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HOLLYWOOD GANGLAND

Name: HOLLYWOOD GANGLAND
Author: John McCarty
ISBN: 0-312-09306-3

THE MOVIES' LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE MOB

by John McCarty ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 16, 1993

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Well-written, enjoyable survey of the American-born gangster film from D.W. Griffith to Martin Scorsese, with bows to Kurosawa, Godard, and the English division of gunmen. McCarty (The Modern Horror Film, 1990, etc.—not reviewed) gets better mileage out of his subject than might be expected. He contends that the silent-screen gangster sprang from the western gunslinger transposed to an urban setting—and that while the last great Western was Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969), the gangster film goes on blooming. According to McCarty, the more important early gangster films include D.W. Griffith's The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) and Raoul Walsh's five-reeler The Regeneration in 1915 (Walsh went on to make James Cagney's return to the genre, White Heat—in 1949). In The Blackbird (1926), man- of-a-thousand-faces Lon Chaney gave the gangster classic definition from which later film gangsters seldom swerved: ``He is an undisciplined child...who never grew up and still bitterly resents the `parental' authority of the police...[a] grandiose schemer determined to acquire wealth and power by the shortest route possible...the barrel of a gun.'' Ben Hecht's script for Josef von Sternberg's Underworld (1927) marshaled ``the many disparate elements of the burgeoning genre into a collective model for other filmmakers to emulate''—and soon Al Capone became the model for Little Caesar (1931) and Scarface (1932). McCarty goes on to weigh gangland, caper, and Yakuza films encyclopedically, from the shoddy to the fastidious, wisely separting flops from classics. Films we thought lost to oblivion arise freshly christened here, ready to dance. (One hundred b&w photographs)

Pub Date: Nov. 16, 1993

ISBN: 0-312-09306-3

Page Count: 288

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1993

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.