Book Description
In page after page of colorful imagery, The Incredible World of Spy-Fi captures four decades of espionage eye candy from our favorite fictional spies. From Maxwell Smart's Shoe Phone to James Bond's Walther PPK to Austin Powers' eyeglasses and classic spy gear from Alias, Mission: Impossible, The Wild Wild West, and more, this visual gallery reveals to the public for the very first time the world's largest collection of spy props and artifacts. Danny Biederman, creator of the Spy-Fi Archives, has spent the better part of his life tracking down over 4,000 rare pieces. So thorough is his collection that the CIA visited the Archives and invited Biederman to display a portion from his massive treasury at CIA headquarters. Here, Biederman profiles over 200 of his coolest, most captivating gadgets, offering enough juicy trivia and insider stories to make any spy proud.
Customer Reviews:
60's Spy Show Expose.......2005-07-28
If you were born in the 1950's this book is for you! All the great shows are here (U.N.C.L.E., Wild, Wild West, Mission Impossible, etc) The book is nicely illustrated and features the author's incredible collection of props from many different shows. Much of the author's prose illustrates his considerable knowledge and love of the subject. I wonder if the former Soviet Union has books like this one? It is my theory that the Soviet Blok collapsed because it simply wasn't very fun. This book is fun. Buy it, or you will be shot with a sleep dart (while you are sleeping, of course, so you will never know that you have been shot with a sleep dart)
UNIQUE PRIVATE COLLECTION PUBLICIZED.......2005-07-13
Danny Biederman is the actual author--the forward was by Robert W. Wallace. Biederman's collection of fictional spy artifacts is interesting to both movie buffs and to those involved in real-world espionage. I hadn't heard of most of the movies in "the Incredible World of Spy Fi," so I'll be looking them up on DVD. The spy gadgets and props are almost as important as the actor--the gimmicks are characters, too! Who can forget John Steed's steel-lined bowler, Maxwell Smart's shoe phone, the U.N.C.L.E. Special, James Bond's PPK and tricked-out sports cars, or Jim Phelp's self-destructing tape recorders? I enjoyed reading this book and it will be a valuable reference in my personal library.
CAN'T PUT IT DOWN, AND I'M A GIRL!.......2004-12-26
Christmas present, birthday present, valentine's present, no-special-occasion present: this book makes me HAPPY! I can't imagine anyone not falling in love with it. It brought back floods of ecstatic memories -- and of course, I had to read it while drinking a shaken/not/stirred martini! BRAVO! MORE BOOKS from Mr. Biederman's archives -- and WOW, can he write! Wry, witty, charming, impeccably researched -- 10 STARS!
Absolute Nirvana for the Inner Spy Geek in All of Us.......2004-12-25
Danny Biederman's THE INCREDIBLE WORLD OF SPY-FI is not only the perfect coffee table book for those of us who grew up wanting to be James Bond (and maybe still DO want to be James Bond), it's also a brilliant and deeply enjoyable work of scholarship and pop-culture history. Biederman's personal collection of props, costumes, and other arcana from the Bond films, TV shows like THE MAN FROM UNCLE, and even spoofs like AUSTIN POWERS, has been justifiably legendary for years; now he's given us the gift of an intense look at just a fraction of that collection. One word of warning: Don't just get lost in the incredible photos, because Biederman's insightful, humorous, and intelligent prose (which accompanies the pics) is every bit as pleasurable as the visuals. My only complaint? I just wished this book was six times longer. Can we hope for a SPY-FI 2 sometime in the future, Mr. Biederman? Sure hope so.
Great Gift for the Spy Who Loves You.......2004-11-17
This book should be in the library, or, more likely, on the coffee table of every aficionado of espionage. Most of us of a certain generation were weaned, so to speak, on the exploits of the imaginative and edgy TV spy series of the 1960s, so there's much here to bring one back to one's formative years. Danny Biederman gives it all his intelligent, informed, and indulgent commentary. There is simply no book like this.
Amazon.com
This intelligent study of the crime film, generously illustrated with black-and-white photographs, sets the genre within its social and political context. Writer Carlos Clarens shows the relationship between the politics of Roosevelt's New Deal and the gangster films of James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, between the idealism of the 1960s and '70s and films such as Bonnie and Clyde and The Godfather. Foster Hirsch has updated Carlos Clarens's groundbreaking text with a chapter that begins in the early 1980s, where Clarens's original discourse leaves off, and covers recent works such as The Untouchables, Married to the Mob, Miller's Crossing, and Pulp Fiction. This updated edition of Crime Movies now covers this thrilling and violent genre from the silent era until today. --Raphael Shargel
Customer Reviews:
a critical work.......2005-08-02
I recommend Crime Movies for readers interested in movies.This book includes a big time from Griffith to 1994.
