atop a red and gleaming horse” reminds me of the structure of Lee Winters pulp fiction stories and evokes vivid imagery, although Edward Erdelac quotes H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard as his pulp fiction inspiration. Real-life historical characters Doc Holliday, Dave Rudabaugh, Dave Mather and Hoodoo Brown also populate the universe of the Rider, giving an air of authenticity and authority to supernatural proceedings.

While I find the Jewish mysticism and demonology fascinating it can become something of a stumbling block when it stops the story from moving forward. Despite this the stories are entertaining and the book worth buying alone for the invisible cave dwelling creature that tears the flesh from man and beast and the half-demon shedhim. Like all good villains the Merkabah Rider’s adversaries ultimately steal the show.

The book is currently available in ebook format from Damnation Books and will be released in paperback in the next few weeks.

Review copyright Paul Green 2010.

Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns 2nd Printing

Update: (Aug 22) My book is now in print and available from McFarland.

My publisher McFarland & Co. Inc. is currently out of stock of my Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns as they await the second printing. You can still order it from Amazon and other online bookstores while their remaining stocks last. McFarland are accepting backorders and will ship my book as soon as they receive the second edition.

Invisible Bullets : Virgin Media Shorts

Michael Justice as Jimmy in a shoot-out with Stan the Garden Gnome

Chris Lane’s entry in this year’s Virgin Media Shorts competition - Invisible Bullets  – is a quirky, amusing short filmed in Manchester, England with a modern-day Weird Western theme.

“Clint Eastwood wannabe Jimmy finds escape in his shoot ‘em-up video games – which leads to a caffeine-induced flight of fancy including Mexican stand-offs, mischievous gnomes, and invisible bullets!”

Virgin Media Shorts is a competition that invites filmmaking talent to create a short film for cinema release. Twelve filmmakers win a chance to show their work on 214 cinema screens nationwide. The winner wins £30,000 to make their next film.

Invisible Bullets can be viewed on the Virgin Media Shorts website here. Remember to vote for the film on the Virgin Media site if you like it and leave your comments.

Photograph by Gareth Hacking : http://www.garethhacking.co.uk