Reference works

Since his rise to fame in the television series 21 Jump Street in 1987 and his subsequent transition to film acting, Johnny Depp has received constant criticism for his choice of roles--at least until his popular turn in the Pirates of the Caribbean series.

The Devil has been represented in many film genres, including horror, comedy, the musical, fantasy, satire, drama, and the religious epic, and in these works has assumed many shapes and forms.

On January 24, 1897, an event took place that would change Cuban culture forever: the first moving pictures were shown in Havana.

This work identifies 436 American silent films released between 1909 and 1929 that engaged the issues of militant labor and revolutionary radicalism.

Intelligence activities have always been an integral part of statecraft.

From the grindhouse oddities to major studio releases, this work details 46 horror films released during the genre's golden era.

This annotated bibliography covers approximately 400 novels published from 1838 through 2007.

This work offers a critical, colorful and informative examination of different types of monster movies, spanning the silent period to today.

The love affair between boxing and Hollywood began with the dawn of film.

Costume production distinguishes early civilization from the Paleolithic era as much as architectural production.

All films with a predominantly or entirely African American cast or that were about African Americans are detailed here.

This work covers Bronson's entire output in film and on television, and includes many film stills and photographs.

This book is a critical encyclopedia of silent European films currently available on DVD, laser disc, and VHS.

The portrayal of clergy, saints, missionaries, monks, and other spiritual leaders dates back to the very beginnings of motion pictures and television.

Columbia produced over 500 two-reel shorts from 1933 through 1958, with Hollywood's finest comics (the Three Stooges, Andy Clyde, Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon, Charley Chase, others).

Reclusive American actor Randolph Scott, known for his subtle, dignified performances in almost 60 westerns, has been called the "e;most genuine Westerner.

Bob Hope got his start in show business when he was in his twenties, remained active past the age of 90, and lived to be 100.

Only one year after the presentation of the first Academy Awards on May 16, 1929, two musicals joined the select group of five films nominated for Best Picture.

Spaghetti Westerns--mostly produced in Italy or by Italians but made throughout Europe--were bleaker, rougher, grittier imitations of Hollywood Westerns, focusing on heroes only slightly less evil than the villains.

From its earliest days to the present, the onscreen image of the librarian has remained largely the same.

Reviews of The Gorehound's Guide to Splatter Films of the 1960s and 1970s: "e;recommended"e;--Booklist; "e;exhaustive.

Conrad Veidt, a native of Berlin, began acting in small parts as an extra until called into service during World War I.

One of the most influential thinkers of his era, H.

There has been a tremendous amount of renewed interest in the output of Britain's Hammer Films.

The headline of the Variety extra on October 27, 1926, proclaimed "e;Vitaphone1 Thrills L.

Anna May Wong, born in Los Angeles in 1905 to a Chinese family that did not support her ambition, is the only Asian-American actress to have achieved stardom during Hollywood's Golden Age.

Rudyard Kipling and Sir Henry Rider Haggard--close friends--wrote about adventure and the exotic in very different ways.

Cynical news hounds, grumbling editors, snooping television newscasters, inquisitive foreign correspondents, probing newsreel cameramen, and a host of others--all can be found in this reference work to Hollywood's version of journalism: from the early one-reelers to modern fare, over a thousand silent and sound films can be found.

Decades after his death, annual Gallop polls reveal that Marion Morrison is still firmly implanted among the top-ten favorite motion picture celebrities and American heroes.

From the early days of the movies, "e;cavemen"e; have been a popular subject for filmmakers--not surprisingly, since the birth of cinema occurred only a few decades after the earliest scientific studies of prehistoric man.

African-American writer Richard Wright (1908-1960) was celebrated during the early 1940s for his searing autobiography (Black Boy) and fiction (Native Son).

Since the first baseball movie (Little Sunset) in 1915, Hollywood has had an on-again, off-again affair with the sport, releasing more than 100 films through 2001.

Although the exact number will never be known, it is estimated that there were over 10,000 military engagements during the Civil War.

Science fiction films of the 1930s and 1940s were often set in dark laboratories that had strange looking glass containers with bubbling fluids and mad scientists conducting glandular and hormonal experiments.

Over the past century, the western has fluctuated in popularity.

Those tales of old--King Arthur, Robin Hood, The Crusades, Marco Polo, Joan of Arc--have been told and retold, and the tradition of their telling has been gloriously upheld by filmmaking from its very inception.

Westerns may have had their heyday, but they remain popular.

This book is a comprehensive filmography of biographical films featuring the lives of 65 great classical composers.

From the time his Nazi regime launched World War II to the present, Adolf Hitler has frequently been depicted on film.

Jeremiah Johnson, The Way We Were, Absence of Malice, Out of Africa, Tootsie, The Firm, Searching for Bobby Fischer--Sydney Pollack has produced, directed or appeared in some of the biggest and most influential films of the last quarter century.

From 1913 through 1918, Long Beach, California, was home to the largest independent film company in the world, the largely forgotten Balboa Studio.

The career of Christopher Lee has stretched over half a century in every sort of film from comedy to horror and in such diverse roles as the Man With the Golden Gun, Frankenstein's monster, Fu Manchu and Sherlock Holmes.

While Universal's Dracula and Frankenstein (both 1931) have received the most coverage of any of the studio's genre releases, it is the lesser known films that have long fascinated fans and historians alike.

This film reference covers 646 silent motion pictures, starting with Eadweard Muybridge's initial motion photography experiments in 1877 and even including The Taxi Dancer (1996).

African American theater buildings were theaters owned or managed by blacks or whites and serving an African American audience.

Without a big budget, special effects team, or professional actors and crew members, Herschell Gordon Lewis created films that he himself admits were trash.

This work presents 369 British films produced between 1937 and 1964 that embody many of the same filmic qualities as those "e;black films"e; made in the United States during the classic film noir era.

The Los Angeles area feels almost alive with movie history.

From Sean Connery to Roy Rogers, from comedy to political satire, films that include espionage as a plot device run the gamut of actors and styles.

Robert E.