Art History Books

Lots of good pictures and stories behind the filming of the show. If you are a fan of Andy Griffith, you can't go wrong with this book.

I've never seen such a great Mayberry book before!! It has many wonderful pictures, and tons of great history. I read this straight for around 3-4 hours, and it has great memories or the actors reminiscing... Ah, well, it's worth buying for the price, this book is worth it!! Very high quality.

I recently bought this book for my grandparents. It was such a joy to sit and watch them remember back on all the episodes they had watched. If you were a fan of the Andy Grifith show this is a must buy for you

This a very unique book on a unique show. It is not the usual Ken Beck and Jim Clark quote book with quotes taken directly from the show or text describing the characters or episodes. The text briefly describes each season and the rest of the book is filled with photos and quotes from the actors (many bit players), writers, producers, etc. The quotes range from talking about certain actors or scenes to behind-the-scenes tidbits and general feelings about The Andy Griffith Show. It reads like a scrapbook. Many of the photos I have not seen in any other TAGS book. There are a lot of behind-the-scenes photos. Some of my favorites show the cameramen, lights, and equipment as scenes were being filmed. There is also a cool aerial shot of the set of the Forty Acres lot in Culver City that was used for downtown Mayberry (p. 44). I also like the photos of TAGS memorabilia (TV Guide and comic book covers). The photos start with early publicity and scene shots from the pilot episode on The Danny Thomas Show and go on through all 8 seasons of TAGS, ending with photos and quotes on the spin-offs Gomer Pyle USMC, Mayberry RFD, and the 1986 reunion Return to Mayberry. Many people are quoted, but some of them include producer Sheldon Leonard, assistant producer Ronald Jacobs, music director Earl Hagen, Rance Howard, writer Jack Elinson, producer Aaron Ruben, Elinor Donahue, Margaret Kerry-Wilcox (played Bess Muggins and Helen Scobey), Joy Ellison (played Mary Wiggins, Opie's choice for Miss Mayberry), members of The Country Boys, Kit McNear (Howard McNear's son), James Best, Renee Aubry (choir member), Don Knotts, Julie Adams and Sue Ane Langdon (both nurse Mary Simpson), writer Harvey Bullock, Keith Thibodeaux (Johnny Paul), Jim Nabors, Jack Prince (Rafe Hollister), members of The Dillards (The Darlings) Mitch Jayne, Dean Webb, Rodney Dillard, Doug Dillard, their on-screen sister Maggie Peterson (Charlene), Bernard Fox (Malcolm Merriweather), Howard Morris (director as well as Ernest T Bass), director Earl Bellamy, Ron Howard, Clint Howard (Leon), Mary Grace Canfield (Mary Grace Gossage), George Lindsey, Betty Lynn, Hal Smith (on riding a cow), George Spence who was Frank the boyfriend in "Guest in the House" (there is an entire page on his memories of the show), Dennis Rush (played one of Opies pals, Howie Pruitt/Williams), Ruta Lee, Jack Dodson, Ken Berry, Paul Hartman's grandson Bill (one of my favorite quotes. He talks about how fans sent his grandfather Emmett radios and toasters to fix), Jack Dodson's widow Mary, associate producer Richard O. Linke, Arlene Gonlonka (Millie). Not an exhaustive list, but you get the idea. The quotes are all very positive. No bitterness in Mayberry.

My only qualm about the book is the lack of coverage of one of my favorite, and greatly unappreciated, characters Warren Ferguson. No Jack Burns quotes, I guess that is understandable. But beneath one of only three photos of him is the sarcastic caption: "Andy hires Floyd's nephew Warren Ferguson as Mayberry's new deputy, `know what I mean, huh-huh-huh?' (Please don't get him or us started)." Not keeping with the Mayberry spirit, in my opinion. Oh well, you can't have it all, I guess. The book ends with a very useful episode guide that includes a synopsis of each episode (some even include some extra tidbits or trivia) and guest characters with cast credits. It is an excellent addition to any TAGS fan's collection.

An excellent book and well put together. You will find amazing photographs of all the characters in the cast...and then some. One of the most interesting photos, in this book, is one of an ariel view of the Mayberry Town near Culver City, California. An actual town within a town.

I have read other books and also found them interesting with regard to the Andy Griffith show, but it was great to see all the pictures and read the personal comments of the stars and the people behind the scenes.

I believe that anyone , like myself, who really loved the show will enjoy this a great deal. Well done. This was one of my all time favorites shows and this book shows a lot of the people who made it such a great series.

Martin Lemelman has created a beautiful memoir, with his mother's voice speaking to the reader (you can hear her adorable accent!) and tender drawings that recreate her life as a young Jewish girl in Ukraine, a life that was torn apart by Nazi invasion.

I almost left this book on the shelf because - sometimes you don't want to hear another story like this. But one look at the pictures and I had to read it. I could see this book would not be like any graphic novel or any holocaust novel that I read before.

Somehow you finish this book, despite the story, feeling unexpectedly happy. Why is that when there is so much sadness, when you expect only grief or rage? Well, on every page you can feel Lemelman's love for his mother and you just feel happy that this beautiful book was made for her, and that her story is shared with us.

