Directors Books

In 1995, the Gaumont Company celebrated its Centennial Anniversary as one of the oldest existing film producers in the world. This work covers Gaumont's humble beginnings as a producer of films used only to sell the cameras and projectors the company manufactured, all the way to 1994 and the release of the big budget opera film, "Carmen".

Gaumont and Company should be known for many things, but is often overlooked as a footnote in film history. The founder, Leon Gaumont (1864-1946) was an engineer of equal stature with the Lumiere Brothers, Gustave Eiffel, and Georges Demeney. He pursued patents for synchronized sound on film, three-color film processes, and the development of the modern film projector.

His innovation included employment of the world's first female film director, his secretary Alice Guy. His only business rival on the world scene before the advent of Hollywood was the great Charles Pathe himself. His studios employed the likes of Abel Gance, Leonce Perret, Emile Cohl, and Alfred Hitchcock. Gaumont newsreels were preeminent in their field.

Most people who know silent film will recognize film titles like Louis Feuillade's "Judex", "Les Vampires", and "Fantomas". These were all mainstays of this studio, but in today's France, the name is evident above many cinema theatre marquees as a place to see and experience film. Gaumont is also the name above the title in many recent block-buster's like "Highlander" and "Leon".

This book details the considerable financial up's and downs of an innovative and historic manufacturer, producer, distributor, and cultivator of film. "Here, in a lively text and vivid illustrations, is the history of Gaumont, the oldest movie company in the world".

I've read two other seminal books on the Manhattan Project and General Leslie Groves: "Now It Can Be Told : The Story of the Manhattan Project" by Leslie R. Groves and the Pulitzer Prize winner "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes. William Lawren's biography is a personal and intimate look at General Groves in ways lacking in these other two fine books. Groves is a master at sizing up people and situations, deciding on change, and finding the right people to put in charge. While Robert Oppenheimer may have been Groves' most conspicuous choice during the Manhattan Project, he made dozens of other quality people and organizational decisions and adjustments along the way. Groves' people moved at Internet speed before there was such a thing. He practiced high touch before there was email or cell phones. He anticipated cultural clashes especially between the command and control military and collegiate scientists, and dealt with it. Consequently, Groves' staff understood his expectation that the scientists' care and well being were their highest priority even though the scientists disdained their military sponsors.

Groves was not easily intimated or bamboozled by title or genius. In fact, he seemed to have the greatest respect for non-scientist engineers who got things done quickly, competently and with a practical efficiency. If the scientists had their way...and I respect them...nothing would have been built of any consequences. Groves recognized the need to bring in engineering talent early, even before the scientific solutions were determined. And he convinced DuPont and other engineering firms to take on this project despite the risks and unknowns.
I found this to be a great story of leadership and practical management. In fact Groves didn't even want the job and initially thought it had little chance for success. I came away enormously impressed by Groves' energy, determination and focus. Too bad this book is no longer in print...it beats 99% of the management books out there today.

I bought it used through Amazon.

Beautifully written, the book grips you from the first page and leaves you wishing for more when you reach the last page. I don't remember reading a more complex and intricate account of the world of theater and film -- fiction or non-fiction -- than this book. I wholeheartedly recommend it to any serious reader. Robert Littell

George Cukor is another Hollywood director with a reputation for claiming the status of craftsman, not artist, for himself, but he's far more forthcoming than Ford in the George Cukor Interviews book, edited by Robert Emmet Long. If Ford's pose was curmudgeonly and ultimately bitter, Cukor's is witty, self-deprecating, and pragmatic. Told of Cahiers du Cinema's analyses of his films, he says "I'm very amused reading these very nice articles about my work." Asked about his firing from Gone with the Wind, he replies, "I have never wasted time regretting setbacks of this kind; I am too much a fatalist, or perhaps just too conceited for that. I have always felt that if I couldn't make one picture I would just make another." Cukor proves himself an incisive judge of other people's work. He sardonically laments Lawrence of Arabia's narrative slackness: "I didn't know what their point was. It was lost in all those surging masses." Generally he's as respectful of actors in his comments as he is in his films, though he bristled at being called a "woman's director." "That one stuck with me regardless of my other attributes. And I, supine fool that I was, said `Yes, yes, I am.' Now that I'm older, I say `What the hell do you mean?'" Asked what drives him, he replies, "the irrepressible urge to tell people what to do." Included in both the Ford and Cukor volumes are a chronology, a filmography, an index, and a photo gallery.

I really enjoy this book. George Lucas's work had a profound effect on me, and this book helped me understand more about the man behind the movie magic; not just how he accomplished what he has.

Commercial radio was more than entertainment for kids growing up in the '50s, '60s & '70s. It was a lifeline to everything cool - a chance for kids living "in the sticks" to keep up to date on what was hot and what was not. Before Cousin Brucie, Wolfman Jack & John "Records" Landecker, there was Gordon McLendon. His claim to fame was re-creating sporting events, in many cases, making games more exciting than the real thing. McLendon was lucky and good. His was a simple formula long before broadcasters thought in such terms. He believed in the total package of music, personality and promotion (not necessarily in that order). Mr. Garay does an amazing job of retracing "The Old Scotsman's" impact on the industry good and bad (like the All Want-Ad format). McLendon was one of the most influential people in radio at a time when it was making the transition from true "broad"casting in to the early stages of what's known as "narrow"casting. Sadly, there are few books devoted to radio's pioneers. Garay's work, which comes across as a labor of love, is the standard for which all other broadcast history books should strive to attain.

