Arts and Culture Books

Rather than write another long review which would essentially just agree with all the other positive comments by other reviewers, I will make this brief. I am pleased with this book with one exception. The list of guest stars for the radio programs does not include the part played by the actor/actress. The television programs do. This was one of the principal reasons I bought the book. At least I know in advance the stars who will be in each broadcast. I would have liked to know who played what role. That is the only reason I gave it a rating of 4.

Even if my dog ate the cover off of the book (he only eats books that I love), this is a great reference for the true Gunsmoke fan. Too many folks don't realize that the first 11 years were the best, and they need some reference to those. This is a great history of all of Gunsmoke, not just the TVLAND "scrubbed" version.

This book is AWESOME. It is filled with the history of Gunsmoke from the radio days through the TWENTY YEARS it was on TV. Also a very interesting history of Dodge City, Kansas.

This was a very good, very well written and very informative book to buy and read.
Janet Nazer

I am a huge gunsmoke fan, since it first was shown in 1955. i thought it was interesting on how they auditioned and chose the main charcters, I enjoyed this more than the 50th year, due to the fact that Miss Kitty, was alive and others that were guest star were also. It was not a boring book and the layout was very good. They also had an interview of Roger Ewing (Thad) Which was informative. I highly recommned paying the price for it to all Gunsmoke fans. )

The ideal audience for this book really has a large range; it is ideal for anyone wanting to experience a "trip" from a hallucinogenic drug without the actual drug. High Priest is an excellent piece of art, it is an encyclopedia of Leary's 16 most life changing "trips" when under various forms of hallucinogens. It is filled with strong imagery to support Leary's want to tell the world about the wonderful hallucinogenic "trip". His style is very unique in that especially in a series of short stories, he can in essence connect them, just as he does in his life with situations. He uses a very intense tone, and style becomes rapid as he submerges into a hallucinogenic state, almost as if you where there with him. Then as he's coming out of it his style loosens and becomes slower, and drowsy. Its almost as if there were two extremes one is cold and gray, and the other is vibrant and full of life. This book will definitely stir your interest about psychedelic drugs and the life behind it. Leary's intense flavor and swirling style can sometimes almost be frightening especially when he discusses his inner emotions about death, and his chilling way of expressing his views on the "life changing trips". I think this book is very educational depending on your view of education, and can teach people, things about other cultures that may not be their own, a counterculture if you will. I recommend High Priest to anyone with a thirst for knowledge and an open mind.

I'm sad to finish this book, as I have walked with Leary with his first mushroom encounter in Mexico, walked with his colleges and friends, from Dick Albert (Ram Dass), Robert Metzner, Huston Smith, Aldous Huxley, Walter Clark, Walter Puhnke, Michael Hollingshead, Alan Watts, Allen Ginsberg - I love Ginsberg - , Gordon Wasson, Frank Barrons and even William Burroughs. From his Millbrook estate to his Harvard studies, prison studies, first LSD trip, to his religious experiential studies and the amazing internal transformations that for myself are greatly superior to static intellectualism. And yet using such intellectual insights coupled with subjective encounters - in allusive non-categorical observance - brings forth the dynamics of Leary's story.

There is far too much information to relate here, the book is enlightening.
All together 16 trips or stories along with various quotes from magazine articles, short thoughts, to excerpts from other books from Ginsberg, Hollingshead, Wasson, Walter Houston Clark, Huxley and others make this book not only informative, but really do capture what is intended to be conveyed - the mystical- religious - subjective - internal - experiential - magical/irrational experience of psychedelics and most importantly, their beneficial use in social, psychological, ontological, neurological, rehabilitative, and spiritual uses. There is no doubt in my mind as to the benefits of psychedelics for the human race.

"Everyone who isn't tripping himself because he's too scared or tired is going to resent our doing it. Sex, drugs, fun, travel, dancing, loafing. You name it. Anything that's pleasurable is going to bring down the wrath of the power-control people. Because the essence of ecstasy and the essence of religion and the essence of orgasm (and they're all pretty much the same) is that you give up power and swing with it. And the cats who can't do that end up with the power and they use it to punish the innocent and the happy. And they'll try to make us look bad and feel bad." P. 79


This quote (and others) reminds me of Ray Manzarek's story in his book, Light My Fire, of visiting a Las Vegas style rat pack record executive who literally flipped out after hearing a tape of The Doors, hearing that they were psychedelic orientated music. The power people can never accept surrender and vulnerability that comes with the internal search as opposed to the external control.

"The threshold of adult game life is the ancient and natural time for the rebirth experience, the flip-out trip from which you come back as a man. A healthy society provides and protects the sacredness of the teen-age psychedelic voyage. A sick, society fears and forbids the revelation." p. 133


Trip 1 is Leary's non-chemical death and rebirth of a physical sickness.


Trip 2 is the story of Leary's discover of the mushroom in Mexico with some substantial quotes from Gordon Wasson on mushrooms.


Trip 3 has Dick Albert, Jack and Timothy Leary flying in Dick's plane. It also contains Leary's Playboy interview, other magazine quotes and quotes from Albert Cohen and Shiller's LSD.


Trip 6 has Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky walking around naked, Ginsberg telephoning his pal Jack Kerouac and some great Ginsberg quotes! The movement to turn on the world - well intentioned, but naive, the power people would never submit nor allow such conscious expansion beyond the control principal to continue.


Trip 7 talks about the rational thinking of Arthur Koestler's verses the irrationality of a LSD - religious experience and how the two don't see eye to eye.


Trip 9 shows the benefits of incarcerated prisoner rehabilitation and recidivism rate decrease from LSD therapy.