By the way, I was reading to see whether I might share this book with young people. If you find yourself beginning to approach the story of the Holocaust, I definitely recommend Mendel's Daughter.

Our book club read this wonderful book and everyone agreed (which was a miracle) that it was an amazing experience. From the lovely illustrations to "hearing" Gusta's voice, it was a totally memorable read. The author, Martin Lemelman, accepted our invitation to speak to our book club and he added even so much more to this story. His gentle manner was in direct contrast to the horrors of the stories he told us. Reading the book then having Martin speak to us about researching and writing it, was a definite highlight for all of us.

As an Interviewer for Steven Spielberg's Survivors of the Shoah Foundation, I have heard many moving testimonies, but Mendel's Daughter: A Memoir touched a raw nerve. Through his drawings, Lemelman was able to convey not only his mother's story, but his emotional reaction to it as well.

I picked up Martin Lemelman's book, "Mendel's Daughter," and did not put it down until I had read through to the last page. The story is familiar, yet new--a testimony to the spirit, faith, and tenacity of those who did whatever they could, whatever they had to do to survive the atrocities of the Holocaust. Yet it is much more than a tale of survival or an account of the fate of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis. It is a touching, poignant story of a family that although divided by circumstances, remains whole and committed to surviving, supporting each other, reuniting, and, throughout, holding tight to their beliefs and traditions. The beautiful artwork that pictorially weaves this tale brings the characters to life, and the reader cannot help but feel their pain and anguish, their struggle to survive, their love and their joy. The drawings, the photographs, and the text of "Mendel's Daughter" all combine to create a timeless memorial to a family, a people, and a period in our history that must never be forgotten or dismissed.

MENDEL'S DAUGHTER details the harrowing story of Martin Lemelman's mother and her family during the Holocaust. It is a story that Lemelman grew up knowing very little of. But in 1989, after his mother, Gusta, dropped a frozen chicken on her foot (causing it to be broken), Lemelman brought her to stay at his house in Pennsylvania. In part to curtail her efforts to do all of the cooking and cleaning at his house with her broken foot, and in part to have a family history that he would be able to pass along to his own children, Lemelman persuaded his mother to finally share her story. He wisely videotaped her. After her death a decade ago, he watched the recording, edited the story Gusta related by reorganizing it chronologically and augmenting her accounts with those of his Uncle Isia, who also survived. He then illustrated it with hundreds of drawings interspersed with actual documents and some little black and white photos his mother had saved from her childhood.

Gusta Mendel grew up in a prosperous and well-regarded Jewish family in a portion of Poland that is now part of the Ukraine. This was a region that during World War II was invaded first by the Communists and then by the Nazis. We know from the outset of this memoir that this is a story of survival, that Gusta made it through the Holocaust. Following the historical and personal events that are depicted in this book, Gusta would eventually come to America and, with her husband, raise Lemelman and his brother in the back of their Brooklyn candy store.

The rest of the Mendel family was murdered by the Nazis, but Gusta, Isia, Yetala, and another sibling, Simon, lived. The four siblings survived in the woods through two winters, digging themselves a series of underground shelters, burying the potatoes and sugarbeets they'd steal from fields in the middle of the night, and getting some help from a few people who were sympathetic to their plight.

"For us, the war ended in March-April 1944.
"Who could believe that the German army coming back to Germakivka would be the beginning of our liberation? This time, thanks God, they was coming from the East, running away from Russia."

The result of Lemelman's labor of love is the real deal: an illustrated memoir which, while technically published as an adult book, will be incredibly approachable, engaging, and memorable to middle school and high school age readers.

This has many unique images not found in a host of books available and reviewed on Amazon. One of my favorite paintings, one I haven't seen anywhere is of several Mermaids knitting! They're knitting their fishtales! It's a cleverly, sweet image. A fun book full of whimsy for those who thirst for Mermaidenry.

This book was worth the wait! Great pictures and captivating writing. My coffee table was waiting for this work of art. You will not be disappointed in this book.

I bought this book because of all the great reviews and because I desperately wanted good mermaid art. While the book itself is very creative and cool, a lot of the art disappointed me. I was led to believe that the art in this book was beautiful and rare, so you can imagine how infuriated I was to discover that most of the art was either ugly old sculptures or beautiful paintings that I already had in other books! I spent sixty-two dollars on this sucker, and I personally don't think it was worth half that amount. Don't get me wrong; it's not a bad book perse, it's just not the extraordinary work of art I thought it would be. And don't be fooled: most of the paintings in this book are NOT rare. You can find most of them in "Mermaids: Sirens of the Sea", or "Mermaids: Magical Beings" for much better prices. If you can find this particular book for a REASONABLE price, than I definitely recommend it. Just don't make the same mistake I did and spend a ridiculously HUGE amount of money on it.

I ordered this book sight unseen because of the 5 star reviews. They were right, it's a great book.

