Claire Trevor: Queen of the Bs and Hollywood Film Noir

Claire Trevor: Queen of the Bs and Hollywood Film Noir PDF Author: Carolyn McGivern
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781980635505
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 153

Book Description
McGivern investigates Trevor's many screen representations in detail, often focusing on contemporary dominant historically specific concepts of American society and culture that gave rise to the Western and Film Noir. She delves deep into the life and image of Claire Trevor, looking at how her starring roles often seemed to reflect the tensions, paradoxes and contradictions of a bleak and uncertain future for many Americans who existed in a period of unprecedented national power and prosperity.

Claire Trevor

Claire Trevor PDF Author: Carolyn McGivern
Publisher: Reel Publications
ISBN: 9781905764174
Category : Actresses
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Claire Trevor was unparalleled throughout a Hollywood acting career that spanned seven decades. She found reward and critical acclaim hard to come by despite being unexpectedly Oscar nominated as Best Supporting Actress for just a few seconds of powerful dialogue in the movie Dead End (1937), and although she eventually won an Oscar for her portrayal of a down and out gangsters moll in Key Largo (1948), she never really 'made it' to the stratospheric heights of stardom that others took for granted. Despite her magnificently sensitive portrayal of Dallas opposite John Wayne in Fords Stagecoach (1939), a cursory glance in her direction might suggest she was subsequently type-cast in Poverty Row Westerns even as she later transformed into the bad-girl of Film Noire. However she was gloriously successful as a stage performer, radio celebrity and television star and fully deserving of this modern retrospective. The diversity of roles she was prepared to tackle and take in her stride set her apart from more glamorous colleagues and made her the go-to darling of those leading producers and directors who sought out a thoroughly professional and unfussy actress.It seemed that she could almost effortlessly raise the level of what might otherwise have been a humdrum characterisation into one of heart-wrenching clarity. Here, McGivern investigates Trevors many screen representations in detail, often focussing on contemporary dominant historically specific concepts of American society and culture that gave rise to the Western and Film Noire. She delves deep into the life and image of Claire Trevor, looking at how her starring roles often seemed to reflect the tensions, paradoxes and contradictions of a bleak and uncertain future for many Americans who existed in a period of unprecedented national power and prosperity.

Claire Trevor

Claire Trevor PDF Author: Carolyn Mcgivern
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781905764198
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Book Description
Claire Trevor was unparalleled throughout a Hollywood acting career that spanned seven decades. She found reward and critical acclaim hard to come by despite being unexpectedly Oscar nominated as Best Supporting Actress for just a few seconds of powerful dialogue in the movie Dead End (1937), and although she eventually won an Oscar for her portrayal of a down and out gangsters moll in Key Largo (1948), she never really 'made it' to the stratospheric heights of stardom that others took for granted. Despite her magnificently sensitive portrayal of Dallas opposite John Wayne in Fords Stagecoach (1939), a cursory glance in her direction might suggest she was subsequently type-cast in Poverty Row Westerns even as she later transformed into the bad-girl of Film Noire. However she was gloriously successful as a stage performer, radio celebrity and television star and fully deserving of this modern retrospective. The diversity of roles she was prepared to tackle and take in her stride set her apart from more glamorous colleagues and made her the go-to darling of those leading producers and directors who sought out a thoroughly professional and unfussy actress. It seemed that she could almost effortlessly raise the level of what might otherwise have been a humdrum characterisation into one of heart-wrenching clarity. Here, McGivern investigates Trevors many screen representations in detail, often focussing on contemporary dominant historically specific concepts of American society and culture that gave rise to the Western and Film Noire. She delves deep into the life and image of Claire Trevor, looking at how her starring roles often seemed to reflect the tensions, paradoxes and contradictions of a bleak and uncertain future for many Americans who existed in a period of unprecedented national power and prosperity.

Claire Trevor

Claire Trevor PDF Author: Derek Sculthorpe
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476630690
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 198

Book Description
Claire Trevor (1910–2000) is best remembered as the alluring blonde femme fatale in such iconic noir films as Murder, My Sweet (1944) and Raw Deal (1948). Yet she was a versatile performer who brought rare emotional depth to her art. She was effective in a range of diverse roles, from an outcast prostitute in John Ford’s classic Stagecoach (1939) to the ambitious tennis mother in Hard, Fast and Beautiful (1951) to the embittered wife of a landowner in William Wellman’s overlooked gem My Man and I (1952). Nominated for three Oscars, she deservedly won Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Gaye Dawn, a gangster’s broken-down moll in Key Largo (1948). The author covers her life and career in detail, recognizing her as one of the finest actresses of her generation.