Trip 11 touches on William Burroughs and how he thinks on another tribal level, as we all come from different tribal evolutionary thinking. In the end Burroughs drops out of the clan and disapproves of the way Leary, his fellow Harvard and other constituents handle the mushroom therapy - Leary's got a monopoly on love.
Trip 12 is about Michael Hollingshead's famous mayonnaise jar of LSD and Leary's first experience along with the Jazz musician and his wife, Maynard and Flo Ferguson. And amazing account, really. And Leary, as Huxley has written in 1953, was forever a changed man. He had seen the games, the roles played, the human fallibility of truths, statistics, ideals and so forth from an objective standpoint, from the ultimate subjective standpoint.


Trip 15's Good Friday experiment under the coaxing of the intellectual and scholar Walter Pahnke is also an incredible story and ultimately Leary admits that the mind expansive consciousness is not a rational Descartes mind set, but a religious experience and of course, not under any particular religious structure - in this case Christianity is very constraining, limiting and restraining.


I love the explanation in Trip 16 that Leary related from Pat Bolero to a fellow psychologist who not only became fearful when hearing of "drugs" but could not comprehend her words that attempted to point to the clarity outside of the discursive mindset.


This book has some great Allen Ginsberg quotes and stories, great Burroughs stories, Leary's family, Dick Albert, Michael Hollingshead and many other intellectuals, scholars, divinity school students, the Good Friday experiment, artists, poets, theologians. I love his daughter's, Susan Leary, account of her growing up and observing the LSD sessions, of Alan Watts and others. The trip in Tim's place with Dick Albert, both erroneously thinking the pet dog was dying and other stories make this a very entertaining book to read. But ultimately, its the beneficial attributes from the psychedelic sessions weighted against the opposition that really make this book totally worthwhile.


"Reality and the addiction to any one reality is a tissue-thin neurological fragility. At the height of a visionary experience it is crystal-clear that you can change completely. Be an entirely different person. Be any person you choose. It is a moment of rebirth . . . . It is habit, fear and laziness that keep people from changing after an LSD experience. It's so much easier to doubt your divinity, drift back to speaking English, wearing ties, playing the old game. p. 334


"There comes a point in every lifetime when the blinders are removed and the individual glimpses for a second the nature of the process. This revelation comes through a biochemical change in the body. A Twist of the protein key and you see where you are at in the total process. p. 336


One thing I've learned as a prison psychiatrist is that society doesn't want the prisoner rehabilitated, and as soon as you start changing prisoners so that they discover beauty and wisdom, God, you're going to stir up the biggest mess that Boston has seen since the Boston Tea Party. . . sooner or later, as soon as they see the thing you do is working, they're going to come down on you 0- the newspaper reporters, the bureaucrats, and the officials. Harvard given drugs to prisoners! p. 18

I had seen enough and read enough of the anti-vision crowd, the power-holders with guns, and the bigger and better men we got on your team the stronger our position. p. 128


We even ran sessions for parole officers and correction officials (they tripped). Some of them had unhappy trips. People committed to external power are frightened by the release of ecstasy because the key is surrender of external power. One chief parole officer flipped out paranoid at my house and accused us of a Communist conspiracy and stormed around while Madison Presnell curled up on the couch watching, amused at the white folks frantically learning how to get high. He grinned at me. So you call it the love drug? p. 208

essential reading for the humanist, the individualist, the psychedelicist and the lover of freedom.

Tim Leary reminds us what it means to be American.

I never met Dr. Leary. We corresponded by mail, I talked with him once via phone during the time he was petitioning for asylum in Switzerland, and I subsequently calligraphed and co-edited the Terra II manuscript for him. This latter bit of collaboration got my mug and a write-up about my work for Dr. Leary on the front page of the daily newspaper here--sort of a "local boy does strange" story. I saw him from a bus window during assembly for one of the mammoth marches against the war in Vietnam, in DC (1970). That's the extent of my contact and involvement with the man.

Living as we do during the insanity of "the war on drugs," "the war on terrorism," and the rise of the commercial-political police state in our country, this book seems a long-ago, far-off relic of an age that has little if anything to do with ours. There is nothing groovy about the liars, murderers, and criminal minds who today run Camp America.

So, why bother at all with this book? For one thing, it is evidence of hope--that a hopeful life is possible with eyes, mind, and heart all open to the possibility that something new can enter our lives. It is a chronicle that directly addresses the question of despair, as Tim describes approaching his own breaking point and his subsequent epiphany. It is not a journal of pretense such as one finds in typical media accounts of Leary's journey, but of encounter and reflection upon what is "high"--true, meaningful, and worthy of furthering through the medium of one's own life.

In sum, this book is for the voyager and explorer, those who are not entirely shackled by convention and fear. It is a chronicle of transformation and an opening upon the living questions that form the basis of our existence.

I wrote this first paragraph to another of Ace's negative reviews for Alan Watts but I feel my response can be applied with validity to his review here as well. I haven't read this Alan Watts book but how can you criticize Alan Watts for possibly, (I'm not going to take your word for it and I have little interest in whether this great man may have been an alcoholic at one point), having been a drunk in his youth when in another review you call Charles Bukowski, one of the world's most renown drunks, the greatest writer ever. Bukowski is known for having written great poems and being a complete alcoholic, I like his poetry it's good, but Alan Watts almost single handedly BROUGHT EASTEN RELIGIONS TO THE WEST! Watts was a Zen Buddhist and Taoist master. Alan Watts in one of the great heroes of humanity for opening up the close minded consciousness in America during a time when it was readily accepted by the masses to the loving heart of the Buddha's teachings and The Way of Kindness. Stop blaming others for your failings Ace and start being accountable for your own life choices. I don't care if being homeless was a purposeful decision or an accidental one but it's not Alan Watts, Abbie Hoffman, Timothy Leary, or Terence Mckenna's fault. You are trying to help people with your how to be homeless book just as those men tried to help the world to be a better place during very troubling times. I feel your negativity is misguided, if you really want to blame somebody for the world being so difficult and unfair I suggest you aim your resentment at corrupt power hungry close minded money grubbing greedy politicians, dictators, fascists, and CEOs of corporations and others among us in this global community that would take more then their share without ever any concern for if or how others survive if they can and not harbor anger at those who tried to create and/or maintain freedom in this country while increasing awareness and intelligence.

