Synopses & Reviews
"A fascinating, meticulously researched, and most welcome biographical study of the life and filmsand#160;of Edgar G. Ulmer, a picturemaker whose name has practically become proverbial for no-budget,and#160;ultra-rapidly shot movies of quality and personal vision. What Ulmer could accomplish in six daysand#160;remains a object lesson for directors who strive to create something good with little means, andand#160;proof that miracles can happen if there is talent involved."and#160;and#151;Peter Bogdanovich
"Noah Isenberg's lovingly researched and sumptuously written book on the relentless self-mythologizer Ulmer, a man who over his singularly strange filmmaking career commingled with Hollywood titans AND worked the outermost margins of the industryand#151;even the margins of history itselfand#151;represents an intoxicating and savvy approach to biography, one that acknowledges that poetic truth lies in the blurred miles-wide belt between confirmed fact and after-the-fact longing for a better seat in the empyrean. Rich and strange. What a wonderful work this is."and#160;and#151;Guy Maddin, writer and director ofand#160;My Winnipeg
"This enthralling biography pieces together for the first time one of the strangest and most elusive careers in Hollywood. Noah Isenberg shows, with tact, elegance and exhaustive research, how the Viennese director who came to Hollywood with Wilder, Preminger and von Stroheim, wound up in the netherworld of Poverty Row, and how the directorand#8217;s noir films, made under cheap conditions on six-day-shooting schedules, exhibit something primaland#151;the grinding greed, ambition, and outsider yearning of noir." and#151;Molly Haskell, author of Frankly, My Dear: 'Gone with the Wind' Revisited
"Noah Isenberg has combined dogged detective work and an acute critical sense to create the first portrait of Edgar G. Ulmer that casts light into the dark corners of this gifted filmmakerand#8217;s labyrinthine career. Ulmerand#8217;s own life seems as spectacularly accursed as that of the protagonist of his most famous work, the 1945 film noir Detour, yet Isenberg uncovers something noble and ultimately quite moving in Ulmerand#8217;s unflagging pursuit of high art under the most unlikely circumstances."and#151;Dave Kehr, author of When Movies Mattered
and#160;
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"A page turner of a biography."
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"The story of his [Edgar G. Ulmer's] life is told with remarkable research and insight."
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"The seasonand#8217;s must read [for film buffs] . . . Noah Isenbergand#8217;s long-awaited biography 'Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins.' Ulmerand#8212;whose CV includes and#8220;People on Sunday,and#8221; and#8220;The Black Cat,and#8221; and#8220;Detour,and#8221; four Yiddish talkies, a half dozen bargain basement classics and as many indescribable odditiesand#8212;had a life that was every bit as interesting as his film. The writing is scholarly but, given the material, charged with irony and full of pep."
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"[A] cogent treatment of a singularly unlikely career. Isenberg's writing...allows the monumental eccentricities of Ulmer's underground journey to shine through."
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"Long considered as something of a guilty pleasure among filmmakers, critics, and fans, director Edgar G. Ulmer finally gets the attention and scholarship he deserves in Noah Isenbergand#8217;s new book."
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"A rare coupling of intellectual treatise and entertaining biography that beckons to both the film scholar and the public."
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"With sober intrepidness, Isenberg tethers down to earth some of the more wild claims made by and about his subject. In recounting the filmmakerand#185;s amazing career, he moves easily between describing the drama going on behind the scenes and analyzing the provocative work that Ulmer put on screen. . . . This fascinating biography gives us the chance to weigh the many frustrations in Ulmerand#185;s career against the joy he found in the act of creation."
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"Operating mostly outside of the Hollywood system, Edgar G. Ulmer (the original King of the Band#185;s) is a fascinating character whose rather notorious mysterious life is somewhere between fact and fiction. All of this is explored and solved . . . in scholar Noah Isenbergand#185;s brilliant new critical biography Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins."
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"A most welcome book, which can lay claim to being a definitive study of Edgar G. Ulmer. . . . Isenberg has given us more than an academic study of the filmmakerand#8217;s eclectic career. He manages to paint a rounded, sympathetic but honest picture of the man whose endless dreams were so often dashed. . . . Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins is scholarly but never dry. It is a valuable reference and a good read."