Films in Review

Films in Review PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic journals
Languages : en
Pages : 702

Book Description


Femme Noir

Femme Noir PDF Author: Karen Burroughs Hannsberry
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786491590
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 1298

Book Description
Though often thought of as primarily a male vehicle, the film noir offered some of the most complex female roles of any movies of the 1940s and 1950s. Stars such as Barbara Stanwyck, Gene Tierney and Joan Crawford produced some of their finest performances in noir movies, while such lesser known actresses as Peggie Castle, Hope Emerson and Helen Walker made a lasting impression with their roles in the genre. These six women and 43 others who were most frequently featured in films noirs are profiled here, focusing primarily on their work in the genre and its impact on their careers. A filmography of all noir appearances is provided for each actress.

Dark City

Dark City PDF Author: Eddie Muller
Publisher: Running Press Adult
ISBN: 076249896X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Book Description
This revised and expanded edition of Eddie Muller's Dark City is a film noir lover's bible, taking readers on a tour of the urban landscape of the grim and gritty genre in a definitive, highly illustrated volume. Dark Cityexpands with new chapters and a fresh collection of restored photos that illustrate the mythic landscape of the imagination. It's a place where the men and women who created film noir often find themselves dangling from the same sinister heights as the silver-screen avatars to whom they gave life. Eddie Muller, host of Turner Classic Movies' Noir Alley, takes readers on a spellbinding trip through treacherous terrain: Hollywood in the post-World War II years, where art, politics, scandal, style -- and brilliant craftsmanship -- produced a new approach to moviemaking, and a new type of cultural mythology.

Killer Tomatoes

Killer Tomatoes PDF Author: Ray Hagen
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786480734
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 281

Book Description
No delicate ingenues, these. In the middle of the twentieth century, the Mary Pickfords of the movie world were replaced by a different sort of woman--drop-dead gorgeous, witty, not afraid to speak their minds, they could slay you with a look--and if that didn't work, look out for the pistol in the garter. These ground-breaking actresses helped change the course of movie history, charting a path for generations to come. These profiles of fifteen leading ladies--Lucille Ball, Lynn Bari, Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak, Gloria Grahame, Jean Hagen, Adele Jergens, Ida Lupino, Marilyn Maxwell, Mercedes McCambridge, Jane Russell, Ann Sheridan, Barbara Stanwyck, Claire Trevor and Marie Windsor--include overviews of their lives and careers, and excerpts from interviews. Five photos supplement each profile. Jane Russell (one of the actresses profiled) provides a foreword.

Dames in the Driver's Seat

Dames in the Driver's Seat PDF Author: Jans B. Wager
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Book Description
With its focus on dangerous, determined femmes fatales, hardboiled detectives, and crimes that almost-but-never-quite succeed, film noir has long been popular with moviegoers and film critics alike. Film noir was a staple of classical Hollywood filmmaking during the years 1941-1958 and has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity since the 1990s. Dames in the Driver's Seat offers new views of both classical-era and contemporary noirs through the lenses of gender, class, and race. Jans Wager analyzes how changes in film noir's representation of women's and men's roles, class status, and racial identities mirror changes in a culture that is now often referred to as postmodern and postfeminist. Following introductory chapters that establish the theoretical basis of her arguments, Wager engages in close readings of the classic noirs The Killers, Out of the Past, and Kiss Me Deadly and the contemporary noirs L. A. Confidential, Mulholland Falls, Fight Club, Twilight, Fargo, and Jackie Brown. Wager divides recent films into retro-noirs (made in the present, but set in the 1940s and 1950s) and neo-noirs (made and set in the present but referring to classic noir narratively or stylistically). Going beyond previous studies of noir, her perceptive readings of these films reveal that retro-noirs fulfill a reactionary social function, looking back nostalgically to outdated gender roles and racial relations, while neo-noirs often offer more revisionary representations of women, though not necessarily of people of color.

Orson Welles's Last Movie

Orson Welles's Last Movie PDF Author: Josh Karp
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250007089
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 349

Book Description
In the summer of 1970 legendary but self-destructive director Orson Welles returned to Hollywood from years of self-imposed exile in Europe and decided it was time to make a comeback movie. Coincidentally it was the story of a legendary self-destructive director who returns to Hollywood from years of self-imposed exile in Europe. Welles swore it wasn't autobiographical. The Other Side of the Wind was supposed to take place during a single day, and Welles planned to shoot it in eight weeks. It took twelve years and remains unreleased and largely unseen. Orson Welles' Last Movie is a fast-paced, behind-the-scenes account of the bizarre, hilarious and remarkable making of what has been called "the greatest home movie that no one has ever seen."