Sadly Timothy Leary's first wife Marianne, Susan's Mother suffered from depression and took her own life, something Ace neglected to mention here, and as we know depression can be genetically passed down from a parent to a child. I also think it's important to add Marianne's suicide took place before Timothy Leary had ever taken or was even introduced to LSD and her death was completely unrelated to his experimentation with the substance.

Just read what everyone else has written...

She needs to climb out from those piles of ramie/cotton blends and update her book for us!

"If You Ask Me" collects 61 of Libby Gelman-Waxner's (aka Paul Rudnick) comedic movie columns from Premiere Magazine's first 5 years, 1988 until her 5th Anniversary column in 1993. Balancing roles as Assistant buyer in Junior's Activewear, East Side yenta, and "American's most beloved and irresponsible film critic", Libby lambasts movie cliches, aging movie stars, and directors who suffer from Auteur's Syndrome. She swoons over hunky actors and fixates on actresses' coiffures. She keeps us current on the movie-going adventures of her orthodontist husband Josh, perfect daughter Jennifer, tragically single friend Stacey Schiff, and cousin Andrew. Libby is laugh-out-loud funny.

Those who followed Libby's career until the demise of Premiere Magazine in spring 2007 can see how she became the critic we know and love and revisit some long-retired features like "The Libby Awards" and "Letters to Libby". It is amazing and hilarious how seriously some readers took her. Libby's first five years were more manic and plagued with run-on sentences than her later years. This book witnesses the point at which she hit her stride as a critic, about 2 ½ years in, with an article entitled "The Entertainment Factor". Before that, Libby was scattershot and not quite a reviewer.

Of course, Libby's foremost intention was always to entertain. But in those cases when more serious reviewers all got it wrong, which occur like clockwork twice a year, Libby set us straight. Those columns are among her best, and they earned her my respect as a critic. Libby's gossipy wit was also on hand to observe the cinematic transition from the 1980s to 1990s in her column "Making Nice". Her scrutiny of '80s Greed versus "'90s New Niceness", i.e. hypocrisy, is another example of incisive commentary in a deceptively shallow package.

"If You Ask Me" is a wonderfully entertaining volume that no movie buff should be without. Libby could get away with saying what other critics couldn't, because her comments were shrouded in humor. She got even better than this, so it's unfortunate that the other 14 years of Libby are not available as a book. The Introduction refers to this as "Volume 1", so I hope that Paul Rudnick has not completely forgotten about that implication and we can expect the rest of Libby soon. Although the movies are listed under the article titles in the table of contents, an index of movies would have been helpful, as would dates on the articles.

With the demise of Premiere magazine, the time has come to update this hysterical tome and bring every last one of Libby's incisive, razor-sharp observations together into one volume. Surely her devoted fanbase deserves that much...

If you ask me, Libby is the best thing - and sadly often the only thing - worth reading in Premiere. This book is a collection of some of her earlier columns.

I remember picking it up in a bookstore, and reading the part about "Rain Man" and laughing so much I was helplessly bent over and terrified that I would be thrown out or carted away by men in white coats. Luckily, I wasn't.

Hollywood badly needs someone to prick its enormous bubble of egotism, and Libby is always up to the job. Many movie stars are in desperate need of a reality check, a reminder that their hangnails aren't on the same level as say, world peace.

In addition to Libby, we meet her adorable children, Mitchell-Shawn and Jennifer, her friend the terminally single Stacy Schiff, her husband Josh (like Bill Clinton he can balance a budget, then jog over to pick up a bag of donuts), her mother, and her shrink - all of whom contribute columns.

Equally funny if not funnier than Dave Barry at his best, this book is a worthy addition to anyone with a slightly warped sense of humor's shelf.

You'll come for the hysterical observations, but you'll stay for the depth of thought. In reviewing Field of Dreams, for example, in between tart and hysterical observations about Kevin Costner's ambit, we get the incredible telling and onpoint observation that James Earl Jones' character seems oblivious to the fact that baseball was segregated in 1919. Whoa, Libby, you snuck that one in on us. Libby's humor is premised in her unabashed shallowness in movie tastes--she doesn't want to see Calcutta, she wants to see a cut up Patrick Swayze (one of the studs of her era)--and in her understanding of the Hollywood culture that movies reflect. In noting that the jobs women have in movies shift from art gallery director to caterers, she observes that these are great things for Hollywood wives of movie executives to do for "fulfillment" for a month or two, but not the way that the average woman in the real world will be pulling in the bread. Well, she makes that observation in a less heavy handed and much more hilarious way. Libby, forgive me, I lack your craft.

The most important thing about this book is that it is always fun and never self-important. Paul Rudnick, the man behind Libby, had fun with it, and so will you. In Libby fashion, I should note that my adorable mother, Mary Christine Motes, recommended this book to me. Thanks, Mum.

Let me make this brief, in the best style of broadcast journalism: Wayne Freedman is one of the finest storytellers in the field, masterfully weaving video, sound and just the right words to tell stories that no one else seems to find. More importantly, he has found a way to tell OTHERS how to do this. As a professor of broadcast journalism, I can tell you that that is no small accomplishment. If you are a serious student of television journalism (and no, that is NOT an oxymoron), you need to have this book. You also need to read it.