I COLLECT MERMAIDS AND THIS BOOK IS MY FAVORITE OF ALL THE MERMAID BOOKS I OWN. WHEN I FOUND IT ONLINE IT WAS SO AFFORDABLE I BOUGHT 2. GREAT GIFT IDEA!!

I've read the reviews and I've seen the pictures of this book in sales and review sites, but, believe me, none of this can prepare you for the thrill of holding this huge work in your hands (if you're strong enough). Seeing the incredible layout of, say, the Sistine Chapel frescos in close up views that very few, if any people have seen before is something you're never going to forget.

The facial expressions, the fine details, in both the paintings and the sculptures of Michelangelo, are seen throughout the book in a way only one standing within inches of the work could see. And the result is incredible and inspiring.

The amazing overall quality of the book makes the retail price, let alone a reduced price, seem like a real bargain! All art lovers owe it to themselves to BUY this BOOK!

This is a magnificently made book, but it suffers from a serious problem... Michelangelo's frescos have been ruined by "restorers" who crudely stripped off his glazes and ineptly repainted them with candy colors. So the book does a phenomenal job of documenting what's left of them, but I wish they had gotten there a couple of decades ago! Aside from that, the sculptures, drawings, etc. look great.
If you want to find a good, inexpensive book that actually has nice photos of the pre-restored paintings, try Michelangelo: Sculptor, Painter, Architect by Charles Sala. You can really see the difference--THAT WASN'T DIRT, YOU MORONS!! THAT WAS PAINT!!!!!

Amazon was prompt in getting this product to me, and when it arrived the first thing I was impressed with was the size. Upon reading the book I found the quality of the images to be very high, and the text informative. It has certainly inspired me to see these wonderful works of art in person!

"Beautiful" describes this book. The content of the book -as little as I could read at the first browsing- is profound, yet accessible and understandable for the amateur.

The printing of the book is astounding in respect to size and quality of the paper and printing. The spreads are impecable. It is worth noting that two different types of paper were used in the book. The first section is high quality brilliant couche, while the second part (the one that reffers to the catalogs) is on a different kind. This detail adds to the quality of the book.

Highly recommended. Great value for the price.

This book is utterly magnificent, from the photography to the stunning paper and print quality.....we LOVE this book! The art simply pops off the page.

Widely covered mid-century master pieces by famous designers. If you are interested in vintage furnitures, this would be your great guide.

Excellent text as well as photos. It has been a collector's reference for me for years now.
Highly recommended.

My sister has just bought a 1950's ranch home with some original features. I was hoping this book would help celebrate the house and give some ideas as to decor. Instead, it is a good overview of the furniture designers who influenced the furniture of the time. It's nice, but not what I was looking for, which was the physical living space/furnishings of the middle class of the 50's.

Not that it ever really went away, but it appears that the GEN-X crowd is interesting in filling their lofts, condos, etc. with a touch of class and history. Those in the design know have always favored the elements of design that existed in the 50's and 60's, like they say good design is truly timeless. It would have been nice to see more coverage on DUNBAR and Edward Wormley.

This is a great book - buy it!

This is a wonderful coffee table book, a joy to browse through. It is profusely illustrated and contains a wealth of information.
If you like modern design I also suggest to visit the wonderful online archive about George Nelson at WWW.GEORGENELSON.ORG and also the museum archive from Verner Panton at WWW.VERNERPANTON.COM

Who would have ever thought that the birth, evolution and eventual demise of comedy teams would present an insight into America's changing psyche? Author Lawrence Epstein did and we have him to thank for this interesting, insightful book on some of the most famous names in American entertainment including Weber & Fields, Burns & Allen, the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, Abbott & Costello and Martin & Lewis.

Epstein's book is sub-titled 'America's love affair with comedy teams,' an appropriate heading since the American audience embraced each of the various comedy teams in turn, loving them for what they brought to the public and then moving on to the next, new funnymen. Most people probably never bothered to rationalize WHY they enjoyed a particular comedy team; they just enjoyed the laughter of the moment. Luckily for us Epstein's probing insights help reveal much about why, for instance, Abbott and Costello was just what America needed during World War II. It's fascinating stuff but you also get to laugh along the way as Epstein includes some of the classic comedy lines and routines from the teams.

A good read!

Though the subtitle suggests that great comedy teams lasted at least into the 70s-80s and the cover's inclusion of a couple characters from Friends would suggest they lasted in the 90s-00s, the reality is that they were pretty much through by the end of the 50s, but what a run they had. Though the heyday of the teams came in vaudeville, Golden Age movies, and early television, those of us in the Baby Boom generation -- especially those of us born later on, who grew up with television -- were probably more thoroughly exposed than any other demographic group and seem most likely to love this book. We got to watch The Little Rascals, Three Stooges, I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, and even Amos 'n Andy in syndication every afternoon when we got home from school. Abbot and Costello was a Sunday morning staple and Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, and Hope and Crosby's Road movies made perfect cheap filler for non-network broadcast stations. There were enough variety shows still going that older teams and solo comedians would still show up from time to time. We may not have gotten all the jokes, but we spent an awful lot of time laughing at their varied antics. In Mixed Nuts Lawrence J. Epstein treats us not just to a history of these acts but a sociological dissertation on American humor. The anecdote and joke-filled history, though brisk and though it extends several decades too far, is informative and fun, but it's the context he adds that makes the book fascinating.