A Monumental History.......2002-08-05
My copy of Carlos Clarens' original "Crime Movies" is a book I have treasured since the early 80s. It is very well researched, covering films from the silent era to the present. Not only did Clarens cover the movies, but he also covered the censorship controversies around them, particulary in the mid-Thirties.
In short, this is film genre history as it should be: giving the reader an idea of the breadth of a genre, but focusing on the major films, as well as showing how individual writers and directors could make differences in the genre.
Strongly recommended for people interested in the issue of movie violence, "film noir" and how films have changed over time.
Average customer rating:
- Satisfies Multiple Audiences
- Sam Ross Rocks! Movie Executives Where Are You?
- Unbelievable Book!
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The Protégé
Sam Ross
Manufacturer: PublishAmerica
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Graves in the Wilderness
ASIN: 1424144930
Release Date: 2006-12-04 |
Book Description
The Protégé begins with police investigating a horrific murder replete with graphic detail and gut-wrenching revulsion. What at first appears to be an open-and-shut homicide case eventually turns into an international conspiracy that takes its toll on most of its participants, whose lives are forever changed either psychologically or perpetually. The Protégé will take the reader through an unforgiving maze where each change in direction brings about unfathomable consequences. Although fictional in nature, portions of this work are historically correct in context and will bring the reader back to a time when man's inhumanity to man was at its apex.
Customer Reviews:
Satisfies Multiple Audiences.......2007-06-22
Rarely, does one novel 'play' well to so many genres. "The Protege" encompasses mystery, thriller, horror, espionage, history, and to a degree, almost a 'spirituality'. It's at once, entertaining, provacative, and downright scary in its 'reality'. Yes, the book is graphic, but 'life' in these circles is graphic. To make it less so would leave it unbelievable.
Given the recent success of 'graphic' films for the sake of only the shock value, I would say the film producers should be looking at this story where 'graphics' are so frighteningly tickling 'truth'.
I commend Mr. Ross' ability to weave so many plot twists and such enticing characters without one instance of lost consistency. As a writer myself, an enviable gift.
Susan Haley, Author
RAINY DAY PEOPLE
FIBERS IN THE WEB
Sam Ross Rocks! Movie Executives Where Are You?.......2007-05-22
The Protégé -By Sam Ross
Movie executives where are you?
This is a must read book for those who enjoy a grisly police who-done-it. Even though the book has gruesome content, Sam Ross knows how to suck in his readers and take them for an International roller coaster ride. The twists and turns of "The Protégé" make it hard for one to lay the book down.
Emotions are on the rise as a reader feels they are part of incredible hunt for justice. Sam Ross has the making of a best selling author. I truly hope that his books become movies.
So watch out CSI, and Homicide Investigation shows, Sam Ross is on the loose and the man knows how to write.
Unbelievable Book!.......2006-12-26
I picked up this book not sure whether or not I would like it due to the graphic nature involved. AM I GLAD I GOT IT! This book has so many twists and turns that it is impossible to figure out the end before getting to it. I grew so attached to two of the characters that I even wrote to the author asking him to continue a storyline involving them!!! The dialogue is so realistic that I felt like I was part of a real murder/mystery plot. I can't really put into words how I feel about this book. Before reading it, Da Vinci Code was my favorite book but now having read The Protege I can't believe I thought Da Vinci Code was good because this book is absolutely fantastic! Enjoy it because I definitely did!
Amazon.com
Penzler Pick, September 2000: The past 20 years or so appear to have seen more books on film noir than any other movie genre. When people speak or write about film noir, they invariably invoke Laura, Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Third Man, and a handful of other iconic examples of the popular genre. These are A movies, however, made with substantial budgets by the major studios and featuring the headline actors and actresses of the time. The B films, with a few notable exceptions, have largely been ignored. Arthur Lyons, who really knows his stuff, figured that the world didn't need to read again about Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain, or Humphrey Bogart and Lizabeth Scott. Instead, he devotes his intelligent pen to helping us rediscover the B films, the second features that helped keep movie theaters full in the 1940s and 1950s. Made for budgets that frequently fell short of $100,000, with cheap sets and costumes, these plot-driven movies had little in the way of special effects and nothing in the way of super-star actors and actresses. Republic was famous for its low-budget films and serials, as was Monogram, but even the major studios had B units.