Wayne Freedman is a video storyteller and a television survivor. Those traits alone are worth the price of this book. I looked to his work for inspiration during my years as television reporter and now I use this book as a broadcast news professor to show students the possibilities of video journalism, either online or on TV.

Since he is a great storyteller, Freedman's book doesn't read like a textbook. It reads like a good book. The insights, lessons, and tips are all in there, but they are woven within funny, interesting, and unforgettable stories from the field.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is thinking about a career in video journalism, or those who are already working and want to know how to push to the next level.

Landing a TV reporting job is not tough. Make a tape, be persistent and someone somewhere will put you on the air.

Leaning the craft of television news reporting is a different ballgame. In, It Takes More than Good Looks to Succeed at TV News Reporting, Wayne Freedman shows what it takes to become one of the very best.

This book offers practical, easy to use tips to anyone in the business. The challenges and frustrations Wayne describes will happen to you, count on it. Just as important, he explains ways to overcome those obstacles. Regardless of your experience level, this book is crammed full of useful tips that can improve your work.

But this is not only a collection of "how to" tips.

It Takes More than Good Looks to Succeed at TV News Reporting, inspired me. Those of us lucky enough to make a career of TV news have the best, most interesting jobs around. Thanks to Wayne we now have a playbook to make ourselves, and our work, even better!

Don't read this book just once. Read it twice, and then maybe even once more. Make sure the principles and teachings of Mr. Freedman are so ingrained in your mind, you apply them in the field, and during the writing process, with ease, despite any pressures or deadlines. Why? Because it takes more than good looks to succeed at television news reporting.

Wayne Freedman is a rare gift in television news reporting, a polished gem of a reporter with an amazing eye and ear and professional aesthetic. He's a wonderul storyeller with what may be the largest collection of Emmy awards for television reporting on the planet...deservedly so, he's that good at what he does, they should just mail them to him every year.

I'm a former television producer and news director and I've always greatly admired Wayne's work, and his ability to sweep the Emmy awards every time. He's consistently brilliant and can turn the most mundane topic into a memorable visual story. His book is required reading for my television journalism students and should be read and re-read by every aspiring or novice television journalist, along with many veterans. This book makes teaching 'basic training' to up-and-coming video journalists MUCH easier. Not only is this book useful and a peek into a bright creative mind, it's just a good read...entertaining and hard to put down, with lots of great stories and insight! It's a keeper.

Years and years ago a "James Bond Encyclopedia" by Steven Jay Rubin came out and considering it wasn't an "EON officially" sanctioned book (stock photos and mediocre writing) it wasn't all THAT bad. I've been collecting 007 books for a long time, many of them from the internet, and came out dissappointed many times but was able to recover from my initial skepticism to buying this new Bond Encyclopedia when I noticed John Cork was one of the authors. He's responsible for the excelent BOND GIRLS ARE FOREVER and the JAMES BOND LEGACY, perhaps the two best Bond books I've every bought.
Well, the JAMES BOND ENCYCLOPEDIA certainly doesn't dissappoint, hundreds of terrific pictures organized by category (movie, vehicles, girls, villains, etc.) include even the most oscure of entries. While a dream come true for aficionados, it's definetly bound to please casual Bond fans also (and who isn't ?)

This book is better than I expected. I thought it would just cover the movie Bond. I was pleasantly surprised to find that is compares things in the movies to the books. Plus it goes into the charecters and devices showing the real to imagined. A great book for any Bond fan.

I enjoyed the book and feel it to be a good companion to another volume by a different author entitled "The Complete James Bond Movie Encyclopedia."

It is full of information with plenty of accompanying pictures, and is divided up by subjects (i.e. Bond Villians, Bond Women, Weapons, Equipment etc.). For myself, since that is also part of the Bond world, I wish it had had a section on Bond bloopers (deliberate or otherwise) which occur in the films.

I did notice that occasionally the pictures did not match the captions listed for them (in "The Movies" chapter especially) in that a photograph would be shown, but the caption did not relate to the designated picture.

Also, in the sidebar section of that chapter where different persons connected with the production side of the movies would be listed along with their professional biographies, sometimes the print was hard to read bacause of the background color it was placed on.

Overall, I would recommend this book.

I consider myself well versed in the world of 007. However, reading this book made me realize how much there is out there that I was was unaware of, The authors have shown a greta eye for detail and completeness. And with a nice sense of humor they have added some new facts that I never knew existed.

A pleasure to read.

If I may wax nostalgic for a moment, I can still recall the very first James Bond movie that I sever saw...actually the first three Bond movies...it was sometime in the late 60's or early 70's and my mom took me and my brothers to the drive-in theater to see a triple feature of Goldfinger, Dr. No, and From Russia with Love...in that order. I know I never made it past the credits of From Russia with Love but man...I loved those first two films! I had never seen anything like Bond before with his cool gadgets and those nasty villains like Odd Job and that began a lifelong passion for James Bond. With Christmas approaching, I cannot think of a better gift for the Bond fan on your list than the James Bond Encyclopedia from DK Books.

I've read a lot of books from DK on popular films and while they are always very well done, they sometimes can be a bit light on material. No so with this book. This book contains over 300 pages filled with information that will test even the most knowledgeable of Bond fans. It is bountifully illustrated with over 2000 photographs and images and traces the Bond history right up to the most recent film, Casino Royale.

As the title suggests it is an encyclopedia but rather than just list its hundreds of entries in alphabetical order it lists them alphabetically by subject. The subjects include: The Bond Style, The Role of Bond, Bond Villains, Bond Women, Supporting Cast, Vehicles, Weapons & Equipment, and the Movies. A comprehensive index finishes things off.