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"As Isenberg reveals in this utterly necessary book, Ulmer was a nonpareil slinger of [exaggerated stories] even for a business that thrives on everything inauthentic except avarice. . . . In so many ways he was the Micawber of Poverty Row, and the something that turned up was not the big budget spectaculars with A-list casts that he fervently hoped for, but the wormy little movies about failure that he actually made. They were more than good enough to justify a life, and this very good book."
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"The first English-language biography of the studio-era director oft crowned 'King of Poverty Row,' Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins explores an itinerant, ramshackle, and occasionally brilliant career that encompassed proto-protoand#8211;New Wave experiments, Yiddish utopia, influential B-noirs, fly-by-night exploitation, and Cold War sci-fi super-cheese. . .Isenberg creates a picture of a filmmaker as ragtag and resourceful as the films he directed. . . . [He] effectively traces Ulmerand#8217;s artistic identity through the thematic (existential dread and rootlessness) and aesthetic (German Expressionism, classical music and opera) continuity of a body of work unified by little else."
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"Isenberg makes a scrupulously honest case for the director and 'land#8217;aesthetique du cheap,' as a French critic called Ulmerand#8217;s kind of style, avoiding injudicious praise and recognizing his weaknesses as well as his strengths. Then again, with Ulmer the weaknesses often are the strengths, and vice versa. Thatand#8217;s what makes him so fascinating and Isenbergand#8217;s energetic study so engrossing."
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"While other authors are drawn to celebrities of greater stature whose lives are well documented, Isenberg preferred the challenge of unraveling the mystery of this European transplant who clearly had talent but never found success in Hollywood. . . . Ulmer may not have had the resources given to his fellow and#233;migrand#233; directors but that didnand#8217;t stop him from endowing his films with a unique personal vision that may finally be finding the appreciation it deserves."
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"The Ulmer that emerges from the detail-packed, though rarely dry, pages of Isenbergand#185;s biography is tragicomic. During his lifetime, the and#233;migrand#233; director was rightly renowned for his ability to spin straw into gold (or silver, at any rate), yet this meant that he became in many ways a victim of his own success."
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"Now we have what is destined to become the definitive English-language critical biography from Noah Isenberg. . . The movies speak for themselves, but they have gained an eloquent companion."
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"This definitive study of fringe director Edgar G. Ulmer is also an anatomy of the B-movie industry. . . . The stories of Ulmer's offscreen seat-of-the-pants artistry make for a delightful and inspiring read. Recommended."
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"An authoritative new biography."
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and#8220;[An] original and deeply researched study.and#8221;
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and#8220;Kemperand#8217;s work [is] both groundbreaking and valuable. . . . I learned something new in every chapter. Hidden Talent is a fascinating chronicle of the business side of Hollywood.and#8221;
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and#8220;Has there ever been a biographical film entirely about a Hollywood agent? Probably not. Still, some of the figures in Tom Kemper's new book would make lively subjects.and#8221;
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and#8220;An important new perspective on the dynamics of production in the studio era.and#8221;
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and#8220;Well presented and refreshing. . . . Highly recommended.and#8221;
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and#8220;Kemperand#8217;s witty, engaging prose and skill as a storyteller make the book accessible to a wide audience.and#8221;
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"Remarkable for its revealing of the hidden career of a minor genius is Noah Isenberg's Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins."and#160; Best Film Books of 2014
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and#8220;Rises impressively to the challenge of examining film and television throughout greater China in all its complexity.and#8221;
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and#8220;[A] compelling new study . . . . with entertaining anecdotes about government censors, Canto-pop stars, dodgy dot-com billionaires, and triad stand-over men sprinkled throughout . . . . [An] important work indeed-ambitious and interdisciplinary in scope, and a great read to boot.and#8221;
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and#8220;Anyone wanting a comprehensive survey of recent and emerging developments in the television systems of Chinese-speaking territories . . . should read this book at the earliest opportunity.and#8221;
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and#8220;Based on solid historical material and extensive interviews, this book provides readers with a panoramic analysis of the Chinese film and TV industryand#8230; [It features] a rare combination of market and cultural analysis.and#8221;
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and#8220;An important work that successfully integrates film and television studies across the Diaspora reach of the and#8216;global China marketand#8217;.and#8221;
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and#8220;Provides both history and contemporary analysis. . . . Playing to the Worldand#8217;s Biggest Audience will attract scholars and business people wanting to understand the dynamics of Asian media.and#8221;
Synopsis
Two spectacular dead bodies Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia, found dumped and posed in a vacant lot in January 1947, and Marilyn Monroe, found dead in her home in August 1962 bookend this new history of Hollywood s postwar transition. Short s murder called attention to the lives of the many disenfranchised in Los Angeles; she was, after all, one of them. Monroe s death involved the entourage inhabiting her movie star orbit: quack doctors, gangsters, Hollywood celebrities, the FBI and the CIA, and, inevitably, the Kennedys. Hard-Boiled Hollywood focuses on the many lives lost at the crossroads of a dreamed-of Hollywood and the real thing follwing the collapse of the studio system as celebrities, moguls, mobsters, gossip mongers, and industry wannabes came into frequent contact and conflict."