No one will agree with all his analyses, and sometimes he's obviously reaching in order to give comedy acts a significance they just don't warrant, but the text is so rich in ideas and so thought-provoking that the few misfires are easily forgiven. Consider, for example, this discussion of George Burns and Gracie Allen:
[C]omic timing was a crucial part of their professional craft. In comedy, the straight man's "timing" refers to his ability to wait to speak until the laughter has peaked, receded, and finally stopped so that audiences can hear the next line, but not wait for so long after it has stopped that audiences might get confused or bored. The comic's timing refers to the response after the straight man has finished a line. The term "beat" is used to measure the pause between lines, and it and the "pace," or speed of the delivery, had to be perfect. The comic in the team needed an appropriate appearance and funny lines. Both the straight man and the comic needed rhythm.



Burns and Allen were experts at all of this. They knew which words to emphasize. They learned to control their voices. The staccato rhythm of their delivery was perfect. Other performers would have spoken too slowly or too fast or fallen out of the rhythm, which had to be maintained with each line and each silence. They even used pauses well. Gracie would giggle, an infectious sound and a prompt for even further audience laughter. George's repetition of much of the material was also crucial to the pacing, allowing the audience to grasp the premise precisely and be set up by George for the line to follow. It was impossible for Burns to be a comedian in such a structure. Any joke he interjected would break the patented Burns and Allen patter.
Note how deftly he establishes the general concepts he'll need throughout the book, but illustrates with a specific team, describing what made them masters of the form.



Likewise, here he discusses an irony that I've always found especially delicious, that two of the most conservative men in Hollywood politically were also the great innovators of post-modernism, years before academics and intellectuals imagined they were inventing a new phenomena:
Beyond creating an alternative to classic teams, Hope and Crosby signaled the decline of the traditional comedy team in two ways. First, they helped erase the line between the two worlds created by classic comedy teams. They developed the fourth and final model of the relationship between reality and the comic world created by teams, which negated the three previous models developed by Burns and Allen, Laurel and Hardy, and Abbott and Costello. In this new model, there was no necessity for one member of a team to have a tenuous hold on reality while another character brought the team back to the real world, or for the team to create a fantasy world in which the team members banded together to overcome a strange, hostile reality represented by an outside straight man, or a team in which a straight man represented a tricky world seeking to con us.



Hope and Crosby developed a realistic humor that mocked the illusory world their movie producers had arranged for them. [...]



[I]f you didn't take the real world too seriously there was no great need to create a fantasy comic world. Such an approach required a lack of sentimentality, an ability to avoid so strong an attachment to any person or place that you couldn't face the inevitable disappointments inherent in those people and places.
The earlier portion of that is bang on, but by the end seems quite wrong. Rather it is precisely because we are realistic about the inevitability of being disappointed by people and places that we can find the disappointments comic when they come, rather than tragic. Therein lies the secret to the notion that all comedy is conservative.



Let's end with one more, a look at Ralph Kramden that let's us see The Honeymooners in an almost religious context:
The character goes through a transformation in each show -- but then returns to his old form for the next show, only to be transformed again. Audiences wanted to see that transformation -- that change from the angry loser, the guy with a thousand get-rich ideas that all fail, that yells at his wife and his neighbor, that never seems to get ahead -- to the Chaplin-like, sad and sympathetic soul who is touched by love and, in Gleason's view, by grace and somehow finds the means to express it. As an episode was about to close, he often gazed lovingly at his wife and said, "Alice, you're the greatest."



Audiences saw in Ralph's transformation hopes for redemption in their own marriages and lives.
That's good stuff. Even if you disagree you're forced to grapple with what you think is wrong about it, an edifying exercise in itself. I suspect though that as you read you'll find more you agree with than disagree, and while it would have been better to end the story before we get to the point of considering Rowan and Martin and Cheech and Chong to be peers of the greats, all of it worthwhile.

Mixed Nuts: America's Love Affair With Comedy Teams From Burns And Allen to Belushi and Aykroyd isn't the typical biography of a single comedy act but an all-embracing set of memoirs of America's love affair with comedy teams as a whole, from Belushi and Aykroyd to Burns and Allen. Analyses include portraits of rises and falls in popularity, departures from traditional comedy team norms, the changing world of comedy as it moved from stage to the big screen, and more. Author Lawrence Epstein is an English professor who frequently lectures on popular culture, with Mixed Nuts bringing a scholarly, yet accessible, atmosphere to a fine history of American comedy interests.

