Nat Hinken is a figure who has always been with me, even if I didn’t always know his name. I’ve often recounted my childhood spent reveling in the joy of … Continue Reading King of the Half Hour: Nat Hiken and the Golden Age of TV Comedy
In 2016 author (and friend of the site) Jeremy Arnold would publish The Essentials: 52 Must-See Movies And Why They Matter, a fantastic crash course in the most important classic … Continue Reading 52 More Must-See Movies And Why They Matter
I’ve talked about how great Scott Eyman’s books are before. You might remember me waxing poetic about his amazing biography on John Wayne that turned this Wayne hater into someone … Continue Reading Book Review: Cary Grant – A Brilliant Disguise
There are many arguments made with regards to the greatest film year ever. Authors Stephen Farber and Michael McClellan are the latest to make the case that 1962 is one … Continue Reading Interview: Author Michael McClellan Talks New Book
I always enter into celebrity autobiographies with a fair bit of trepidation. I know getting information straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, is the best way when it … Continue Reading Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years
There’s a reason author Jeanine Basinger’s books are so thick: they’re filled with classic film knowledge and analysis you won’t find anywhere else. Whether it’s deconstructing star personas or the … Continue Reading The Movie Musical
There’s something inherently compelling about people who have died on-stage. The ultimate proof of dying for one’s art, so to speak. As authors Jeff Abraham and Burt Kearns lay out … Continue Reading The Show Won’t Go On
1939 turns 80 this year but should you read 1939: Hollywood’s Greatest Year in celebration?
Let’s look at the latest biography on the Queen, Olivia de Havilland!
One of the great fallacies about filmmaking is that it’s only recently that women have taken part in it. But as we’re seeing through the release of works like Be … Continue Reading The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick
The Chateau Marmont has never been one of Hollywood’s splashiest hotels. For a long while it was noted more for its infamy, being the place where comic John Belushi died. … Continue Reading The Castle on Sunset: Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont
Howard Hughes is one of the most enigmatic and, to this day, mysterious figures in Hollywood history. Much of his life remains mired in mystery and rumor, stories told in … Continue Reading Seduction: Sex, Lies and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood
It’s amazing how many interviews with classic era stars are finally being given the opportunity to engage with fans. It’s hard not to be jealous upon reading David Fantle and … Continue Reading Hollywood Heyday: 75 Candid Interviews with Golden Age Legends
It’s amazing to go to your local library and discover a biography you never knew existed; so it was that I pulled out Frank Castellucio and Alvin Walker’s The Other … Continue Reading The Other Side of Ethel Mertz: The Life Story of Vivian Vance
If you read my extensive interview with Michael Curtiz biographer, Alan K. Rode, then you know Curtiz was a director with a mania for filmmaking. The famed Hungarian helmer of … Continue Reading Book Review: Michael Curtiz – A Life in Film
With a wealth of biographies out there it’s often difficult to differentiate yourself from the herd by finding someone new to say. A figure like Alfred Hitchcock, outside of being … Continue Reading Alfred Hitchcock
