Richard W. Bann's Books

The Little Rascals

The Life and Times of Our Gang

By: Leonard Maltin,Richard W. Bann

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The Little Rascals

The Life and Times of Our Gang

By: Leonard Maltin,Richard W. Bann

When originally published in 1977 as Our Gang, this book sold over 52,000 copies. This new edition, with an extensive amount of fresh material, will prove irresistible to all fans of the most popular film series of all time. Includes updated biographical entries on the cast and crew and complete entries on every single film, with story synopses, production credits, cast lists, critiques, and more. 397 photographs.

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Page Count

320

Publisher

Three Rivers Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0517583259

ISBN 13

9780517583258

The Sagebrush Trail

Western Movies and Twentieth-Century America

By: Richard Aquila

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The Sagebrush Trail

Western Movies and Twentieth-Century America

By: Richard Aquila

The Sagebrush Trail is a history of Western movies but also a history of twentieth-century America. Richard Aquila’s fast-paced narrative covers both the silent and sound eras, and includes classic westerns such as Stagecoach, A Fistful of Dollars, and Unforgiven, as well as B-Westerns that starred film cowboys like Tom Mix, Gene Autry, and Hopalong Cassidy. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 traces the birth and growth of Westerns from 1900 through the end of World War II. Part 2 focuses on a transitional period in Western movie history during the two decades following World War II. Finally, part 3 shows how Western movies reflected the rapid political, social, and cultural changes that transformed America in the 1960s and the last decades of the twentieth century. The Sagebrush Trail explains how Westerns evolved throughout the twentieth century in response to changing times, and it provides new evidence and fresh interpretations about both Westerns and American history. These films offer perspectives on the past that historians might otherwise miss. They reveal how Americans reacted to political and social movements, war, and cultural change. The result is the definitive story of Western movies, which contributes to our understanding of not just movie history but also the mythic West and American history. Because of its subject matter and unique approach that blends movies and history, The Sagebrush Trail should appeal to anyone interested in Western movies, pop culture, the American West, and recent American history and culture. The mythic West beckons but eludes. Yet glimpses of its utopian potential can always be found, even if just for a few hours in the realm of Western movies. There on the silver screen, the mythic West continues to ride tall in the saddle along a “sagebrush trail” that reveals valuable clues about American life and thought.

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Page Count

384

Publisher

University of Arizona Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0816531781

ISBN 13

9780816531783

A History of the Hal Roach Studios

By: Richard Lewis Ward

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A History of the Hal Roach Studios

By: Richard Lewis Ward

Once labeled the “lot that laugher built,” the Hal Roach Studios launched the comedic careers of such screen icons as Harold Lloyd, Our Gang, and Laurel and Hardy. With this stable of stars, the Roach enterprise operated for forty-six years on the fringes of the Hollywood studio system during a golden age of cinema and gained notoriety as a producer of short comedies, independent features, and weekly television series. Many of its productions are better remembered today than those by its larger contemporaries. In A History of the Hal Roach Studios, Richard Lewis Ward meticulously follows the timeline of the company’s existence from its humble inception in 1914 to its close in 1960 and, through both its obscure and famous productions, traces its resilience to larger trends in the entertainment business. In the first few decades of the twentieth century, the motion picture industry was controlled by an elite handful of powerful firms that allowed very little room for new competition outside of their established cartel. The few independents that garnered some measure of success despite their outsider status usually did so by specializing in underserved or ignored niche markets. Here, Ward chronicles how the Roach Studios, at the mercy of exclusive distribution practices, managed to repeatedly redefine itself in order to survive for nearly a half-century in a cutthroat environment. Hal Roach’s tactic was to nurture talent rather than exhaust it, and his star players spent the prime of their careers shooting productions on his lot. Even during periods of decline or misdirection, the Roach Studios turned out genuinely original material, such as the screwball classic Topper (1937), the brutally frank Of Mice and Men (1940), and the silent experiment One Million B.C. (1940). Ward’s exploration yields insight into the production and marketing strategies of an organization on the periphery of the theatrical film industry and calls attention to the interconnected nature of the studio system during the classic era. The volume also looks to the early days of television when the prolific Roach Studios embraced the new medium to become, for a time, the premier telefilm producer. Aided by a comprehensive filmography and twenty-seven illustrations, A History of the Hal Roach Studios recounts an overlooked chapter in American cinema, not only detailing the business operations of Roach’s productions but also exposing the intricate workings of Hollywood’s rivalrous moviemaking establishment.

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Page Count

284

Publisher

SIU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0809388065

ISBN 13

9780809388066

When the Cock Crows

A History of the Pathé Exchange

By: Richard Lewis Ward

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When the Cock Crows

A History of the Pathé Exchange

By: Richard Lewis Ward

Influential during Hollywood’s silent-film era, the Pathé Exchange was a multinational film company with a production and distribution model very different from the self-contained units of most major studios. When the Cock Crows: A History of the Pathé Exchange, by Richard Lewis Ward, tells the unconventional story of this unique company, examining its triumphs and failures on the margins of the Hollywood system and its legacy in the movie business. Ward traces the company’s turbulent evolution from its roots as an American distributor for Pathé Frères, its French parent studio, through its many subsequent changes in ownership, to its final years under the controversial leadership of Joseph P. Kennedy and the eventual merger of the company’s production department with RKO. Included are the stories of the unlikely survival of Pathé’s nonproduction assets, such as Pathé Industries, Inc., Pathé-America Distributing Co., Inc., and Pathé Communications Corporation, which continued to operate as part of the industry long after the Exchange had ceased to exist. Ward also provides a fascinating glimpse into the silent movie era and the business and creative decisions that led the Exchange to fail. Film historians have largely ignored the Pathé Exchange, despite its having produced some of the most famous early serials (including the series that began with The Perils of Pauline) and distributed the first films of comedy legends Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon, Laurel and Hardy, and Our Gang. When the Cock Crows reveals the promise and peril of early Hollywood and establishes the company’s vital place in film history, creating a more vivid picture of this era.

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Page Count

250

Publisher

SIU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0809334976

ISBN 13

9780809334971

Book's by Richard W. Bann

The Little Rascals

The Little Rascals

The Sagebrush Trail

The Sagebrush Trail

A History of the Hal Roach Studios

A History of the Hal Roach Studios

When the Cock Crows

When the Cock Crows

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