Richard Barrios Knihy

Rapacious dykes, self-loathing closet cases, hustlers, ambiguous sophisticates, and sadomasochistic rich most of what America thought it knew about gay people it learned at the movies. A fresh and revelatory look at sexuality in the Great Age of movie making, Screened Out shows how much gay and lesbian lives have shaped the Big Screen. Spanning popular American cinema from the 1900s until today, distinguished film historian Richard Barrios presents a rich, compulsively readable analysis of how Hollywood has used and depicted gays and the mixed signals it has given Marlene in a top hat, Cary Grant in a negligee, a pansy cowboy in The Dude Wrangler . Such iconoclastic images, Barrios argues, send powerful messages about tragedy and obsession, but also about freedom and compassion, even empowerment.Mining studio records, scripts, drafts (including cut scenes), censor notes, reviews, and recollections of viewers, Barrios paints our fullest picture yet of how gays and lesbians were portrayed by the dream factory, warning that we shouldn't congratulate ourselves quite so much on the progress movies - and the real world -- have made since Stonewall.Captivating, myth-breaking, and funny, Screened Out is for all film aficionados and for anyone who has sat in a dark movie theater and drawn strength and a sense of identity from what they saw on screen, no matter how fleeting or coded.

Insightful, exuberant, and witty, Dangerous Rhythm offers a fresh, sometimes revolutionary take on a uniquely American institution: the movie musical. Combining chronicle with critique and analysis, award-winning historian Richard Barrios lays out the whole of the musical's glorious and rocky existence, from Al Jolson to Les Miserables.

Spanning nine decades and showcasing the most memorable songs, dazzling dancing, and brightest stars ever to grace the silver screen, TCM's Must-See Musicals is THE guide to the greatest musicals of all time from the most trusted authority on film-Turner Classic Movies.

"She was born nearly a century ago and has been gone for well over half that time. The body of work she left behind is of limited size and, in some cases, debatable quality. The environment in which she thrived, popular entertainment in the 1950s, is a distant memory, if that. Those are indisputable facts. Why is it, then, that they seem so immaterial? How is it that the phenomenon continues unabated, that the iconography and mythology only seem to increase? Why all the interest and speculation and merchandising, and why all the documentaries and miniseries about her? Plus, to cut a little closer, all those shelves of books? With Marilyn Monroe, there is never one single answer. To start with one of the most obvious: some of it has to do with the element of tragedy, the special kind that crashes in when a life of magnetic achievement and renown is cut short with miserable suddenness. Alexander the Great, Joan of Arc, Byron and Keats, Valentino, Hank Williams, James Dean, the Kennedys, Malcolm X, Dr. King, Joplin and Hendrix and Morrison, Elvis, Princess Diana, Michael Jackson. How natural to mourn, how easy to speculate on what could have been. Monroe offers unusually ripe territory for this, with her blatant, rapid-fire explosion into the world's consciousness, the tumult and visibility of her private and professional paths, and the sharply cut-off way she died, overlaid with just enough ambiguity to cause some people to wonder about the circumstances. From there, eventually and alas, to an unseemly franchise based on conjecture about that death, with most of the ruminations drenched in paranoia and personal agendas"-- Provided by publisher

A captivating, richly illustrated full account of the making of the ground-breaking movie classic West Side Story (1961). A major hit on Broadway, on film West Side Story became immortal-a movie different from anything that had come before, but this cinematic victory came at a price. In this engrossing volume, film historian Richard Barrios recounts how the drama and rivalries seen onscreen played out to equal intensity behind-the-scenes, while still achieving extraordinary artistic feats. The making and impact of West Side Story has so far been recounted only in vestiges. In the pages of this book, the backstage tale comes to life along with insight on what has made the film a favorite across six decades: its brilliant use of dance as staged by erstwhile co-director Jerome Robbins; a meaningful story, as set to Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's soundtrack; the performances of a youthful ensemble cast featuring Natalie Wood, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris, and more; a film with Shakespearean roots (Romeo and Juliet) that is simultaneously timeless and current. West Side Story was a triumph that appeared to be very much of its time; over the years it has shown itself to be eternal.