CARTOON VOICES OF THE GOLDEN AGE, 1930-1970 Volumes 1 and a pair of by Keith Scott (BearManor Media)
This will not be a lot a e book as a life’s work for its creator, a lifelong cartoon fanatic who wound up offering voices for cartoons himself. (His dead-on rendering of Bullwinkle J. Moose earned him a gig reverse June Foray for the The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, launched within the 12 months 2000.) Decades of intensive analysis have resulted in an information-packed chronicle of American cartoon shorts and the often-uncredited performers who offered their talking and singing voices. Scott devotes separate chapters to the important thing animation studios of the theatrical cartoon period: Warner Bros., MGM, Columbia, UPA, Walter Lantz, Walt Disney, and Max Fleischer, with addenda masking the primary era of TV animation. Because he spoke to so many individuals who labored throughout this period, he has collected private, first-hand materials that hasn’t made its means into extra standard histories (together with my e book Of Mice and Magic). I realized a terrific deal, and whereas a few of these discoveries may fall underneath the heading of trivialities, the cumulative impact is outstanding. A separate, second quantity is an Index e book, providing filmographies with voice credit.
MOVIE DAD: FINDING MYSELF AND MY FAMILY, ON SCREEN AND OFF by Paul Dooley (Applause)
I’ve been following Paul Dooley’s profession from the time I noticed the unique Broadway manufacturing of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple to the current day. I’ve talked to him about his reverence for Buster Keaton and the good silent comedians in addition to his fondness for vaudeville. Given that, I knew his autobiography can be entertaining, however I didn’t anticipate the human drama it portrays so vividly. He grew up in a home his father constructed, by himself, in Parkersburg, West Virginia; there was no indoor plumbing. His father was taciturn and distant, which wouldn’t appear to encourage a boy to turn into a performer…however did. Later, within the midst of a profitable profession writing and performing radio commercials and showing on stage and tv in New York, he skilled a flip of occasions that may solely be described as devastating. I don’t imply to tease however I dare not reveal the main points. Suffice it to say that Paul rebounded and loved even higher success on display in movies like Breaking Away, Sixteen Candles, and a raft of Robert Altman films—one in all which (A Perfect Couple), although little seen, supplied him a starring position. But what offers Movie Dad a really joyful ending is the truth that Paul remains to be working and collaborating together with his gifted spouse Winnie Holzman, creator of the e book of the stage musical Wicked. Movie Dad is the odyssey of what we used to name “a working actor” who simply occurs to produce other inventive shops. It’s properly price studying.
WALT DISNEY’S THE JUNGLE BOOK: MAKING A MASTERPIECE by Andreas Deja (Walt Disney Family Museum)
This lavish, superbly printed quantity was conceived as a companion piece to an elaborate exhibition on the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. Deja was impressed to turn into an animator by The Jungle Book and grew to turn into a grasp of his craft, with movies like The Little Mermaid and The Lion King to his credit score. The exhibit, and this e book, have been a ardour mission via which he can share his information of the work that went into crafting that 1967 function. Few persons are as eloquent in describing the distinctive drawing types of Walt Disney’s celebrated Nine Old Men. In photographs and textual content, Deja leads us via the event and manufacturing of the movie that will be the final one created underneath Disney’s management. This is an attractive e book in each sense of the phrase.
This good-looking coffee-table e book guarantees “photographs from her private collection” and delivers the products in excessive trend: a whole bunch of photographs of the actress and singer from childhood onward, together with candid photographs in black & white and colour from each decade of her life, on-screen and off. Laudatory quotes from pals and colleagues dot the pages, together with essays by movie noir guru Eddie Muller, performer and musicologist Michael Feinstein, and Bob Bashara, the CEO of Doris Day Animal Foundation. There is even a captivating, private foreword by her buddy and fan Paul McCartney. This is a must have for any Doris Day devotee.