The role of Bond covers the six actors who have portrayed Bond with two pages of biographical information on each actor and a list of the Bond films they starred in. Next up is the section on Bond Villains. This section covers Bond villains from the criminal masterminds Blofeld, Hugo Drax, and Goldfinger; crime lords like Frank Sanchez; muscled thugs Jaws, Odd Job, Mr. Kil, and Tee Hee; and dangerous females May Day, Elekta King, and Bambi & Thumper. The encyclopedia gives the film(s) they appeared in, their current status, characteristics, the actor who portrayed them, and a synopsis of their roles in the films.

No book on Bond would be complete without looking at the dozens of Bond Women played by some of the most beautiful actresses in the world: Terri Hatcher, Ursula Andress, Lana Wood, Eva Green, and Halle Berry. The section on supporting cast members covers all the other major and minor characters in the Bond films from Q to Miss Moneypenny. Each Aston Martin that Bond drove is featured in the section on vehicles along with some of the more extraordinary vehicles like the Bath-O-Sub from Diamonds are Forever and the Dragon Tank from Dr. No. And of course all of Bonds secret weapons and gadgets are detailed in the Weapons section.

The last fifty pages or so of the book covers each bond film in chronological order with a listing of cast and crew credits but rather than provide a synopsis of films you've probably seen numerous times the book instead provides anecdotes on the making of the films with all manner of interesting production notes.

This is a book that is perfect for the die-hard or casual James Bond fan.

In a career spanning hundreds of movies from "Tolerable David" in 1930 up until literally his death in 1988, John Carradine blessed this world with his many florid theater, film, and television performances. His greatest role(in his opinion) was split between major parts in the classics "Stagecoach" and "The Grapes of Wrath", both directed by John Ford. He loved to work. He loved Shakespeare. He loved women. The book details his three marriages, his drunken parties with John Barrymore, and his jail time for late alimony payments. And here, for horror fans, is a detailed breakdown of every film, from "House of Dracula" to "Satan's Cheerleaders". The large hardcover tome is complete with a myriad of pictures and posters. John Carradine is truly part of American cinema legacy. He died in Milan, Italy, attending a special screening of "Stagecoach".

All the other big names of horror-movie-actors have been covered: Karloff, Lugosi, Chaney, Lee, Cushing, Price ... Here is finaly the first book about John Carradine and all his films (and not only the B-Movie-Horrorfilms !)It was time !

German: Endlich ein Buch über den grossen John Carradine. All seine Horrorfilm-Schauspielkollegen sind ausreichend gewürdigt worden, von Lugosi, Chaney und Karloff über Price, Lee und Cushing. Nun endlich gibt es ein Werk mit vollständiger Filmograhie (und nicht nur die Horror-B-Filme) über diesen Altmeister. Wie alles aus dem McFarland-Verlag teuer aber in jeder Beziehung in Topqualität !

Everyone recognizes his face, but few can name him. John Carradine was a memorable character actor who gave rich performances in big and small budget pictures. Finally, a book has been written about him that not only explores his life via anecdotes and interviews interspersed throughout, but his vein of work that stretched innumerable decades and genres. Author Tom Weaver has crafted a fun and lively chronological read, putting together little-known information and revealing asides to enhance our knowlegde of the work of an aspiring actor. Perhaps now, more people will seriously reappraise Carradine's work and give him the consideration he's due.

He's the actor everyone knew, but few knew anything about. Here - finally - is the definitive look at the horror icon's hundreds of films, and his surprising life, including the strained relationship with his sons. Best of all, it's by two of the brightest lights in the field.

John Carradine's career spanned six decades and films thatranged from acclaimed classics (The Grapes of Wrath) to undisputedstinkers (can anyone say anything positive about Billy The Kid Vs. Dracula?). In John Carradine: The Films, author Tom Weaver deftly documents each and every film of the multi-talented actor. Complete cast and credits listings, synopsis and author commentarty for each film are included, as are remembrances from various co-stars, directors, Carradine's sons and even Carradine himself.

Weaver's commentaries on the films spices up the usual dryness found in many "Films Of" books, due to their rather strict cast/crew/summary formula. An opinionated reviewer/critic, Weaver doesn't pull his punches in offering up his takes on Carradine's films. Whether or not you agree with his views, it's nice to hear definite opinions for a change in a book like this, instead of the oft-times "take-no-controversial-stand" approach which, while certainly objective, doesn't always make for the most fascinating or interesting reading.

And for regular readers of the author, not to fear...the classic puns are here in good abundance, and will not fail to make one groan and shake one's head on occasion.

Rounding out this tribute to the "thin" Dracula are recollections of Carradine from directors Joe Dante and Fred Olen Ray, and a mini-biography by Gregory Mank. Carradine's flamboyance, lust for life, and love of Shakespeare, as well as his regrets and resignation to the many poor roles he either chose or was forced to accept in order to "feed the family" are just a few of the many sides to the actor that are captured by Mank.

In all, Tom Weaver has assembled an extraordinarily fine and fitting tribute to a too-long overlooked personage of classic horror history. Par for the course for the author, John Carradine: The Films is thoroughly researched, hugely informative, frequently amusing, and most importantly: simply a must-have book.

"Killing for Culture" is a fascinating look at the subject of death in film and other media. Of particular note is the history behind the "Snuff" film, an urban legend that has persisted for years of movies where someone on-camera is murdered, for real. Of course, not one single frame of a snuff film has ever been uncovered, but that hasn't stopped the legend from appearing, and re-appearing, over time.

In addition to the sections on snuff, other areas of the death genre are explored, from the "Mondo" films of the 1960s, to the present-day "Faces of Death" style gore feasts. It makes for a fascinating, if gruesome, study of the various death genres of film and video.