If you're a Baby Boomer like I am you have been exposed to just about all of it. When we were growing up in the 1950's and 1960's the George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy and of course The Three Stooges were all staples on TV. In the early 1970's, the antics of Groucho, Harpo and Chico enjoyed a remarkable revival and at colleges and universities all over America Marx Brothers film festivals were all the rage. We enjoyed the antics of Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance and lived through the controversary surrounding the Smothers Brothers. And we howled at the comic genius of John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd. That is why I was so excited when I came across "Mixed Nuts".
Lawrence Epstein has succeeded in chronicling the history of comedy teams in his exciting new book. I enjoyed it from cover to cover. Epstein tells the remarkable story of comedy teams from their earliest days in vaudeville. He introduces us to names we probably never heard of but who were nonethless influential in the history of team comedy. He cleverly intersperses bits of some of the classic routines into his narrative. And he attempts to explain the political, social and cultural reasons why certain acts were wildly popular while most others fell by the wayside. It is quite obvious that Epstein is a big fan of comedy teams. And in the end, he offers reasons why they have all but disappeared from the American scene. Whatever your age, you are sure to enjoy this informative and extremely well written book. Highly recommended.

The Smother Brothers were one of the most important influences on me in my formative years. By the time I was in the sixth grade I had all of their albums and the last television show I watched before we flew to Japan to live there for several years was "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour." I went to school proudly wearing my "Mom always like you best" button and still have my autographed photographs of Tom and Dick. Not only did I learn all of their routines and to sing both parts of their arrangements, but from the Brothers Smothers I got my love of satire, parody, political humor, folk song, and two-part harmony. I even got to tell this to Tommy Smothers once upon a time when I ran into him in a Minneapolis hotel and was able to inform him of his personal responsibility in making me the person I am today.

Of all of the comedy teams discussed in "Mixed Nuts: America's Love Affair and Comedy Teams from Bruns and Allen to Belushi and Aykroyd," the Smothers Brothers are the only ones still performing. I saw them perform just this summer and their opening number is entitled "We're Still Here." In this book Lawrence J. Epstein looks at the great American comedy teams of the 20th century. Epstein started off his research for this book in order to explore why the classic comedy teams disappeared and ended up advancing the idea that the importance of these comedians was in how they helped American survive the trying times in which they lived. The author of "The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Comedians in America," Epstein obviously takes comedy seriously.

The focus here is primarily on the great comedians of the movies, with chapters being devoted to Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, Hope and Crosby, the Three Stooges, and Martin and Lewis. However, the volume begins with Burns and Allen playing the Palace for the first time and by the time television replaces the movies in the 1950s and 1960s, Burns and Allen are on television. In between a lot of things have changed, and there are chapters devoted to particular mediums (e.g., radio) and decades (e.g., 1930). With television forcing comedians to be funny every single week we have a move towards ensemble comedy. At the heart of "I Love Lucy" and "The Honeymooners" you will find Lucy & Ethel and Ralph & Norton, but Ball and Gleason do routines with other cast members and guest stars as well. Eventually we get to the ensemble casts of classic situation comedies from "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "All in the Family" to "M*A*S*H" and "Friends."

However, you need to be forewarned that just like the real things, "Mixed Nuts" is going to leave you wanting more. You cannot toss in "The Password" routine from "Horse Feathers" and not immediately thinking about other choice verbal duels between Groucho and Chico Marx. Fortunately Epstein includes the entire "Who's on First" routine as performed in "The Naughty Nineties" or I would have had to take the book and throw it against the wall. But while Epstein does revisit several of the best-loved comedy routines from the previous century, that is only part of his purpose here. He also wants to look at the personal stories on how these groups came together, and how each team was shaped and were shaped by their respective eras. So be prepared to be tantalized by those snippets of favorite routines and wish for there to be much, much more. For the Smothers Brothers we get their short little "Moron" routine, but nothing about their masterpieces, like the way they took "I Talk to the Trees" over the years to the point where they got laughs when Tommy did not come in or the way they they can milk Dick's glare for multiple laughs in "Cuando Caliente el Sol."

In the end the key thing is that Epstein makes the case for his thesis. Weaving in lesser known comedy teams, from Gallagher & Sheen and Amos & Andy to Nicholas & May and Rowan & Martin, is more important than providing a comprehensive look at any given team. Epstein wants to define the uniqueness of each group and establish their place in the era they helped to define. Besides, there are plenty of books out there about the Marx Brothers and the cast of "Saturday Night Live," and if Epstein wants to leave the door open for somebody else to write a definitive history about the lives and comedy of the Smothers Brothers, I am certainly not going to be complaining on that score. Epstein is justified in keeping "Mixed Nuts" lean, because that way his thesis is not lost in the laughter. Now, you have to excuse me because I suddenly need to watch "A Night at the Opera" again.

I bought this book for the library where I am a reference libarian as soon as I saw it, and it is worth every cent of the purchase price.

Now I have the title on my wish list, and I have hinted strongly to certain offspring that this book would certainly make a wonderful Mother's Day present!

I purchased this book for my Sister-in-law, who is a film historian. She absolutely loved it. The artwork is fantastic....almost worth buying two copies so that you can remove and frame some pages.

This is a beautifully illustrated book if you are at all interested in old movie posters and the people who created some of them.

