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The Bad & the Beautiful

Hollywood in the Fifties

by Sam Kashner; Jennifer Macnair


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Colored by film reviews and brief personality biographies, this study examines the Hollywood of the 1950s as a primary turning point in the way that movies were made and the way that they were seen by the viewing public.


Available editions of The Bad & the Beautiful

9780393324365 9780393324365, Paperback, W W Norton & Co Inc, 2003

$3.00 (Used - Acceptable)

Other copies of 9780393324365
   
9780316847384 9780316847384, Book, Little, Brown, 2002

$8.39 (Used - Good)

Other copies of 9780316847384
   
9780393043211 9780393043211, Hardcover, W W Norton & Co Inc, 2002

$1.00 (Used, Good)

Other copies of 9780393043211
   

Publisher Notes

A vivid portrait of power, fame, and sex in 1950s Hollywood, from the rise of tabloid journalism to the making of legendary film icons. In these tantalizing stories of momentous events and legendary characters, Sam Kashner and Jennifer MacNair brilliantly re-create the drama and contradictions of Hollywood's most scandalous and dynamic decade. Colorful and humorous anecdotes of such public icons as Lana Turner, Rock Hudson, Kim Novak, and Mae West profile the celebrities' lives away from the camera, telling of the private moments that were exploited by tabloids such as Confidential and gossip queens Louella Parsons, Hedda Hopper, and Sheilah Graham. Chronicling the unique obsessions of the era, the authors also offer behind-the-scenes commentary on the making of classic films: Hollywood's curious religious revival with The Robe; the film industry's exploitation of the potboiler Peyton Place, even as it rejected the housewife who penned it; and the anarchic director Nick Ray, who, on the set of the enduring classic Rebel without a Cause, taught his teenage stars about much more than acting. Guided by the authors' historical savvy and intimate storytelling, we discover a city at a crossroads, attempting to reinvent the magic and mystery of its past glories. Tragic, irreverent, and always entertaining, The Bad and the Beautiful reveals the underground history of this turbulent decade in American film.

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