CREATION books has taken over the world of publishing books about cinema and this is the best one the have released. A very thourough, well researched and fascinating journey into the subterrainian world of the Mondo movie. David and David approach the subject with abject skill and make every word count even when describing films that would send the average person into a coma for years to come.

This book breaks the barriers and dispells the myths makig it an essential purchase for anyone interested in the darker regions of cinema.

Autopsies. Car crashes. Suicides. Executions. Horrible accidents. Human remains. Assassinations. Welcome to the horrifying and disturbing yet often weirdly fascinating world of death in film. Face it, most people are strangely attracted by images of violence and death - just like stopping and watching when an accident has happened.
KILLING FOR CULTURE concerns death in films. The book starts with the story of an obscure movie named SNUFF in 1976. Originally titled SLAUGHTER, this 1971 ultracheapo horror flick about a MANSON - style murder spree was considered unwatchable and remained unreleased for several years until movie producer Allan SHACKLETON got an idea: He shot a new ending, where an actress was seemingly "killed" on camera for real (though the basement special effects clearly proofed otherwise). Cleverly promoted with the slogan "shot in South America, where life is cheap" SNUFF turned out to be a huge success. This was how the concept of snuff movies (where people are killed for real) was introduced. Other feature films like EMMANUELLE IN AMERICA or LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET further elaborated on this concept. The authors review the above mentioned films and many more in great detail and with much knowledge.
Further chapters revolve around the socalled "mondo" (shockumentary) film and how this genre evolved, starting with MONDO CANE in 1962. Writers KEREKES and SLATER show in a very detailed way, how mondo directors faked and re-enacted death footage, which was allegedly "real". I found this making - of approach particularly interesting. Many of the horrifying mondo films (like THE KILLING OF AMERICA and the infamous FACES OF DEATH series) are dealt with in lengthy reviews. Considering the subject matter one might expect that the book is written in an exploitative way. This clearly is not the case.
Further chapters concern films where real atrocity footage was used - like the US porn movie FORCED ENTRY about a posttraumatic stress disorder suffering Vietnam veteran rapist, whose "activities" are interspersed with actual combat newsreel footage. The last chapter details how tabloid papers and feminists are propagating the urban legend of snuff films.
The sheer amount of facts concerning real reel death the authors have crammed in the relatively small book is amazing:
Hospital documentaries like the 6 hour long NEAR DEATH. Nauseating underground films. The famous ZAPRUDER amateur film of the assassination of president John F. KENNEDY. Autopsy films like THE ACT OF SEEING WITH ONE'S OWN EYES. Driver education films depicting the daily carnage on the streets. Incidents where people committed suicide live in front a camera - like Pennsylvania state treasurer Budd R. DWYER, who blew his brains out with a .357 revolver during a press conference after being convicted of bribery. The GIMME SHELTER concert film, where a camera by accident caught some Hell's Angels stabbing a man. (Please note that these are only a few examples of what to find in this excellent book.)
The book is illustrated with dozens of highly interesting pictures (video covers, stills, posters, ad material, newspaper clips).
And, yes, the infamous Japanese GUINEA PIG series is covered as well. On a lighter note, the authors also review a hoax autopsy film of a Roswell alien (!)
As you can image this book is disturbing, sometimes revolting and could be offensive to some. Clearly it is only for the most devoted fan of extreme and obscure cinema/film and the most hardened horror buff. But for these groups it is absolutely indispensable. I can't praise it high enough.

A much-needed, carefully researched book that looks into the darkest of cinematic shadows. I especially like that they debunk the snuff film industry. Also commendable are the copious footnotes and the exhaustive index that lists movies by their alternate titles, directors, and years of production--very helpful when scouring the video stores for "Guinea Pig 2," "Man Behind the Sun," or even "Gimme Shelter." Certainly it gets into some stomach-churning descriptions, but I appreciate the dispassionate approach to a topic usually dealt with by pandering, slavering idiots. These Creation books, man I love 'em.

Killing for Culture is the first and most sought after of the Creation Cinema series. It covers all types of death in film looking at how it is portrayed and why. Nothing is left out from the real death seen in the Faces of Death video series to the elaborately staged "real" killings in fictional films to the wanton slaughtering of animals in the Mondo series. Yes, even "snuff" films are discussed in various sections first looking at their depiction in Hollywood films such as Hardcore (1979) and then speculating on their existence.

The chapters on snuff films is definitely the most interesting if for no other reason than this is probably one of the only available filmic studies of it. Kerekes and Slater share the opinion that while there probably ARE a small number of snuff films in existence, it's highly unlikely that there was ever any sort of underground market for that sort of thing. They define snuff not as a film of someone simply dying, but as a film made for the sadistic pleasure of the viewer. In that sense, TV news clips of plane crashes and such do not constitute snuff. Along the way, they examine some films rumored to have actual deaths onscreen. Films like Last House on Dead End Street (1977) and Snuff (1974) were made with the entire cast and crew using assumed names. Thus, they are sometimes seen as obscure films made by a bunch of psycho killers. Kerekes and Slater do a great job of finding out who actually made them and how they staged what many thought to be real murders.

There is a nice history of Mondo film and it looks at various cultural implications of Italian and, later, American film crews invading other countries, exploiting and terrorizing natives, and slaughtering animals senselessly. It will make you think twice before buying the new-to-DVD Mondo Caine series.

For anyone who has read a Creation Cinema book, this is not much different. There are many black and white stills of varying degrees of quality. The writing style is fairly sloppy. Kerekes and Slater are not cunning linguists in any respect. They are, however, good researchers and excellent film buffs. Their enthusiasm for these films are evident on every page. Their descriptions of the terrible plots, acting, and directing are quite funny, but it's always clear that as technically lacking as the films are, they still love them. As a fan of "bad" movies, I understand where they're coming from.