Hugely fascinating information impossible to find without devoting an inordinate amount of your life to research, which is clearly what Lyons must have done, fills every page of this tome. In addition to an overview and chronological history of B films noir, Death on the Cheap has a comprehensive filmography with title, date, studio, running time, alternate titles, credits, plot outline, and critique for each film. There is also a chronology of every B noir film (Lyons credits 1939's Blind Alley as the first and reckons 1959 as the end of the genre). Although an unapologetic fan of B noir films, Lyons has no problem warning potential viewers from the really bad ones, and he doesn't exactly make his opinions known in a subtle fashion. Take this example, used to describe Hit and Run, a 1957 movie involving twins, produced, directed, written by and starring Hugo Haas: "Yet another smell-o by Haas.... Haas, of course, had to play the parts of both twins, doubling the pain for the audience."
Lyons, a well-known writer of the superb series of private-eye novels about Jacob Asch, demonstrates that his writing skills remain equally high whether he's writing fiction or nonfiction. Death on the Cheap is one of those rare pleasures, like a box of expensive chocolates that you can dip into any time and discover a genuine treat. --Otto Penzler
Book Description
Robert Mitchum once commented to Arthur Lyons about his movies of the 1940s and 1950s: "Hell, we didn't know what film noir was in those days. We were just making movies. Cary Grant and all the big stars at RKO got all the lights. We lit our sets with cigarette butts." Film noir was made to order for the "B," or low-budget, part of the movie double bill. It was cheaper to produce because it made do with less lighting, smaller casts, limited sets, and compact story lines--about con men, killers, cigarette girls, crooked cops, down-and-out boxers, and calculating, scheming, very deadly women. In Death on the Cheap, Arthur Lyons entertainingly looks at the history of the B movie and how it led to the genre that would come to be called noir, a genre that decades later would be transformed in such "neo-noir" films as Pulp Fiction, Fargo, and L.A. Confidential. The book, loaded with movie stills, also features a witty and informative filmography (including video sources) of B films that have largely been ignored or neglected--"lost" to the general public but now restored to their rightful place in movie history thanks to Death on the Cheap.
Customer Reviews:
Cheap Thrills from the "B" Production Units.......2007-04-16
This is an exceedingly brief, but nonetheless entertaining book about the film noir genre. Art Lyons opted to concentrate on the "B" films produced at Hollywood's Poverty Row Studios, so many of the major films in the genre are mentioned only in passing in the text and not at all in the summaries. Neglected film offerings from Allied Artists, Columbia, Eagle-Lion, Monogram, Producers Releasing Corporation, Republic Pictures and other lesser outfits are on full display here. A handful of films from the middle tier studios like RKO and Universal are also covered.
The book contains lists of film noir pictures produced by all of the studios during the classic period and amusing and succinct summaries of a variety of lesser known films. Lyons eschews the graduate school approach to film noir that is the bane of many fans who choose to watch these films for simple pleasure rather than to prepare for the defense of a Ph.D. dissertation.
I have only two minor complaints. First, I wish that this enjoyable book was a little longer. Secondly, where do I obtain a copies of "The Night Editor" and the other obscure low rent flicks that Art Lyons has so eloquently praised? I really like these small gems that deliver some suspenseful thrills in slightly more than an hour.
What a shame it is that the "B" film industry ground to a halt. The independent film movement has not been able to completely fill the void created by the demise of double features.
Learn bout Unknown Noirs.......2006-01-23
Death on the Cheap provides information about many Film Noirs which are often overlooked by film critics. I enjoyed reading about such B-movies as Blonde Ice. Jigsaw and others which are becoming available on DVD.
Much needed history of the forgotten B movies of film noir!.......2005-11-18
For film noir addicts like me who just can't get enough, this book by Arthur Lyons is a definite must for your film noir reference shelf. It is not only very informative but also humorous and entertaining. This awesome book helped me discover many forgotten film noir titles, and for that I'm very grateful to Mr. Lyons.
Both the introduction and the first chapter "Film Noir: It's All in the Story" provide the reader with the characteristics and typical themes of film noir. Private eyes, femme fatales, brave or crooked cops, psychotic killers, and tough gangsters are what make these classic movies so enjoyable today.
