The big kiss-off of 1944;: A Jack LeVine mystery

BERGMAN, Andrew

HOLT. RINEHART AND WINSTON

A trip to the West Coast lands Jack LeVine in a tangled Hollywood murder web After nearly a decade of churning out hits, Warner Bros. screenwriter Walter Adrian wants a raise on his weekly $2,500 salary. He thinks a thousand dollars more is fairâbut the studio’s counteroffer is low, and dropping fast. Something is wrong, and he thinks it may have to do with communism.Â Though he insists he isn’t a Red, Adrian has no way of proving it. He flees to New York to ask the advice of high school buddy Jack LeVine, private eye. LeVine is broke, and has no sympathy for his wealthy friend, but he agrees to fly West to investigate his old classmate’s trouble. When he arrives, Adrian hangs dead from the gallows at the Western set on the Warners’ backlot. Behind his friend’s death LeVine finds a shadowy Cold War conspiracy, and a city far darker than anything Hollywood puts on screen.

Hollywood and LeVine

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Thrillers & Suspense

The outcome of the Second World War and Roosevelt's fourth election is drastically changed when the star of a pornographic film is blackmailed

Big Kiss-Off of 1944 (Perennial Library, P 673)

Mystery

Harpercollins

Private eye Jack LeVine, called to a Hollywood movie lot to investigate a murder, ends up having to deal with a clutch of famous movie stars and politicians and the House Committee on Un-American Activities

Hollywood and Levine (Perennial Library, P 674)

Looking at the figures for movie attendance in the 1930s, one might conclude that the America of the Great Depression was a land of Bijous, Gems, Orpheums, Strands, and Rivieras. Americans needed their movies, as Mr. Bergman notes, and they needed them not just for escape. In We're in the Money, Mr. Bergman looks at the films of the thirties (many of them which we now regard as classics) and shows how Hollywood helped prop up the nation's fundamental institutions during the gravest economic crisis in history. Movies, he demonstrates, kept alive the myth of a mobile and classless society, focused on the endless possibilities for individual success, turned social evil into personal evil, and made the New Deal into a veritable leading man. "The kind of book that both old film buffs and the new post-grads of `Sesame Street' can really enjoy. It makes history fun, enables teachers and kids to test out their own assumptions about how the 30s turned out the gangsters, the hi-steppers, the FBI gurus, the zany anarchists and the mythical down-on-the-farm good guys who took on the whole punchy and reeling microcosm of America."â€”Robert Geller, Center for Understanding Media. "First rate. It should stand for a long time as a pioneer work in a field where all too little has been written."â€”Alfred B. Rollins, Jr.

We're in the Money

Humor & Entertainment

Movies

Harpercollins College Div

The Big Kiss-off of 1944: A Jack LeVine Mystery

Hutchinson

In a tale of kidnapping and classical music set in the 1950s, private detective Jack LeVine investigates allegations that conductor Arturo Toscanini has been abducted and replaced by an imposter.

Tender Is Levine: A Jack Levine Mystery

Literature & Fiction

United States

Minotaur Books

A detective story that takes place in the 1940's.

The Big Kiss-Off of 1944

Ballantine Books

Stated First Ballantine Printing in VG+ condition. Rubbing to the rear spine edge and some rubs to the outer edges of the rear wrapper.

Hollywood and Levine

Ballantine

The Pyramid Illustrated History of the Movies is a series of volumes that offers a comprehensive overview and brings a fresh perspective to the influential figures, forms, and styles in the development of motion pictures. Each lavishly illustrated volume has been designed to stimulate the interest of the student for whom film is an art, and to stir the memories of the fan for whom "going to the movies" will always be an exhilarating experience. -- Ruthless gangster, cocky hero, or nimble song and dance man, James Cagney was an irresistible force in movies for thirty years. From The Public Enemy to White Heat, from Yankee Doodle Dandy to One, Two, Three, his dynamic, vigorous performances made the screen leap to life. In his profusely illustrated book, Andrew Bergman covers Cagney's long career and evaluates the over sixty films that left their indelible mark on the history of motion pictures.

James Cagney (Pyramid illustrated history of the movies)

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Pyramid

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Books by BERGMAN, Andrew