If you like films such as Thriller: A Cruel Picture, I Spit on Your Grave, Toolbox Murders, Nail Gun Massacre, etc., you'll find this book is an amazing resource. It's great that somebody is looking at these films in a somewhat academic way without forgetting that they are, above all, entertainment. This book has been out of print for a while now and as a result the price is fairly high (and getting higher). I recommend picking up a copy at any price before it's too late. Enjoy.

Now he has got his new company surly a movie about mad women chasing the movie producer to save an artist makes a great movie for the failing Hollywood blcobuster? The Weinstein Company should look at this book now and make it into a UK movie.

Thelma and Loise meet The Player?

This book really made me laugh but I have to say I was shocked that Harvey Weinstein did not help them save thier artist, he must be short of money because these women could sell snow to Eskimos. Excellent read and the perfect holiday companion.

This book is hilarious buy it if you love to laugh at the reality of life.

I got hold of a copy of this book from someone important in Hollywood, flying first class, Virgin Airways. He was laughing so much I asked him the title of the book he was reading. Was he laughing at the story or was he laughing at himself. It turned out he was a producer and knew Harvey Weinstein very well. The book is a true account of what happens when normal women get inside the Hollywood system and expose not only themselves but the people who run it. Fantastic story.

This is just amazing, what a tale. I wish I had seen this side of Hollywood. The book is a sales manual and a diary for drunks, drug addicts and those who tell the truth.

A very enjoyable book. Just the high quality reproduction of the covers would make this a great book.
A richly savory festival of imagination, creativity, insight (cultural, sociological, philosophical, etc.) and, of course, delightful humor and splendiferous transcendental artwork. Lots of charming tidbits including photos, extra art reproductions, etc.
Thanks Frank and The Usual Gang for this inundation of funshine and good cheer!

(After you've seen the covers you'd probably like to peek inside). Check out: Absolutely MAD Magazine - 50+ Years

If there are better sight gags than those on the cover of Mad magazine, then I have yet to see them. This book is a collection of the first 400 covers and some of them had me hysterical with laughter. My favorite was the one where Alfred is holding a hard taco shell behind a Mexican dog that is straining mightily. Others were just as funny, although some did require explanation. The producers of the magazine were not above applying a little duplicity when creating the covers.
The only drawback for younger readers will be that knowledge of the current events of the time is a precondition if you are to get the joke. For example, some covers feature political figures, and if you don't know anything about them, the joke is lost. Other covers are spoofs of hit movies of the time, so the explanatory captions are a welcome addition. Having lived through those times, I understood most of them, but there were a few times when I didn't understand the joke until I read the caption.
This book is very funny and you cannot help but be impressed by the quality of the artwork and the zany intelligence that went into the covers of Mad. The producers of Mad constantly lampooned themselves as idiots, but they were without question geniuses.

this book is well designd and gives all the information about the covers over the years, including notes about the spacial covers.
i highly recomand this book to any mad reader.

I loved this book , mostly because Im a mad magazine FAN!!! BUY THIS BOOK!!!!!!!! GREAT BOOK

The first copy of Mad I saw was issue 29 in September 1956 (still got it too) and I was hooked. How could a magazine be so funny and be so spot-on with its satire? Easy, just employ the `usual gang of idiots' that's how. I kind of grew out of it when I discovered the National Lampoon, how could a magazine be so funny etc, etc. But I have always had a soft spot for Mad and this book of covers is a super addition to my back issues and other Mad books.

All 399 (up to November 2000) covers are in this well designed and printed book Mostly one or two covers to a page sometimes with Frank Jacobs' commentary and with a lot of the latter covers you get to see the preliminary cover roughs. As the years go by you can see how the covers changed from simple visual gags into ones that are much more graphic and busy because they have to work harder on the newsstand. The ideas are still very funny after all these years though. My favorite is issue 35 (October 1957) a wraparound that celebrated the fifth anniversary with a great painting from Norman Mingo showing a few dozen very famous American merchandising characters seated round a dining table, Alfred's at one end grinning. I would love this as a poster.

I think it is worth mentioning for Mad fans the seven CD-ROM `Totally Mad' set, every page from the issue one thru to December 1998, the interface is very user friendly and the discs have a lot of additional aural and visual surprises.

BTW, Robert Silver's photmosaic book cover, made up from the magazines covers, is stunning.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

"The Making of the Wizard of Oz: Movie Magic and Studio Power in the Prime of MGM--And the Miracle of Production No 1060" is just downright enthralling. It is an expose' that breaks down the machinery and the machinations of what it took to get a major movie made in the days of the autocratic studio heads. The book offers an entertaining and totally engrossing look at the legendary film. Judy, Ray, Jack, Bert, Margaret, and Toto, too, are all analyzed in this brilliant work. The songwriters, the respective directors, the many other craftsmen, as well as the "little people," in more than the figurative sense, are all here. Vividly embellished with stills from the production, the book's text is just as captivating. The familiar as well as the unfamiliar stories about the production make for a most satisfying read for any "Oz" fan. It is also a good primer for anyone with an interest in pursuing film as a career.

It doesn't matter unduly if you didn't grow up watching MGM's 1939 color movie "The Wizard of Oz" in re-release or on TV. You might think that a "Munchkin" is what used to be called a "doughnut hole." You may think of Judy Garland only as Liza Minnelli's mother, and avoid prewar movies like the plague. Maybe you didn't feel that shock of recognition that "Cora the Coffee Lady" in Maxwell House TV commercials was none other than Margaret Hamilton, the green-faced Wicked Witch of the West.