Chapter 2 "Roots: The Boys in the Back Room" focuses on the origins of film noir such as pulp magazines and the many crime novels by authors like James M. Cain, Dashiell Hammett, Cornell Woolrich, Raymond Chandler, and many others, all the way back to the first detective story, "The Purloined Letter," by Edgar Allan Poe. This chapter also explains why films noirs became so popular (and increasingly darker) in post-WW2 America.
Chapter 3 "Attack of the Killer B's" discusses the B units of the big studios that saw crime movies as the perfect choice when working on a tight budget. It also provides an overview of the history of B movies, from the first ones during the 1930's, to their peak in the 1940's, and the steady decline throughout the 1950's.
Chapter 4 "The Emergence of the B Noir" briefly summarizes early years of film noir and why during World War Two the studios turned to low budget crime movies in order to save money. It also mentions several pioneers of film noir techniques, like Orson Welles and Val Lewton, who could create unforgettable classics on very small budgets.
Chapter 5 "Poverty Row: The B Factories" provides an excellent summary of the role played by Poverty Row studios in making films noirs. These studios, Republic, Monogram, Eagle Lion, and PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation), made nothing but B movies, and surprisingly many of these are now respected classics. It was the Eagle Lion studio that released such films as "Hollow Triumph" (aka The Scar), "Raw Deal," "T-Men," "Ruthless," and "The Spiritualist" (aka The Amazing Mr. X). Edgar G. Ulmer's cult classic "Detour" was released by PRC.
Chapter 6 "The Final Decade: The Demise of the B" explains why the amount of films noirs made throughout the 1950's became less and less each year. Chapter 7 is a long filmography which gives the cast/crew info plus detailed plot summaries (including the endings unfortunately) of dozens of obscure B noirs, many that even I had never heard of.
After the filmography there's two long list of B films noirs, first listed by year and then by studio. This section is very helpful when doing any kind of research on this subject. Plus there's a section called "Film Noir Sources" that provides info on where you can find copies of very rare film noir titles. Overall, this is an excellent book on a very neglected subject, and any serious film noir buff should buy it. By the way, that's Leslie Brooks on the cover in a scene from "Blonde Ice."
very entertaining.......2005-08-05
I really liked this book, lots of info on movies that are not usually mentioned. I don't really feel like watching most of the movies reviewed but the reviews are very fun to read.
It was okay . . ........2002-10-30
I am a fan of noir, but it looks like I was focusing on the A Movie Variety. So I picked up this book to see what the B-side had to offer.
Overall, it was an okay read in that it introduced me to some noir titles I was not familiar with. However, it lacked the depth that I am used to in reading film anthologies. The author chose to drop as many titles as possible in the book without more than a generalized plot summary in the filmography section. I would have preferred a good discussion about a few notable titles. To that point, the placement of the summary of films also perplexed me. I did not even realize there was an epilogue until this morning when I decided I had my fill of the book and flipped through the remaining pages.
These criticisms aside, I am glad I read the book since now I have a starting point to explore this side of noir further. In the end, maybe that was the point of the book?
P.S. It was fascinating to discover that Hugh Beaumont (aka Ward Cleaver) played the hard-boiled type in some B movies.
Product Description
In an exclusive arrangement with the filmakers' families, noted journalist D.A. Stern and private investigator Buck Buchanan have unsealed the official police reports to compile the first fully detailed and illustrated investigative report on one of the most disturbing cases in Maryland history.
Average customer rating:
- Very Thorough Glimpse at Glimpses of Jack the Ripper
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Jack the Ripper: The Murders and the Movies
Denis Meikle
Manufacturer: Reynolds & Hearn
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1903111323 |
Book Description
A book that no “Ripperologist” will want to miss—a complete illustrated guide to the legendary murderer in film and on television.
Customer Reviews:
Very Thorough Glimpse at Glimpses of Jack the Ripper.......2005-03-15
Denis Meilke has managed to make a very thorough examination of the myriad and varied appearances of Jack the Ripper in movies and television quite an entertaining book. This is a remarkable feat as he details every thing from the times "Ripper" is used in the title of a direct-to-video motion picture to make the mere suggestion of Jack the Ripper to the times when the historical figure makes the bizarre leap into the future on a television show, such as his appearance on the original Star Trek, as well, of course, on the movies based directly on the actual crimes, such as From Hell. Through all of this, the author gives descriptions of the movies, both as entertainment and as ways of seeing the true history of the crimes. The reader will learn much of interest and be amused by the author's opinions.