This book is an impressive collection of 23 in-depth articles from such leading journals as the Academy of Management Review and the Administrative Science Quarterly. The book opens with an introductory essay, "Boards of Directors: Composition, Dynamics, and Effects."

The 23 contributions are clustered into four sections:
1. Determinants of board composition and board dynamics;
2. Board of directors characteristics and decision making
3. Board of directors characteristics and organizational performance; and
4. Board of directors characteristics and CEO compensation.

These articles present an enormous amount of research findings, presented in considerable detail. The volume provides a wealth of information for academicians, researchers, and practitioners seeking research-based empirical findings and conclusions. This is an extremely impressive, scholarly collection. Highly recommended.

I'm on the board of a local non-profit (a community theatre). After reading this book, I realize that I shouldn't be on the board at all. I should be somewhere down the chain of command at an operating level. I don't do the things that boards should do. I'm passing this book up to the chairman of the board with the recommendation that he kick most of the present board members off the board and replace us with people that can provide the kind of direction that a non-profit needs.

This little book only takes about an hour to read, but it is filled with more information than I've gotten in several years of actually being on the board. What he says makes such good sense. I can see that what he says is exactly what we need the board to do. I'm going to press for a change in our organization so that I'll run the theater, but leave the board to people with a different set of skills. I wish I had seen this book a few years ago.

Eric Daniels new book The Greatest People I Never Knew is the compilation of thirteen essays about people he cared for in his funeral service. It unveils how one seasoned funeral director is still learning about life through caring for the dead and the living.

From the vibrant 13-year old boy, who died several hours after his grandmother's funeral to the tax collector a whole town loved, Daniels chronicles his encounters with the recently bereaved. From a Loudon sawmillowner, readers learn of a man that lived by his greatest virtue, honesty.
Alan C. Minery was notorious for giving extra pieces of lumber to clients, stating, "just in case a piece or two weren't quite right." This is how Mr. Minery is remembered and this is how Daniels and the readers meet him, through a profound remembrance of honesty and kindness.

Daniels says that the book to him exemplifies Mark Twains? belief that people should "endeavor so to live that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry." I agree!

"The Griffith Project" is an ongoing series that aims to provide "a systematic analysis of all the films in which [D.W.] Griffith was involved, from his debut as performer in PROFESSIONAL JEALOUSY (1907) to THE STRUGGLE (1931), his last feature."

Detailed information is presented for each film: credits, plot synopsis, excerpts from contemporary sources, and expert commentary. While clearly aimed at a scholarly audience, the language is completely accessible and laypeople should not find the material intimidating. Indeed, anyone with an abiding interest in Griffith will be captivated by this series. Just about the only deficiency is the lack of screenshots, though I understand that an entire volume may be devoted to these at the close of the series.

Contributing to Volume 5 are Paolo Cherchi Usai, Richard Abel, Eileen Bowser, Ben Brewster, Tom Gunning, Steven Higgins, Lea Jacobs, J.B. Kaufman, Charlie Keil, David Mayer, Russell Merritt, Scott Simmon and Kristin Thompson.

Films covered in Volume 5 are Fisher Folks, His Daughter, Heart of a Savage, Conscience, Was He a Coward?, Teaching Dad to Like Her, Lonedale Operator, Spanish Gypsy, Broken Cross, Chief's Daughter, Knight of the Road, Madame Rex, His Mother's Scarf, How She Triumphed, Two Sides, In the Days of '49, Enoch Arden (parts 1 & 2), New Dress, White Rose of the Wilds, Romany Tragedy, Crooked Road, Smile of a Child, Primal Call, Jealous Husband, Indian Brothers, Her Sacrifice, Thief and the Girl, Blind Princess and the Poet, Fighting Blood, Last Drop of Water, Bobby the Coward, Country Cupid, Out from the Shadow, Sorrowful Example, Ruling Passion, Rose of Kentucky, Stuff Heroes Are Made Of, Swords and Hearts, Dan the Dandy, Squaw's Love, Revenue Man and the Girl, Eternal Mother, Italian Blood, Old Confectioner's Mistake, Making of a Man, Her Awakening, Unveiling, Adventures of Billy, Long Road, Battle, Love in the Hills, Trail of Books, Through Darkened Vales, Woman Scorned, Miser's Heart, Failure, Sunshine Through the Dark, As in a Looking Glass, Saved from Himself, Terrible Discovery, Tale of the Wilderness, Baby and the Stork, Voice of the Child, For His Son, Old Bookkeeper, Sister's Love, Billy's Stratagem, Blot in the 'Scutcheon, Transformation of Mike, Root of Evil, Sunbeam, String of Pearls.