I WAS A TEENAGE MONSTER HUNTER! By Sam Irvin; foreword by Cassandra Peterson (Knuckle Samwitch)
This splashy outsized paperback reprints the creator’s interviews and encounters with Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and different legends of the horror/sci-fi/fantasy world that first appeared in his fanzine Bizarre. Sam is without doubt one of the Monster Kids like me who grew up on Forrest J. Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland journal, besides that he went on to carve a profession for himself as a director of made-for-TV films, in addition to Elvira’s Haunted Hills. Sam additionally earns my envy because the winner of 4 Rondo Awards. (If it’s important to ask who Rondo was, by no means thoughts.). A proud member of the LGBTQ+ group, Sam’s character marks each web page of this entertaining, dishy compilation, which is full of photographs and amusing illustrations by cartoonist Dan Gallagher.
HOLLYWOOD: THE ORAL HISTORY by Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson (HarperCollins)
Drawing on a long time of interviews and oral histories performed by the American Film Institute, the authors have created a operating narrative of Hollywood historical past. Under such headings as Beginnings, Sound!, Studio Style, and The Studio Workforce up via New Hollywood and The Deal we are able to recognize occasions masking multiple hundred years from quite a lot of views. Having spent most of my time with this e book’s first chapters, it’s clear that early administrators have been nice storytellers—and never simply on movie. How they measure up towards modern-day filmmakers will rely upon the reader’s preferences and prejudices. Hollywood: The Oral History covers a variety of floor and makes for good studying. I like to recommend digesting it in chunks somewhat than making an attempt to swallow it entire.
LAWRENCE TIERNEY: HOLLYWOOD’S REAL-LIFE TOUGH GUY by Burt Kearns (University Press of Kentucky)
I daresay that nobody who met Lawrence Tierney will ever neglect him. The onetime main man had a titanic mood and a weak spot for alcohol. Luckily, my encounters with him have been sober and nonviolent. (He even shared a pleasant reminiscence of Edgar Kennedy, who supplied him a pick-me-up drink after he returned to his dressing room soaking moist from capturing a rain scene.) Most Tierney anecdotes are usually not so benign, which ensures that this e book is not going to be uninteresting. I’ve solely had time to skim the textual content however Kearns has dug deep and crafted a colourful account of the actor’s tumultuous life and profession.
This hefty (730-page) hardcover ought to fulfill any reader or researcher who has ever questioned in regards to the origin, execution, or extinction of a experience or attraction at Disneyland and the opposite Disney theme parks world wide. In addition to being the daughter of 1 Imagineer (Don Iwerks) and the granddaughter of one other (the pioneering Ub Iwerks), the creator spent six years educating herself to be able to make the epic documentary collection The Imagineering Story for Disney+. With assist from some professional colleagues she has produced a e book that I daresay is definitive.
Who precisely was Nell O’Day and why is there a whole e book dedicated to her? As the creator explains in his introduction, she was “one of the most multitalented performers in the history of entertainment. She was a singer, a dancer, a vaudevillian, an actress in four venues [stage, theatrical films, industrial films, television], a model, a daring equestrienne, a scenarist, a playwright, a magazine author and editor, and a ghost writer, all wrapped up in her 5-foot-3-inch 105-pound frame. And for almost four decades, she entertained millions of all ages in all walks of life, not only in America but also abroad.” McCord first admired her as Johnny Mack Brown’s unflinching, horse-riding main woman in his B Westerns of the Forties. Decades later, when he realized that fellow movie buff Robert McCay had turn into pleasant with O’Day and was prepared to share letters and conversations he’d had together with her, McCord set about researching her life. To say this outsized paperback e book is a labor of affection appears redundant. It will certainly function an introduction to an unsung veteran of present enterprise. In order to buy this e book it’s important to write to the creator HERE.
If you already personal a replica of this 2011 e book, which shortly went out of print, the authors and their writer have bent over backwards to make this revised version price your whereas, including numerous uncommon photographs and bettering the standard of some key photographs. It is a genuinely stunning e book in tribute to the platinum blonde star of the Thirties. One merchandise that’s by no means been seen earlier than, to my information, is a telegram from Howard Hughes to his lieutenant Noah Dietrich indicating how a lot he’s going to cost Irving Thalberg buy Harlow’s contract. (trace: it’s not as a lot as Hughes boasted it was.)