Starting with Road to Singapore in 1940, Paramount teamed Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour in one of the most successful series of movies ever. All the road films followed the same basic format: adventurers Hope and Crosby would be caught in a seemingly impossible situation, then they would defeat the bad guys and vie with each other for the attention of Lamour. With a few musical numbers and some comedy routines thrown in for flavor, the movies seemed to work perfectly. A history of each of the seven films is presented here, along with a comprehensive filmography.

This is the HARDBACK version. Starting with Road to Singapore in 1940, Paramount Pictures teamed Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour to star in one of the most successful series of movies ever made. All seven "road" films followed the same basic format: adventurers Hope and Crosby would be caught in a seemingly impossible situation, they would defeat the bad guys, and then vie with one another for Lamour's attention. A few ballads, duets, and comedy numbers were added for musical flavor and it all worked to perfection. This book is a fond look back on three screen stars, all with successful careers of their own, who traveled seven "roads" together and left audiences with miles of movie memories.

Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Rudy Vallee—these cultural icons whose fame spanned all the important mass media, also played a vital role in the origin and development of the crooning tradition. Crooning represented one of the most important musical styles of the twentieth century, intermingling with jazz and fronting the big band craze of the thirties and forties. Crooners spurred the rise of radio as home staple and the Golden Age of film musicals. When commercial television became a viable commodity, crooners anchored perhaps the first TV programming innovation, the variety show. It took the cataclysmic aesthetic and cultural changes ushered in by rock 'n' roll in the 1950s to finally bring crooners down from their pedestal. The Rise of the Crooners examines the historical trends and events that led to the emergence of the crooning style. Ian Whitcomb, a successful popular music vocalist himself for almost 40 years, provides a personal perspective on this phenomenon. The lives and careers of six pioneers of the style—Bing Crosby, Russ Columbo, Gene Austin, Rudy Vallee, Johnny Marvin, and Nick Lucas—are covered at length. With the exception of one entry devoted to Crosby—possibly the greatest entertainer of the past century—these biographies (appended by lengthy bibliographies and discographies) are more thorough and up-to-date than any treatment in print about these seminal artists.

This book examines Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Miles Davis as distinctively global symbols of threatening and nonthreatening black masculinity. It centers them in debates over U.S. cultural exceptionalism, noting how they have been part of the definition of jazz as a jingoistic and exclusively American form of popular culture.

Details the life of Crosby, almost on a daily basis, and, with the aid of many contemporary reviews, produces an account of one of the most important show business figures of the twentieth century. A discography, a fact file and a large index, which picks up many other show biz icons, supplements this work.

More than 150 articles provide a revealing look at one of the most tempestuous decades in recent American history, describing the everyday activities of Americans as they dealt first with war, and then a difficult transition to peace and prosperity. The two-volume World War II and the Postwar Years in America: A Historical and Cultural Encyclopedia contains over 175 articles describing everyday life on the American home front during World War II and the immediate postwar years. Unlike publications about this period that focus mainly on the big picture of the war and subsequent economic conditions, this encyclopedia drills down to the popular culture of the 1940s, bringing the details of the lives of ordinary men, women, and children alive. The work covers a broad range of everyday activities throughout the 1940s, including movies, radio programming, music, the birth of commercial television, advertising, art, bestsellers, and other equally intriguing topics. The decade was divided almost evenly between war (1940-1945) and peace (1946-1950), and the articles point up the continuities and differences between these two periods. Filled with evocative photographs, this unique encyclopedia will serve as an excellent resource for those seeking an overview of life in the United States during a decade that helped shape the modern world.

This encyclopedic reference to the American movie musical identifies and describes the musicals and the artists who made them. Film entries range from the legendary The Jazz Singer in 1927 to Fantasia 2000. Artists ranging from Gene Kelly to Elvis Presley, Busby Berkeley, and John Travolta are included, as are musicians as varied as Irving Berlin, Paul Williams, and the Beatles. Entries also detail animated musicals, studios, perettas, rock documentaries, sequels and remakes, and dance movies. As a reference work or as a book for browsing, this encyclopedia serves as a valuable companion to Stage It with Music: An Encyclopedic Guide to the American Musical Theatre (Greenwood, 1993) and will appeal to film scholars and fans alike. Information is cross referenced throughout. A chronological list of musicals and an appendix of Academy Award-winning musicals are included.

(Applause Books). For decades, Screen World has been the film professional's, as well as the film buff's, favorite and indispensable annual screen resource, full of all the necessary statistics and facts. Now Screen World editor Barry Monush has compiled another comprehensive work for every film lover's library. In the first of two volumes, this book chronicles the careers of every significant film actor, from the earliest silent screen stars Chaplin, Pickford, Fairbanks to the mid-1960s, when the old studio and star systems came crashing down. Each listing includes: a brief biography, photos from the famed Screen World archives, with many rare shots; vital statistics; a comprehensive filmography; and an informed, entertaining assessment of each actor's contributions good or bad! In addition to every major player, Monush includes the legions of unjustly neglected troupers of yesteryear. The result is a rarity: an invaluable reference tool that's as much fun to read as a scandal sheet. It pulsates with all the scandal, glamour, oddity and glory that was the lifeblood of its subjects. Contains over 1,000 photos!