Synopses & Reviews
Escape Artist—based on Glenn Lovell’s extensive interviews with John Sturges, his wife and children, and numerous stars including Clint Eastwood, Robert Duvall, and Jane Russell—is the first biography of the director of such acclaimed films as
The Magnificent Seven,
The Great Escape, and
Bad Day at Black Rock. Lovell examines Sturges’s childhood in California during the Great Depression; his apprenticeship in the editing department of RKO Pictures, where he worked on such films as
Gunga Din and
Of Human Bondage; his service in the Army Air Corps in World War II; and his emergence as one of the first independent producer-directors in Hollywood. Chronicling the filmmaker’s relationships with such luminaries as Spencer Tracy, James Garner, Yul Brynner, and Frank Sinatra,
Escape Artist interweaves biography with critical analyses of Sturges’s hits and misses. Along the way, Lovell addresses the reasons why Sturges has been overlooked in the ongoing discussion of postwar Hollywood and explores the director’s focus on masculinity, machismo, and male-bonding in big-budget, ensemble action films. Lovell also examines Sturges’s aesthetic sensibility, his talent for composing widescreen images, and his uncanny ability to judge raw talent—including that of Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and James Coburn, all of whom began their careers in Sturges’s movies. This long overdue study of a major Hollywood director will find a welcome home in the libraries of film scholars, action movie buffs, and anyone interested in the popular culture of the twentieth century.
Best Books for Special Interests, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the Public Library Association
"Pick up a copy of film critic and scholar Glenn Lovell's terrific new Sturges biography, Escape Artist. . . . I can't urge you enough to check out this interview-rich, aesthetically and culturally perceptive look at the filmmaker and his work."—Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News
“Lovell’s list of interviewees reads like a who’s who of Hollywood and they obviously provided rich source material for this full-scale biography and career survey.”— Leonard Maltin
“This long overdue study of a major Hollywood director will find a welcome home in the libraries of film scholars, action movie buffs, and anyone interested in the popular culture of the twentieth century.”—Turner Classic Movies (TCM.com)
Review
“We don’t need more books on Bette Davis or Joan Crawford, but we do need more books like Glenn Lovell’s reasoned, insightful biography of John Sturges, one of American movies’ best directors of character-driven action movies. Sturges was the successor to accomplished directorial pros like Victor Fleming and Henry Hathaway, and films like The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape were his best testament . . . until Lovell’s book.”—Scott Eyman, author of Lion of Hollywood: The Life of Louis B. Mayer
Review
“Glenn Lovell takes us onto the movie sets and into the life of John Sturges, one of the outstanding directors of twentieth century films. Sturges’s major works Bad Day At Black Rock, Gunfight At The O.K. Corral, The Magnificent Seven, and The Great Escape are covered in great detail. His many other films are also discussed providing a fascinating fabric of movie making in the Golden Age for both film students and movie lovers.”—producer Walter Mirisch, author of I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History
Review
"John Sturges was one of cinema's greatest action directors. His pioneering mastery of the wide screen process is unparalleled. For my money, he's also a candidate for one of last century's most underrated directors, period. Glenn Lovell's examination of Sturges's life and films finally corrects this error."—John Carpenter
Review
“John Sturges is the most underrated director in the history of Hollywood.”—producer Robert E. Relyea
Synopsis
Henry Herzog survived the liquidation of the Rzeszow ghetto in Poland and endured terrible hardships in forced labor camps. He documents the increasing severity of Nazi rule in Rzeszow and the complicity of the Jewish council (the Judenrat) and Jewish police in the round-ups for deportation to the Belzec concentration camp. One of these deportations took his parents to their deaths. His brothers were caught, tortured, and killed by the Gestapo. Herzog and his sister escaped to Hungary where although she found refuge he was betrayed, arrested, and finally put on a train to the concentration camps. Escaping by jumping off the train and fleeing into the Tatra Mountains, he joined a group of Russian partisans to fight the Nazis.
1995 paperback, Saga Publishers / Folio Private"
Synopsis
Escape Artist—based on Glenn Lovell’s extensive interviews with John Sturges, his wife and children, and numerous stars including Clint Eastwood, Robert Duvall, and Jane Russell—is the first biography of the director of such acclaimed films as The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, and Bad Day at Black Rock.