I was very interested in this book since my cousin, Jane Powell was one of he authors. I have to say I was very impressed and actually surprised about beautiful the book turned out. Anyone with an interest in movies will find the art of the posters interesting.

This book is a must-have for movie buffs, but I was bowled over by the beauty of the art. From the spectacular Batiste Madelena cover of Rudolph Valentino through dozens of creative renditions of original old-time movie posters, to the back cover depictions of Gloria Swanson, Norma Shearer, Walter Huston and Boris Karloff, the artistry of these unsung craftsmen is dazzling. "Now Playing" is now prominently displayed on the coffee table in our living room.

British film historian Christopher Frayling comes through with another book about the great, polarizing Italian director Sergio Leone.

This book is medium on actual reading material but heavy on pictures- big, colorful, beautiful reproductions of film posters from the last 40 years. It only covers Leone's five Spaghetti Westerns (or Italian Westerns) that he directed, extensively. It briefly mentions the one he produced. Any true fan of Leone's Man with No Name trilogy will love this book.

If you are a big Sergio Leone fan, please read Frayling's masterful biography of him, "Something to Do with Death," available on Amazon.

Now, the nerd aspect: You may not want to pay for this book unless you actually understand movies. Frayling knows enough to interview people like the Director of Photography, but most Americans don't even know what that means. If you can name Leone's famous Production Designer, this is definitely the book for you.

Also, it is a joy to hear what went into "Once Upon a Time in the West," the finest Italian Western ever made and Leone's only true masterpiece.

Really good purchase for S.Leone estimators.Interesting pages about behind the scene and some funny screenshots from the set.

Highly recommended for fans. DVD owners will recognise Frayling as the man who provides some history & comments on the DVDs. The book contains interviews with actors, crews and later directors who were influenced by Leone. Also lots of posters (those days they were artwork) from different countries, production sketches & photos.

Note that this book concentrates on Leone's spaghetti westerns with only brief mentions of his other movies so it is not an autobiography. FYI, his first few movies were sword and sandals stuff.

In general, this is like the bonus materials of the DVDs but in a gorgeously printed format.

A great book for anyone who loves Sergio Leone, the true master of the spaghetti western and his great characters. I liked learning about my favorite The Man With No Name and Clint Eastwood the actor who portrayed him. Plus the other great characters he created like Tuco, Eli Wallach, and Colonel Morterimer, Lee Van Cleef.
It was very interesting to see how he put his heart and soul into his movies, and how a man from Italy gave us the most realistic view of America's most remarkable time, the old west.

This book is like an encyclopedia of Leone's Italian westerns. The detail on each film is exceptionable, and Frayling writes in a style that always keeps your interest. The research that went into this book must have taken years. Thanks for filling us in with all the behind the scenes material. Excellent job!

In this another excellent work from John Poole, the author has chosen to examine the moral aspects of good soldiering by focusing on their application on a tactical level (although his suggestions might be equally well applied on the strategic level.) Don't be mistaken, however. This is not simply a theological tract. The author, a Roman Catholic, probably has more first hand knowledge of good solid tactics than any other "expert" going. He knows how to kill another man, another unit, and/or another tank. His interest, however, is in the proper aim of maneuver warfare: winning the war with an eye on what Liddell-Hart called "a better peace."

It's been over twenty years since the U.S. military formally outlined their emphasis on maneuver warfare (hastily summed up as "achieving our objective(s)") rather than attrition (again, hastily summed up as "destroying the enemy"), and yet our forces still seem bogged down in no-win attrition style wars. Were they to pay closer to attention to the evaluations of gentlemen such as Poole, they'd have a much easier time winning those "hearts and minds" we're always hearing about.

There are, of course, a multitude of religious undertones here, but even the most atheistic amongst us will have to recognize the strategic pragmatism of Poole's suggestions. The bombardment of a city by air may win you some rubble, but it doesn't win you a war. A wake of bodies doesn't make for a victory, and it doesn't lay the groundwork for "peace-keeping." As we've seen, it only encourages resentment and an insurgency.

If there's an intruder in your neighbor's house, you seek out and remove the intruder. You don't blow up the building. If your goal is to show an eastern peoples that you've come to remove an indiscriminately violent dictator, you don't use indiscriminate violence.

One More Bridge to Cross is an inside look at the Noncommissioned Officers contributions to warfare. By providing direct insight to the Noncommissioned Officer, the author allows the reader to gain a great deal of in-depth knowledge in a short time. He provides the reader with real life experience as well as researched facts that build upon one another and enlighten the reader. A definite read for anyone interested in military tactics and training.

One More Bridge to Cross takes a truly unique approach to studying warfare and military reform. One More Bridge to Cross offers a close look at the moral factors of war that John Poole examines so insightfully in his other books. Most great military theorists (including Sun Tzu, Clausewitz and John Boyd) have emphasized the importance of moral factors. John Poole goes beyond theorizing about these moral factors and examines their importance in conflicts past and present. He shows how the United States has gained strength throughout its history by supporting worthy causes. He gives examples of how upholding moral standards in the conduct of war has contributed to ultimate victory. Finally, he shows how the United States has begun to loose the moral highground in recent times by practicing heavy-handed attrition style warfare. One More Bridge to Cross is particularly relevant to today's war against terrorism, where perceptions of values and morality can sway public opinion at home and rally new enemies abroad.