Average customer rating:
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Crime Movies
Frederick Forsyth
Manufacturer: Severn House Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 072784914X |
Customer Reviews:
Every last shot...........2000-12-14
Every last shot heard in the world of motion pictures is displayed here. From Pre-code films like LADIES THEY TALK ABOUT to the Code-in-your-face PULP FICTION, Bruce Hershenson captures the poster art of these films in splashy high quality color. A bonus is that Bruce always includes lobby card art, cherished by many a collector, but not displayed often.
Crime Movie Posters.......2000-12-12
Absolutely stunning! Superb graphics of some of our favorite movie posters! Highly recommend.
Here's to Crime.......2000-12-12
How can crime be bad and yet so good! Look inside the cover of these pages for the answer. Not much reading required but plenty of illustrations. And what illustrations!! Cigarettes, dangling from shadowey faces, killer guns begging for victums, and behind every crime there's a "good" women to lead him on to both heaven or hell. These images can usually sum up the classic Crime Movie Poster. In cronological order the images take us from the birth of this gendre to it's present. This is no small feat, as the first poster is dated 1913! That's how many years? Page after page is loaded with poster art that grabs the eye and makes you want to view the film. Vivid coloring shows the excellent printing quality of this volume. One only needs to turn the pages to discover "the stuff dreams are made of".
Here's to Crime.......2000-12-12
How can crime be bad and yet so good! Look inside the cover of these pages for the answer. Not much reading required but plenty of illustrations. And what illustrations!! Cigarettes, dangling from shadowey faces, killer guns begging for victums, and behind every crime there's a "good" women to lead him on to both heaven or hell. These images can usually sum up the classic Crime Movie Poster. In cronological order the images take us from the birth of this gendre to it's present. This is no small feat, as the first poster is dated 1913! That's how many years? Page after page is loaded with poster art that grabs the eye and makes you want to view the film. Vivid coloring shows the excellent printing quality of this volume. One only needs to turn the pages to discover "the stuff dreams are made of".
A spectacular volume of fabulous images!.......1999-11-19
Everyone has their own favorite film genre (animation, action and adventure, science fiction, etc.). This one is mine. If you are the least bit interested in the jaw-dropping beauty of what has become a lost art -- the exercise of drawing images associated with the advertising of a Hollywood film -- this is the book to have. No other genre, in my opinion, was more dark and foreboding and in turn experienced a burst of creativity than posters associated with the film-noir period of Hollywood, which roughly ran from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s. This book is part of movie poster maven Bruce Hershenson's exhaustive multi-volume series of books highlighting the history and beauty of what much of mainstream America has only in the last ten years begun to recognize. And that is movie posters are a "popular art" form that can stand proudly next to all other styles of art from gothic to modern, from expressionist to impressionist. Great film art borrows from all of these styles and this volume, which focuses only on posters associated with crime and film-noir films, is my favorite. It illustrates innumerable examples of the ranges in style, despite the superficial expectation that all art from this genre was the same. It was not. From Gilda to This Gun For Hire, Hershenson and Allen have built an incredible archive of images in all of his books, capturing a period (when all posters were drawn by hand and then printed, as opposed to today's method of using a montage of photos and manipulating them digitally and printing them by the thousands) that would otherwise be lost forever. A fine book for any collector (get the hardcover edition if you can, it's harder to find; if Amazon doesn't have it, it's available from Mr. Hershenson directly at mail@brucehershenson.com.
Book Description
One of Hollywood's most triumphant successes is the crime movie. Crime Wave offers an authoritative and entertaining guide to the crime movie genre from its beginnings to the present, charting its history, its sub-genres, and its developments. The book focuses on the most interesting and influential films, from Little Caesar,The Maltese Falcon, Point Blank, and The Godfather trilogy to L.A. Confidential, Ocean's Eleven, and many others. Crime Wave covers gangster and heist movies, blaxploitation, noir, murder mystery, and vigilante and buddy cop movies. Hughes explores each film's sources and influences, its impact on the crime genre and current fashion, including spin-offs, copies and sequels, themes, style, and box office fortunes. Detailed cast lists are provided for each of the main films, as are biographies and filmographies of the key personnel, along with background details of the films' production, locations, and sets.
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- The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah's Book Club)
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- The Stanley Kubrick Archives
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