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Screenwriter the Life and Times of Nunnally Johnsonn

Stempel, Tom

Biographies & Memoirs

Wh Smith Pub

A unique perspective on half a century of American cinema―from the audience's point of view. Tom Stempel goes beyond the comments of professional reviewers, concentrating on the opinions of ordinary people. He traces shifting trends in genre and taste, examining and questioning the power films have in American society. Stempel blends audience response with his own observations and analyzes box office results that identify the movies people actually went to see, not just those praised by the critics. Avoiding statistical summary, he presents the results of a survey on movies and moviegoing in the respondents' own words―words that surprise, amuse, and irritate. The moviegoers respond: "Big bad plane, big bad motorcycle, and big bad Kelly McGillis."―On Top Gun "All I can recall were the slave girls and the Golden Calf sequence and how it got me excited. My parents must have been very pleased with my enthusiasm for the Bible."―On why a seven-year-old boy stayed up to watch The Ten Commandments "I learned the fine art of seduction by watching Faye Dunaway smolder."―A woman's reaction to seeing Bonnie and Clyde "At age fifteen Jesus said he would be back, he just didn't say what he would look like."―On E.T. "Quasimodo is every seventh grader."―On why The Hunchback of Notre Dame should play well with middle-schoolers "A moronic, very 'Hollywoody' script, and a bunch of dancing teddy bears."―On Return of the Jedi "I couldn't help but think how Mad magazine would lampoon this." ―On The Exorcist

American Audiences on Movies and Moviegoing

Humor & Entertainment

Movies

University Press of Kentucky

This work shows the behind-the-scenes writers of the best and the worst American television shows. Writers instanced include Paddy Chafesky and Steven Bochco, recounting their experiences of working and fighting with network producers, censors and stars. The books uses interviews and ancedotes.

Storytellers To the Nation: A History of American Television Writing (Television and Popular Culture)

Literature & Fiction

Dramas & Plays

Syracuse University Press

Updated and expanded for the third edition, this volume combines scholarship with movie lore to present a comprehensive account of the development and influence of the American screenwriter. The text is written in an informal style and includes anecdotes and stories that spotlight writer's creative work and their struggle to achieve recognition.

Framework: A History of Screenwriting in the American Film, Third Edition (Television and Popular Culture)

Offers profiles of top screenwriters from silent films to the present and discusses how the role of the screenwriter has changed

Framework: A History of Screenwriting in the American Film

Continuum Intl Pub Group

Offers profiles of top screenwriters from silent films to the present and discusses how the role of the screenwriter has changed

Jam-packed with hundreds of anecdotes and quotes from in-depth interviews with over forty television writers, this is the first comprehensive history of writing for American television. These writers tell, often in wonderfully funny tales, of their experiences working with, and often fighting with, the networks, the censors, the sponsors, the producers, and the stars in trying to create shows that millions of Americans love (and sometimes hate - the flops are here, too). Not only do we learn about the inside workings of such famous TV writers as Paddy Chayefsky, Rod Serling, Gore Vidal (yes), Norman Lear, and Steven Bochco, but about the many less famous who have written for countless comedy, variety, and dramatic shows over the years. Here are wide-ranging firsthand accounts of writing I Love Lucy, Your Show of Shows, Maverick, The Defenders, Laugh-In, Police Story, All in the Family, Shogun, M*A*S*H, Hill Street Blues, thirtysomething, China Beach, and many others. Among the stars wandering through the writers' dreams (and sometimes nightmares) are Lucille Ball, James Garner, Carroll O'Connor, Suzanne Somers, Jack Lord, Penny Marshall, and many more. Rich with insight into American television, Storytellers to the Nation puts TV into a wider perspective to show how it, and the writers who have written for it for over forty years, have helped to change and open up American society.

Storytellers to the Nation: A History of American Television Writing

From the author's introdution: 
 This book isn't about me, it's about you. I am a teacher, not a guru. As a wise teacher once said, "With a guru it is all about the guru―his vision and the students' loyalty to him. Whereas with a teacher, it is all about the students learning." You should be reading this book because you, as screenwriters, directors, producers, development executives, critics, historians, students in thosedisciplines, and just plain movie fans want to learn about screenplays.
Feisty, clever, entertaining, and at times incredibly arch and cutting, Tom Stempel's Understanding Screenwriting delivers a practical how-to (or how-NOT-to) guide to writing a screenplay. Why study a bad screenplay? For the simple fact that it will train you to look for problems in your own work and avoid them in the future.
 • Why does Rear Window's success owe more to John Michael Hayes's screenplay than Alfred Hitchcock's directing?
• Why is Bull Durham's "I believe in the church of baseball" one of the great opening lines in the history of movies?
• Why is James Cameron's first draft screenplay for Titanic better than the film?
• What can we learn from Kinsey about writing about sex for American audiences?
• Why is Lawrence of Arabia one of the best examples of "writing for performance" in films, not only the performances of the actors, but also of the director, cinematographer, and composer?
Stempel guides the reader through a cross section of cinema: historical epic, adventure,science fiction, teen comedy, drama, romantic comedy, suspense―films with budgets large and small. selective in its discussions and (sometimes withering) analyses, Stempel dissects the blockbusters and the bombs, discusses why certain aspects of a screenplay work and others do not, explains the difference between the film we watch and what was, the screenplay, and lays out some of screenwriting's hard and fast taboos, only to give examples of screenplays that break them, with successful results. Full of insight for novice and expert screenwriters alike, Understanding Screenwriting is the perfect book for anyone looking to gain a deeper understanding of how screenplays work.

Understanding Screenwriting: Learning from Good, Not-Quite-So-Good, and Bad Screenplays

Bloomsbury Academic

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stempel, Tom. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Stempel, Tom

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stempel, Tom. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Screenwriter the Life and Times of Nunnally Johnsonn

American Audiences on Movies and Moviegoing

Storytellers To the Nation: A History of American Television Writing (Television and Popular Culture)

Framework: A History of Screenwriting in the American Film, Third Edition (Television and Popular Culture)

Framework: A History of Screenwriting in the American Film

Framework: A History of Screenwriting in the American Film

Storytellers to the Nation: A History of American Television Writing

Understanding Screenwriting: Learning from Good, Not-Quite-So-Good, and Bad Screenplays