One More Bridge to Cross addresses something that often gets forgotten- the training of our souls and establishing a natural moral compass when engaged in combat will instinctively take over as chaos ensues. Fight or flight instincts take over on the battlefield. If training is not effective and becomes a part of ones character, it's left behind in lieu to what already exists in one's moral fabric. This book is about avoiding killing when the opportunity exists in order to minimize loss of life and limb. It's about applying only the appropriate amount of force in order to meet mission requirements. Before going into combat we train mentally and physically with a quick skim over the morality of war, and the mental, physical and moral costs of war without ever realizing what war actually may entail.

So what happens when human beings ignore training of the compass? We have incidences like Abu Ghraib, WWII soldiers say they were only following orders when exterminating Jews, Serbs and Muslims of the Balkans revenge killing each other, Palestinians and Israelis going tit- for-tat, Special Forces Operators being accused of needlessly killing detainees, news reporters concerned about getting stories out without considering their uninformed or biased approaches. All of the above named actions contribute to the continuation of war.

Service members who are not mentally prepared for this reality may become susceptible to mental and emotional illnesses i.e. Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. They may feel guilt ridden for something they have actually done correctly, but do not realize that they had taken appropriate measures because faith in themselves and their training were not reinforced.

Again, war is the ultimate clash of HUMAN WILLS. The ultimate clash of wills is highly emotional for people on the front lines of a battle fields. Unless one has been in a combat environment, one will never truly understand and will attempt to subjugate the importance of the human in combat vice the machine. People die, friends die, and this causes anger, pain and the desire for revenge.

Poole's book stresses the importance of maintaining a moral compass in combat. He is training the subconscious to contend with a reality that some hi-tech supporters of weapon systems do not understand. Killing is killing whether one pushes a button, or the other pushes a trigger. One kills people and calls some collateral damage and perpetuates the fight by providing the enemy a battle cry and information operation tool, the other engages face to face and knows he truly killed a legitimate threat. This is the bridge combatants are forced to cross.

As much as anything, this is a "how to" manual for warriors in the 21st Century. While some things have changed since this book was written in 1999, it is my contention that these much needed changes in ground force organization, training, and tactics were influenced greatly by this book and John Poole's recommendations. There is still a lot more to be learned from the thoughts and ideas this book, and it should be read by more than just warriors. This book would help legislators, parents, teachers, potential recruits, and ordinary Americans (voters and supporters) to understand what has happened to our military forces in the past 50 years and where we have to go to address the wars we are now fighting and those of the future.

John Poole provides a challenge to America's conventional military philosophy - In 1999, America's military leaders were not preparing the military for the current nature of war which some call 4th Generation War and others Asymmetric War and still others Irregular Warfare. In many respects, the reforms that John Poole calls for in One More Bridge are still not in practice. The price for not understanding what Poole has to say will be excessive casualties, disruption of indigenous populations, and erosion of their support for our military objectives. This is the very frightening and realistic picture that John Poole (a retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel and former Gunnery Sergeant) paints in One More Bridge to Cross: Lowering the Cost of War. John Poole is a recognized and noted expert on small unit battlefield tactics. He is the author of Phantom Soldier, The Tiger's Way, Tactics of the Crescent Moon, and The Last 100 Yards and has spent twenty-eight years leading and training Marines in small unit tactics, serving two tours in Vietnam.

His thesis is based on the history of the last fifty years from past wars. Poole stresses the need for radically different small unit decentralized training to prepare U.S. soldiers and Marines to fight the wars of the future (remember, this is 1999 that he wrote this). Poole states that change is needed in three areas: implementing effective decentralized light-infantry training, returning the moral quotient to the destruction of war by minimizing disruption of civilian life, and understanding and respecting the enemies' philosophy of war. This requires our military strategists to change their focus from attrition warfare to a more balanced approach with maneuver and Stability and Support Operations (SASO) as the counter. This idea is something that the military-industrial complex has been trying hard to ignore. If one looks at the guidance given to the Quadrennial Defense Review in 2005, however, that guidance seems to reflect a change in the old ways of thinking about how we fight. It is a decided shift toward what Poole was trying to tell us before 9/11.

Poole states that, "Attrition Warfare has become as much a part of American military thinking as apple pie." Modern warfare dictates that the military must add a new philosophy that enables America to win in many different environments in which attrition warfare will lose.

As this review is being written, some 30 Army artillery battalions are being transitioned to more appropriate types of units such as military police, military intelligence, and light infantry in recognition of the fact that our new enemies have neutralized attrition warfare, as Poole suggested. We are learning to adapt, but is it enough?

