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This practical reference manual, with its precise, authentic instructions on how to speak in more than 100 dialects, has established itself as the most useful and comprehensive guide to accents available, now increased by a third in this revised printing. As before, the accents range from regional U.S. and British dialects to European accents that include, among others, the Germanic, Slavic and Romance Languages. Completing his around-the-world journey, the author then covers the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
The result of nearly 15 years of research, this comprehensive analysis of Boris Karloff’s life and career, incorporates criticism, in-depth production information, discussion of major cinematic themes and characters, and a look at the historical periods and events depicted in the films. Extensive biographical and career information is dovetailed with a discussion of the classic Hollywood era in order to examine Karloff’s overall contribution to American cinema. Each of Karloff’s horror films is examined at length, as well as his contributions to other media. Over 100 posters, portraits, film scenes and candid photos illustrate the text, and numerous contemporaries (Evelyn Karloff, Laurence Olivier, Henry Brandon, Ian Wolfe, Zita Johann, others) are quoted throughout.
In an American Film Institute poll in 2001, Psycho was voted the greatest thriller of all time. Its scenes and characters are among the most iconic in all cinema.
Alfred Hitchcock was prompted to make Psycho after seeing Clouzot's Les Diaboliques (1954), which took the thriller genre to a new level of shock-value. Not to be undone, Hitchcock adapted a pulp novel by Robert Bloch with a view to pulling off an unprecedented feat of audience manipulation.
The result was a triumph, the talk of the moviegoing world in 1960. But most of the talk, then and since, has been about the twist. In spite of the widespread acknowledgment of Hitchcock's and his collaborators' achievements on Psycho, its complexity and sophistication as cinema aren't fully appreciated.
In this book, Raymond Durgnat shows the extent of the achievement. In a meticulous analysis, he explores all the elements that make up this remarkable film. He also develops various lines of argument--about spectatorship, Hollywood narrative codes, psychoanalysis, editing and shot-composition, among other themes--that amount to a reinvention of cinema studies.
With more than 150 illustrations, A Long Hard Look at Psycho is likely to become the definitive book on its subject and an indispensible contribution to the study of Hitchcock.
Zombies are cautionary forms of humankind's most universally cherished ideal—life after death. Often ragged, unkempt, ill-spoken, rotting individuals, zombies (or the post-dead) seem socially awkward in comparison to the more popular and more aristocratic, undead, like Count Dracula and his peers. And so, the humble zombie remains, for the most part, unappreciated and unacknowledged—until now. No longer will films devoted to them be buried in the last pages of horror movie guides. The exhumation of zombie films from obscurity is accomplished in terrifying detail in The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia. The first exhaustive overview of the subject, this book evaluates over 200 movies from 16 countries over a 65-year period starting from the early 1930s. It mostly treats feature-length films, covering everything from large studio productions to backyard videography, but also touches on memorable episodes of television series and miscellaneous shorts. Lengthy entries point out interesting or innovative features of the zombie portrayal in each movie, while an introduction traces the evolution of the genre and interprets the broader significance of the zombie in contemporary Western mythology. Productions credits, a brief plot summary, and alternate titles accompany each entry.