Synopsis
The tragic and mysterious circumstances surrounding the deaths of Elizabeth Short, or the Black Dahlia, and Marilyn Monroe ripped open Hollywood's glitzy facade, exposing the city's ugly underbelly of corruption, crime, and murder. These two spectacular dead bodies, one found dumped and posed in a vacant lot in January 1947, the other found dead in her home in August 1962, bookend this new history of Hollywood. Short and Monroe are just two of the many left for dead after the collapse of the studio system, Hollywood's awkward adolescence when the company town's many competing subcultures--celebrities, moguls, mobsters, gossip mongers, industry wannabes, and desperate transients--came into frequent contact and conflict. Hard-Boiled Hollywood focuses on the lives lost at the crossroads between a dreamed-of Los Angeles and the real thing after the Second World War, where reality was anything but glamorous."
Synopsis
Edgar G. Ulmer is perhaps best known today for
Detour, considered by many to be the epitome of a certain noir style that transcends its B-list origins. But in his lifetime he never achieved the celebrity of his fellow Austrian and German and#233;migrand#233; directorsand#151;Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger, Fred Zinnemann, and Robert Siodmak. Despite early work with Max Reinhardt and F. W. Murnau, his auspicious debut with Siodmak on their celebrated Weimar classic
People on Sunday, and the success of films like
Detour and
Ruthless, Ulmer spent most of his career as an itinerant filmmaker earning modest paychecks for films that have either been overlooked or forgotten. In this fascinating and well-researched account of a career spent on the margins of Hollywood, Noah Isenberg provides the little-known details of Ulmerand#8217;s personal life and a thorough analysis of his wide-ranging, eclectic filmsand#151;features aimed at minority audiences, horror and sci-fi flicks, genre pictures made in the U.S. and abroad. Isenberg shows that Ulmerand#8217;s unconventional path was in many ways more typical than that of his more famous colleagues. As he follows the twists and turns of Ulmerand#8217;s fortunes, Isenberg also conveys a new understanding of low-budget filmmaking in the studio era and beyond.
and#160;
Synopsis
Katharine Hepburn, John Wayne, Lauren Bacalland#151;behind each of these stars was a hidden force: the talent agent. In this first-ever history of Hollywood agents, Tom Kemper mines agency archives to present an insider's view on their tooth-and-claw rise to power during the studio era. It's a tale of ambitious characters, savvy calculation, muckraking, financial ruin, and ultimate triumph, and establishes the agent's vital role in the Hollywood business world. Existing studies characterize agents as a product of the 1950s, but Kemper revises the record to show how agents emerged from the primordial film industry during the late 1920s and carved themselves a permanent niche. Through case studies of key figures like Myron Selznick and Charles Feldman, we see that the agent's character and social relationships functioned within a business structureand#151;a good reputation and powerful connections were his most precious assets. With wit and precision, Kemper locates Hollywood agents at the crossroads of talent and profit, and captures their central and enduring role in the burgeoning film industry.