Synopsis
Escape Artist--based on Glenn Lovell's extensive interviews with John Sturges, his wife and children, and numerous stars including Clint Eastwood, Robert Duvall, and Jane Russell--is the first biography of the director of such acclaimed films as The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, and Bad Day at Black Rock. Lovell examines Sturges's childhood in California during the Great Depression; his apprenticeship in the editing department of RKO Pictures, where he worked on such films as Gunga Din and Of Human Bondage; his service in the Army Air Corps in World War II; and his emergence as one of the first independent producer-directors in Hollywood. Chronicling the filmmaker's relationships with such luminaries as Spencer Tracy, James Garner, Yul Brynner, and Frank Sinatra, Escape Artist interweaves biography with critical analyses of Sturges's hits and misses. Along the way, Lovell addresses the reasons why Sturges has been overlooked in the ongoing discussion of postwar Hollywood and explores the director's focus on masculinity, machismo, and male-bonding in big-budget, ensemble action films. Lovell also examines Sturges's aesthetic sensibility, his talent for composing widescreen images, and his uncanny ability to judge raw talent--including that of Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and James Coburn, all of whom began their careers in Sturges's movies. This long overdue study of a major Hollywood director will find a welcome home in the libraries of film scholars, action movie buffs, and anyone interested in the popular culture of the twentieth century.
Best Books for Special Interests, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the Public Library Association
Pick up a copy of film critic and scholar Glenn Lovell's terrific new Sturges biography, Escape Artist. . . . I can't urge you enough to check out this interview-rich, aesthetically and culturally perceptive look at the filmmaker and his work.--Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News
Lovell's list of interviewees reads like a who's who of Hollywood and they obviously provided rich source material for this full-scale biography and career survey.-- Leonard Maltin
This long overdue study of a major Hollywood director will find a welcome home in the libraries of film scholars, action movie buffs, and anyone interested in the popular culture of the twentieth century.--Turner Classic Movies (TCM.com)
Synopsis
This first biography of Oscar-winning filmmaker Richard Brooks, writer-director of Elmer Gantry and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, restores to importance the career of one of the mid-twentieth century’s most influential Hollywood figures and includes analysis of Brooks’s filmography and interviews with stars Sidney Poitier and Jean Simmons, Brooks’s wife for twenty years.
Synopsis
Douglass K. Daniel is a writer and editor with the Associated Press. He is author of Harry Reasoner: A Life in the News and Lou Grant: The Making of TV’s Top Newspaper Drama.
Synopsis
Called “God’s angry man” for his unyielding demands in pursuit of personal and artistic freedom, Oscar-winning filmmaker Richard Brooks brought us some of the mid-twentieth century’s most iconic films, including Blackboard Jungle, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Elmer Gantry, In Cold Blood, and Looking for Mr. Goodbar. “The important thing,” he once remarked, “is to write your story, to make it believable, to make it live.” His own life story has never been fully chronicled, until now. Tough as Nails: The Life and Films of Richard Brooks restores to importance the career of a prickly iconoclast who sought realism and truth in his films. Douglass K. Daniel explores how the writer-director made it from the slums of Philadelphia to the heights of the Hollywood elite, working with the top stars of the day, among them Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Elizabeth Taylor, Jean Simmons, Sidney Poitier, Sean Connery, Gene Hackman, and Diane Keaton. Brooks dramatized social issues and depicted characters in conflict with their own values, winning an Academy Award for his Elmer Gantry screenplay and earning nominations for another seven Oscars for directing and screenwriting. Tough as Nails offers illuminating insights into Brooks’s life, drawing on unpublished studio memos and documents and interviews from stars and colleagues, including Poitier, director Paul Mazursky, and Simmons, who was married to Brooks for twenty years. Daniel takes readers behind the scenes of Brooks’s major films and sheds light on their making, their compromises, and their common threads. Tough as Nails celebrates Brooks’s vision while adding to the critical understanding of his works, their flaws as well as their merits, and depicting the tumults and trends in the life of a man who always kept his own compass.
About the Author
“Reads like a wonderful movie. Richard Brooks’s story is feisty, opinionated, emotional, heartfelt, bitter, angry, warmhearted, and even funny. I loved Richard Brooks and I love this wonderful book.”—Paul Mazursky, Academy Award–nominated filmmaker
“Mr. Daniel has captured the essence of the artist known as Richard Brooks. The struggle of the Outsider who became an Insider in Hollywood in spite of being a ruffian cannot be put down. I admired Mr. Brooks when I worked with him and through this wonderful book I grew to love him.”—Shirley Knight, actress
“Douglass Daniel has nailed Richard Brooks. It is high time for this engrossing and revelatory account of his life, his work and his creative drive. This places Brooks where he rightfully belongs, among the greats of cinema history.”—Scott Wilson, actor who portrayed Dick Hickock in In Cold Blood
Table of Contents
Contents Illustrations Foreword 1. Sturges with a Blast of Rum 2. Youth 3. RKO 4. War & Wyler 5. Columbia Years 6. MGM 7. A Walk in the Sun 8. At Sea 9. Gun for Hire 10. The Pack, Plus One 11. The Mirisch Years 12. Roadshows Epilogue Acknowledgments Filmography Notes Bibliography Index