Poole's new military philosophy was based upon analysis of a new and different enemy, who is not obliging enough to sit still and face the military in massed formations to slug it out, where America's overwhelming firepower would prevail. Instead, he is a phantom living in the hidden jungle vastnesses, treacherous mountains, and maze-like cities, where he organizes his military into decentralized, small mobile elements. America, therefore, cannot destroy the whole country to get him. The French learned this in their defeats in Vietnam and Algiers. Americans saw the effect in Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia and now Afghanistan and Iraq, but we have been late to adapt.

Poole explains how eastern warfare and military thought is very different. In the East, the decision maker takes everything as a whole and then proceeds with a comprehensive and intuitive bringing together of its every aspect. In the West, the decision maker divides a complex matter into its component parts, and then deals with those parts one at a time with the emphasis on logical analysis. For ground combat, the Eastern way of thinking may have more utility. The Asian large-unit commander is a bottom-up, holistic thinker. He briefs every subordinate (no matter how low ranking) on his overall goals and then encourages them to either make a contribution or get out of the way. As a result, his unit can more quickly adapt to the fragmented and ever-changing nature of modern battle. He exploits what his subordinates accomplish rather than dictating their every move. Does this even vaguely remind anyone of Osama Bin Laden?

In the West, the emphasis was, and still is in some respects, on long-range warfare and large-unit training, i.e., battalion and above. In the East, the emphasis is on short-range warfare and small-unit training, most notably, the individual, fire team, and squad. This means that the Asian soldier generally acquires more of the basic field skills he will need to survive in close combat.

In this book, John Poole tells us that American Soldiers and Marines have always been expert at using their equipment and following orders. Unfortunately, one must know more than that to survive against a loosely controlled and arms-poor but woods-wise opponent. Poole goes on to enumerate those areas where we need to train our grunts and all those who would participate in this kind of war.

Former Gunny Poole reminds us that those best qualified to develop the prerequisite procedures will be the non-commissioned officers (NCOs). By allowing his 30-40 NCOs to collectively design their own portfolio of tactical techniques up to squad level, the company commander will not only give his small-unit leaders tactical decision-making experience, but also he can ensure their non-predictability in war.

Until we reform our military philosophy, these new wars will be costly to our soldiers and the civilians that we are trying to win over to our cause. Read this book!

This is a eye opening I can't put it down book! Seeing how the Blackfeet lived, their culture, social structure, horse raids, war, etc., through the author's eyes is fascinating. As he joins their society, marries into the tribe and lives as the tribe did you will find it informative and insightful. As the old ways pass away you feel his sadness and the end will break your heart. A beautiful, lively, fun book that takes you into another time and place as you ride with Schultz and the tribe. A must have!

This is an excellent first hand account of the major transformation of Plains Indian culture that occured during the nearly complete extermination of the buffalo which was so central to their life. It starts with the buffalo in plenty and ends with reservation life. This is a bittersweet book. Schultz marries into a band of the Piegan branch of the Blackfoot confederacy. But although he lives among them, and loves them and their lifestyle, he never completes his assimilation. This is evident when he writes with almost distant amusement of some of their religious beliefs. Adding to this is the problem that while he loves the life of the buffalo days and deeply laments their end, his occupation as a trader in buffalo robes is hastening the end of the very thing he loves. His description of the post-buffalo, early reservation life is the most distressing, complete with corrupt reservation Agents, and sometimes rascist newcomers.
His stories are not all downers though. His writing is a very detailed, intimate, and at times amusing description of his life and those around him. I've loaned my book to a number of people and they all have liked it. If you read this and like it too, you'll be glad to know he wrote a whole series of books of his life in early Montana, and of the lives of prominent people he knew. I've read many, but not all of them, and I prize every one.

This is a terrific story of a young white man's time with the Piegan Blackfeet. James Willard Schultz came west for adventure and joined an Indian trading post 45 miles north of Fort Benton, Montana.

He not only traded furs, gold, liquor, and dressmakers goods to the Indians, but became fluent in the language of the Blackfeet, sharing in their hunts and wars and even taking a young Indian wife.

It's a somewhat self-conscious story from a masculine vantagepoint during a time when warrior bravado was in vogue and the buffalo were still thriving. This book portrays a segment of Native American life and culture just before the buffalo were diminished and the people were forced to reservations.

Given that _Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: an Indian History of the American West_ by Dee Brown contains only 2 or 3 pages in reference to the Blackfeet, a book such as _My Life As an Indian_ is a superb addition to one's bookshelf. Recommended.

I just came online to see if it was in print. I have had a copy of this book from the 1935 paperback that my Grandfather gave me when I was a boy. Not that I was a boy in 1935, it was actually in the early 70s. . .I was captivated by the stories JW Schultz lived! Helping his friend steal his wife from under the nose of the ever watchful father. It still grips me even today. Alas, my old copy is just that, old. That is how I came to write these words. Ordering a fresh paperback.

I cannot recommend this book more highly!

I absolutely loved this book, I couldn't put it down! I have been to the Blackfeet Reservation and Glacier Park many times, and while reading this book I could just imagine how it was back then. It gave me a new perspective on Indian life. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves a good story about the old west and the Indians.