Explores American Joseph H. Lewis's eclectic career, including his best-known film, Gun Crazy. Joseph H. Lewis enjoyed a monumental career in many genres, including film noir and B-movies (with the East Side Kids) as well as an extensive and often overlooked TV career. In The Films of Joseph H. Lewis, editor Gary D. Rhodes, PhD. gathers notable scholars from around the globe to examine the full range of Lewis's career. While some studies analyze Lewis's work in different areas, others focus on particular films, ranging from poverty row fare to westerns and "television films." Overall, this collection offers fresh perspectives on Lewis as an auteur, a director responsible for individually unique works as well as a sustained and coherent style. Essays in part 1 investigate the texts and contexts that were important to Lewis's film and television career, as contributors explore his innovative visual style and themes in both mediums. Contributors to part 2 present an array of essays on specific films, including Lewis's remarkable and prescient Invisible Ghost and other notable films My Name Is Julia Ross, So Dark the Night, and The Big Combo. Part 3 presents an extended case study of Lewis's most famous and-arguably-most important work, Gun Crazy. Contributors take three distinct approaches to the film: in the context of its genre as film noir and modernist and postmodernist film; in its relationship to masculinity and masochism; and in terms of ethos and ethics. The Films of Joseph H. Lewis offers a thorough assessment of Lewis's career and also provides insight into film and television making in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Scholars of film and television studies and fans of Lewis's work will appreciate this comprehensive collection.

Austin’s thriving film culture, renowned for international events such as SXSW and the Austin Film Festival, extends back to the early 1970s when students in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin ran a film programming unit that screened movies for students and the public. Dubbed CinemaTexas, the program offered viewers a wide variety of films—old and new, mainstream, classic, and cult—at a time when finding and watching films after their first run was very difficult and prohibitively expensive. For each film, RTF graduate students wrote program notes that included production details, a sampling of critical reactions, and an original essay that placed the film and its director within context and explained the movie’s historical significance. Over time, CinemaTexas Program Notes became more ambitious and were distributed around the world, including to luminaries such as film critic Pauline Kael. This anthology gathers a sampling of CinemaTexas Program Notes, organized into four sections: “USA Film History,” “Hollywood Auteurs,” “Cinema-Fist: Renegade Talents,” and “America’s Shadow Cinema.” Many of the note writers have become prominent film studies scholars, as well as leading figures in the film, TV, music, and video game industries. As a collection, CinemaTexas Notes strongly contradicts the notion of an effortlessly formed American film canon, showing instead how local film cultures—whether in Austin, New York, or Europe—have forwarded the development of film studies as a discipline.

Joseph H. Lewis's 'Gun Crazy' is the story of two young lovers who embark on a crime spree. For this book, Kitses researched widely into the film production's history and explored its connection to the crime film tradition and to the dark underside of American society.

“A must have for any film nut.”—Details Peter Bogdanovich, award-winning director, screenwriter, actor and critic, interviews 16 legendary directors over a 15-year period. Their richly illuminating conversations combine to make this a riveting chronicle of Hollywood and picture making. Join him in conversations with: Robert Aldrich • George Cukor • Allan Dwan • Howard Hanks • Alfred Hitchcock • Chuck Jones • Fritz Lang • Joseph H. Lewis • Sidney Lumet • Leo McCarey • Otto Preminger • Don Siegel • Josef von Sternberg • Frank Tashlin • Edgar G. Ulmer • Raoul Walsh NOTE: This edition does not include photographs. Praise for Who the Devil Made It “Illuminating . . . These were (and sometimes are: a few yet breathe) men rooted in history as much as in Hollywood. Their collected memories make the past look fearfully rich beside a present that is poverty-stricken in everything except money.”—The New Yorker “Bogdanovich is one of America’s finest writers on the cinema. . . . Thank goodness [his] Who the Devil Made It has come along to remind us that films and writing about film were, at one time, focused on the work and not strictly on the bottom line.”—The Boston Globe “A treasure trove on the craft of directing.”—Newsday “Monumental . . . The directors’ reminiscences about technique, working methods, sources of ideas, and relationships with actors and studios are thoroughly entertaining.”—Publishers Weekly “A fine achievement that helps illuminate the art and craft of some remarkable directors . . . There are plenty of revealing anecdotes.”—Kirkus Reviews

A "prose documentary" of the eminent director's life and work, Joseph H. Lewis: Overview, Interview, and Filmography is the first book to tackle his noteworthy and often too-narrowly examined career. Interspersing Lewis's own memories and anecdotes with the author's framing material yields a work that broadly explores all of Lewis's work, from his famous My Name Is Julia Ross and the film noir masterpiece Gun Crazy to his little-known start in B Westerns (among memorable titles like Blazing Six Shooters and That Gang of Mine) and his later career directing episodes of television series like Gunsmoke and Bonanza.

This book offers a critical study of the writer and director's feature films as well as lesser-known works for television.

GUN CRAZY: THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN OUTLAW CINEMA examines the history of the extraordinary 1950 film, from its genesis as a Saturday Evening Post short story through its tumultuous production history to its eventual enshrinement as one of the most influential cult films of all time.

Devoted to his craft--sometimes to the detriment of his reputation--cinematographer John Alton (1901-1996) was sought after by such directors as Vincente Minnelli, Richard Brooks and Anthony Mann but was disdained by others of comparable talent. An auteur in the truest sense, Alton established a landmark body of work described by Variety film critic Todd McCarthy as "The essence, and ultimate example, of film noir ... logically created by a cinematographer, not a director." This collection of new essays by filmmakers and film scholars explores the central role Alton's distinctive style of "painting with light" played in formulating the aesthetics of noir, as well as his contributions to other genres.

This first book published on film noir established the genre--a classic, at last in translation.

When viewers think of film noir, they often picture actors like Humphrey Bogart playing characters like Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, the film based on the book by Dashiell Hammett. Yet film noir is a genre much richer. The authors first examine the debate surrounding the parameters of the genre and the many different ways it is defined. They discuss the Noir City, its setting and backdrop, and also the cultural (WWII) and institutional (the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, and the Production Code Administration) influences on the subgenres. An analysis of the low budget and series film noirs provides information on those cult classics. With over 200 entries on films, directors, and actors, the Encyclopedia of Film Noir is the most complete resource for film fans, students, and scholars.