This biography of Alfred Hitchcock is as intriguing, revealing, perverse, and entertaining as any of his classic films. 'The best book yet about the movies' most famous director' Publisher's Weekly 'No one will ever top Hitch' Jimmy Stewart One of cinema's greatest directors, a virtuoso visual artist, and a genius of the suspense genre, Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) is universally known for such masterpieces as Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds. But he was also a famously difficult and complex man, prone to arguing with studios and stars alike. In writing this biography, John Russell Taylor, a distinguished film critic and friend of Hitchcock's, enjoyed his full cooperation. Based on numerous interviews, with photos from the private family albums, and an in-depth study of the making of his last film, this biography of the director is as intriguing, revealing, perverse, and entertaining as any Hitchcock classic.
John Russell Taylor, Art Critic of The Times, describes the origins and central ideas of Impressionism and identifies some of the successors to a movement whose first exhibition in 1874 has justly been called the birthday of modern art.
John Russell Taylor believes that the art of the Impressionists has much to tell us about the world they inhabited, as well as how they transformed the world in their work. How politically conscious were they, and how aware of the social and economic problems of their day.
In the 1970s the revolution that had swept the British theatre in the 1950s had already become accepted as the new establishment. Areas that had been previously regarded as remote ideals - including permanent repertory companies, a lively provincial theatre and an extensive spread of avant-garde and fringe theatrical activities - were now considered commonplace. In this title, first published in 1971, John Russell Taylor assesses the prospects of the British theatre at the start of the 1970s and indicates its points of weakness and its strengths. In this context are placed the key figures among the Second Wave of dramatists, and detailed critical commentaries on the work of writers such as David Mercer, Tom Stoppard and Peter Terson. This is an indispensable introduction for any student with an interest in the history and development of the British theatre and the people who have played instrumental roles in this.
A BRILLIANTLY WRITTEN ACCOUNT OF THE NBA’S GLORY DAYS, AND THE RIVALRY THAT DOMINATED THE ERA In the mid-1950s, the NBA was a mere barnstorming circuit, with outposts in such cities as Rochester, New York, and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Most of the best players were white; the set shot and layup were the sport’s chief offensive weapons. But by the 1970s, the league ruled America’s biggest media markets; contests attracted capacity crowds and national prime-time television audiences. The game was played “above the rim”–and the most marketable of its high-flying stars were black. The credit for this remarkable transformation largely goes to two giants: Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. In The Rivalry, award-winning journalist John Taylor projects the stories of Russell, Chamberlain, and other stars from the NBA’s golden age onto a backdrop of racial tensions and cultural change. Taylor’s electrifying account of two complex men–as well as of a game and a country at a crossroads–is an epic narrative of sports in America during the 1960s. It’s hard to imagine two characters better suited to leading roles in the NBA saga: Chamberlain was cast as the athletically gifted yet mercurial titan, while Russell played the role of the stalwart centerpiece of the Boston Celtics dynasty. Taylor delves beneath these stereotypes, detailing how the two opposed and complemented each other and how they revolutionized the way the game was played and perceived by fans. Competing with and against such heroes as Jerry West, Tom Heinsohn, Bob Cousy, John Havlicek, and Elgin Baylor, and playing for the two greatest coaches of the era, Alex Hannum and the fiery Red Auerbach, Chamberlain and Russell propelled the NBA into the spotlight. But their off-court visibility and success–to say nothing of their candor–also inflamed passions along America’s racial and generational fault lines. In many ways, Russell and Chamberlain helped make the NBA and, to some extent, America what they are today. Filled with dramatic conflicts and some of the great moments in sports history, and building to a thrilling climax–the 1969 final series, the last showdown between Russell and Chamberlain–The Rivalry has at its core a philosophical question: Can determination and a team ethos, embodied by the ultimate team player, Bill Russell, trump sheer talent, embodied by Wilt Chamberlain? Gripping, insightful, and utterly compelling, the story of Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain is the stuff of sporting legend. Written with a reporter’s unerring command of events and a storyteller’s flair, The Rivalry will take its place as one of the classic works of sports history.
In the 1970s the revolution that had swept the British theatre in the 1950s had already become accepted as the new establishment. Areas that had been previously regarded as remote ideals - including permanent repertory companies, a lively provincial theatre and an extensive spread of avant-garde and fringe theatrical activities - were now considered commonplace. In this title, first published in 1971, John Russell Taylor assesses the prospects of the British theatre at the start of the 1970s and indicates its points of weakness and its strengths. In this context are placed the key figures among the second wave of dramatists, and detailed critical commentaries on the work of writers such as David Mercer, Tom Stoppard and Peter Terson. This is an indispensable introduction for any student with an interest in the history and development of the British theatre and the people who have played instrumental roles in this.
(Applause Books). At the age of twenty-six, Orson Welles made the film which remains immovable at the top of the critics' polls for the ten best films of all time Citizen Kane . John Russell Taylor's riveting biography of Welles examines the way the Welles legend has been constructed through the years, and how his death has shattered some of the illusions of not only his friends but his enemies. (Taylor is film critic for the London Times and the authorized biographer of Alfred Hitchcock.)
First published in 1967, this title considers the idea of the 'well-made play' in the context of how and why it has been devalued and how far, in allowing it to be devalued, we have lost sight of certain important elements of the theatre. The focus of the book is largely on the development of British theatre and those who have been instrumental to it. This is an indispensable introduction for any student with an interest in the history and development of the British theatre.
When it was first published in 1962, Anger and After was the first comprehensive study of the dramatic movement which began in 1956 with the staging of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger and has since brought forward such dramatists as Brendan Behan, Harold Pinter, N. F. Simpson, John Arden and Arnold Wesker. Thoroughly revised in 1969, this book remains important reading for theatre students in need of a comprehensive and authoritative guide to post-Osborne drama in Britain.
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