Of course, if you love "The Wizard of Oz" you've love THE MAKING OF THE WIZARD OF OZ all the more. I just read this book for the second time (the first upon its initial publication), and was astonished and pleased by how well it has held up. Author Aljean Harmetz has crafted a book relevant not only in terms of one particular "prestige" movie off the Hollywood assembly line; but indeed her insight, research and friendly presentation make the book stand as a metaphor of all Hollywood filmmaking during the height of the Studio Era, ca. 1940. Perhaps the late Irving Thalberg was one of the few Hollywood insiders who could "keep the whole equation of pictures inside his head," but Ms. Harmetz opens up this world for us, and shows us both its realism and its wonder.

We return to an era in which studio moguls were as eccentric and powerful as today's software barons, when studio hands were nonunionized yet intensely loyal to their studios, when no movie studio even thought about a future containing broadcast TV, when movie stars were better known than Presidents or Kings, and when Technicolor would give you any color except the one you wanted. Nonetheless, solving the creative problems inherent in bringing L. Frank Baum's novel "The Wizard of Oz" to the screen was seen as an invigorating set of challenges to be met and conquered.

Back then, MGM had a real "can-do" attitude. So no one had
ever created a moving tornado for a film? After two tries the MGM tech people got it right, and the depiction of that horrendous twister so set the tintype for what a tornado ought to look like that it persists in our collective consciousness today, despite today's ubiquitous video cameras.

There were no tape recorders. How, then, to raise or lower voices artificially for dubbing? This book tells how. What happened when Buddy Ebsen almost died from an allergy to aluminum dust he had worn as the (originally intended) Tin Man? Why was Margaret Hamilton burned severely and ignored, yet Billie Burke turned an ankle and was whisked off the set in a white ambulance? Why did the film need four directors and half a dozen screenwriters, yet was fondly recalled as a labor of love by practically everyone except a prematurely embittered Judy Garland? Was the film the great commercial and critical success you might think it would be? And, by the way, what about those Munchkins' alleged sexual proclivities? Excellent answers provided by excellent research present a fully-formed world view, warts and all.

THE MAKING OF THE WIZARD OF OZ would be a wonderful companion to the new restored DVD version of the film, which is so crisp you can count the gingham checkers on Dorothy's blue dress (which was actually violet, to fool the Technicolor process). How were the ruby slippers made? What about that poppy field? Read on. Some critics have said that Harmetz's later work is not as excruciatingly well researched as THE MAKING OF THE WIZARD OF OZ, but I don't care. This book and the movie are not only as much fun as ever, but a great education in the good old/bad old days of the Hollywood "Dream Factory." Don't miss it!

MGM's movie,based on the book by L. Frank Baum,"The Wizard of Oz,"is nearly 70 years old. But its stars, Judy Garland, Bert Lahr, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Billie Burke and Margaret Hamilton, still shine brightly as ever, and the movie continues to be a particular favorite of young and old.

Aljean Harmetz is the daughter of a woman who worked backstage at MGM. Harmetz's mother worked in the Wardrobe Department; she was able to estimate sewing costs on thousands of costumes, from 1937 to 1951 --including the nearly one thousand needed for "The Wizard of Oz,"alone.

So starting from this birds' eye view, Harmetz is well able to explain how "movie magic and studio power in the prime of MGM" resulted in "the miracle of Production #1060." To that end, she did hundreds of interviews, with actors, singers, songwriters, cameramen, screen writers, costumers, directors, and technicians. She succeeded in bringing the great glory days of MGM, under its sentimental czar L.B. Mayer, to technicolor life.

Harmetz explains how the Emerald City was designed and built; how the cyclone was created. She tells us how Judy Garland's immortal "Over the Rainbow" was nearly lost, as envious, nitpicking producers responded after the film's first screening: "Why does she sing in a barnyard? Take it out!"

The author gives us fine portraits of Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West--"she enjoyed every moment screaming about those slippers." Binnie Barnes, who played the Good Witch Glinda, retiring to her pink and blue dressing room to await her next call. Bert Lahr creating the endearing cowardly lion-- his costume weighed over 50 pounds. "It was like carrying a mattress around with you," he said. And he could only sip liquids once in full makeup. Ray Bolger, the dancer who created the Scarecrow, " I have no bones. I have nothing inside me. It's just the wind holding me up." And Jack Haley who inherited the Tin Woodman's part after an allergic reaction to the aluminum paste makeup, put Buddy Ebsen, first cast for the part, in hospital.

You should find you read these marvelously detailed pages with great enjoyment, and if you're as sentimental a fool as I can sometimes be, even with emotional involvement. If you love the movie, you might want to try to find this book.

The making of the Wizard of Oz is a wonderful book to anyone who has grown to love the Wizard of Oz. You don't even have to be an obsessive fan of the movie like myself to enjoy it. It is extremely well researched. If information is not known the author says it so and does not attempt to recreate history as some nonfiction works do.

Perhaphs what makes the 1939 movie so wonderful is learning all the behind the scenes things that went into making it. This book gives respect and a knew sense of understanding as to what movie making was like in the biggest studio of that time. It is written so that it doesn't need to be read front to back. You can start in the special effects section and finish in the chapter about the script, or the music, or the directors (did you know there were four?).

Did you know that the movie had the work of 10 writers or do you know how the surrender dorothy scene was done? Well, in this book you find out his and thousands more did you know facts to impress friends. I recommend this to anyone who has watched the Wizard of Oz. And if Oz didn't win an academy award for best picture in 1939 than that was because the academy didn't have this book to help choose.

If you're a die hard fan of this classic film then you'll want to read this well-researched "making of" tome. The book is filled with all sorts of wonderful trivia tidbits but most of all it gives an insightful review of those behind the camera in a way I've yet to find in other "OZ" related books. The one and only shortcoming of this book is to be found in the number of pictures, in my opinion there could have been more, otherwise it's a behind the scenes look that most OZ fans won't be disappointed with.