Synopsis
"This is an extremely valuable contribution to the history of Hollywood and draws on the moment when a form of disorganized, post-Fordist capitalism came to characterize the industry, thanks to agents and stars breaking away from studio power. A landmark volume."and#151;Toby Miller, author of
Global Hollywood 2and#147;The demeaned and derided figure of the Hollywood agent gets his rightful screen credit in Thomas Kemper's Hidden Talent, an absorbing history of the hustlers, middlemen, and deal-makers who greased the wheels of the star-making machinery in Hollywood's Golden Age. In Kemper's fascinating account, the agent comes off less as Budd Schulberg's Sammy Glick than F. Scott Fitzgerald's Monroe Stahr: a cagey player who apprehended 'the whole equation' of filmmakingand#151;nurturing nobodies into superstars, nursing projects to completion, and, for better and worse, setting the pattern for the way Hollywood does business today. And all for just ten percent off the top.and#8221;and#151;Thomas Doherty, author of Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration
"Tom Kemper's Hidden Talent makes a valuable contribution to the history of the motion picture industry. At a time when studios were closely held entities, the representative class emerged on the scene with great energy, skill, and bravado. Kemper's well-considered discussion of Myron Selznick and Charles Feldman wisely foretells the rise of the modern full service agency. This is a mandatory text for any serious student or practitioner in the film industry."and#151;Jeff Berg, Chairman, International Creative Management
Synopsis
In this provocative analysis of screen industries in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, Michael Curtin delineates the globalizing pressures and opportunities that since the 1980s have dramatically transformed the terrain of Chinese film and television, including the end of the cold war, the rise of the World Trade Organization, the escalation of democracy movements, and the emergence of an East Asian youth culture. Reaching beyond national frameworks, Curtin examines the prospect of a global Chinese audience that will include more viewers than in the United States and Europe combined. He draws on in-depth interviews with a diverse array of media executives plus a wealth of historical material to argue that this vast and increasingly wealthy market is likely to shake the very foundations of Hollywoodand#8217;s century-long hegemony.
Playing to the Worldand#8217;s Biggest Audience profiles the leading Chinese commercial studios and telecasters, and delves into the operations of Western conglomerates extending their reach into Asia. Advancing a dynamic and integrative theory of media capital, this innovative book explains the histories and strategies of screen enterprises that aim to become central players in the Global China market and offers an alternative perspective to recent debates about cultural globalization.
Synopsis
"Professor Curtin has woven solid research and interesting tales into a compelling analysis of cultural geography that will make an important contribution to the literature of international communication."and#151;Chin-Chuan Lee, City University of Hong Kong
"In this timely and fascinating examination of the screen industries of 'Global China', Michael Curtin draws on in-depth interviews with key industry players to provide, for the first time, a comprehensive analysis of the extraordinary rise of film and television industries across Chinese-speaking Asia. In so doing he provides a compelling account of how these media industries represent a powerful alternative path of media globalization to that of the West. This will be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the dynamics and complexities of globalized media production. But more than this, his deployment of the concept of 'media capital' and his stress on the particularities of culture, creativity and location offer important political-economic and institutional underpinnings for a more rigorous approach to understanding wider patterns of cultural globalization."and#151;John Tomlinson, author of Globalization and Culture
"This is one of the best books I've encountered. Curtin's scholarship is superior and his approach is highly innovative. Playing to World's Largest Audience is a pioneering work in understanding globalization and Chinese media. It will have major impact in numerous fields."and#151;Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh, author of Taiwan Film Directors and East Asian Screen Industries
About the Author
Michael Curtin is Professor of Communication Arts and Director of Global Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is also the author of Media Capital: The Cultural Geography of Globalization and Redeeming the Wasteland: Television Documentary and Cold War Politics.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Media Capital in Chinese Film and Television
1. The Pan-Chinese Studio System and Capitalist Paternalism
2. Independent Studios and the Golden Age of Hong Kong Cinema
3. Hyperproduction Erodes Overseas Circulation
4. Hollywood Takes Charge in Taiwan
5. The Globalization of Hong Kong Television
6. Strange Bedfellows in Cross-Strait Drama Production
7. Market Niches and Expanding Aspirations in Taiwan
8. Singapore: From State Paternalism to Regional Media Hub
9. Reterritorializing Star TV in the PRC
10. Globe Satellites Pursuing Local Audiences and Panregional Efficiencies
11. The Promise of Broadband and the Problem of Content
12. From Movies to Multimedia: Connecting Infrastructure and Content
Conclusion: Structural Adjustment and the Future of Chinese Media
Industry Interviews
Notes
Bibliography
Index