Parody as Film Genre: Never Give a Saga an Even Break

Humor & Entertainment

Wes D. Gehring

Humor

Praeger

This comprehensive survey of sources and scholarship should prove invaluable to anyone organizing a course in American humor, and to graduate students or advanced undergraduates as well. There are excellent summaries of respected histories of the field and such serious, well-planned chapters as `The Comics,' `Humor in Periodicals,' `Standup Comedy,' `Women's Humor,' `Racial and Ethnic Humor,' and `Political Humor.' . . . Well-written and clearly presented, this volume will greatly assist those making their way in this fascinating interdisciplinary area. Choice
Focusing on a multitude of genres, this unusual collection stresses the overall importance of humor as an index to popular thought. Primarily descriptive rather than theoretical, each chapter is organized to provide an overview of a specific genre of expression or a significant topic in modern humor. Subjects range from literature, the comic strip, film, broadcast humor, the magazine, and standup comedy, to racial and ethnic humor, women's humor, and political humor. Each genre or topic is traced historically and analyzed with respect to those characteristics that make it unique. A bibliographical essay and checklist is provided for each chapter to facilitate further study.

Humor in America: A Research Guide to Genres and Topics

Nancy Pogel and Paul P. Somers

M. Thomas Inge

David E. E. Sloane

Lawrence E. Mintz

Stephanie Koziski Olson

Zita Dresner

Joseph Dorinson

Stephen J. Whitfield

Greenwood

Aided by the cooperation of Dean's family members and friends, chronicles the life of the actor who died in a car accident at the age of twenty-four and is known for his roles in "East of Eden" and "Rebel without a Cause."

James Dean: Rebel With A Cause (Indiana Biography) (Indiana Biography Series)

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Indiana Historical Society

For twenty years, Hoosier comic Red Skelton entertained millions of viewers who gathered around their television sets to delight in the antics of such notable characters as Freddie the Freeloader, Clem Kaddiddlehopper, Cauliflower McPugg, and Sheriff Deadeye. Noted film historian Wes D. Gehring examines the man behind the characters--someone who never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Gehring delves into Skelton's hardscrabble life with a shockingly dysfunctional family in the southern Indiana community of Vincennes, his days on the road on the vaudeville circuit, the comedian's early success on radio, his up-and-down movie career with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and his sometimes tragic personal life.

Red Skelton: The Mask Behind the Mask

Indiana Historical Society Press

The poster-child victim of a dysfunctional family from Beech Grove, Indiana, Steve McQueen experienced an unsettled early life with a rebellious and alcoholic mother. McQueen channeled his difficult childhood into a masterful career on screen portraying tough, self-sufficient characters in such iconic films as The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), The Sand Pebbles (1966), Bullitt (1968), and Papillon (1973). Nationally Known film historian Wes D. Gehring explores how McQueen rose from his days as a troubled youth into one of Hollywood's top box-office stars of the 1960s and 1970s, and how he attempted to ease the lives of other troubled youth. Along the way, Gehring delves into McQueen's early success as a television star on the hit Western Wanted: Dead or Alive, his sometimes rocky relationships with women, his sardonic sense of humor, the actor's love of fast cars and motorcycles, and McQueen's often neglected acting in such films as The Reivers (1969) and Junior Bonner (1972), which Gehring labels as "arguably his greatest performance." McQueen ironically saw the title of one of his best films, The Great Escape, as a veiled reference to what his life might have been like without the movies: "If I hadn't made it as an actor, I might have wound up a hood." McQueen died from cancer on November 7, 1980, at the age of fifty. Reflecting on the Hoosier actor's career, Gehring notes that "McQueen's often unorthodox life was always lived on his own terms, but with the underlying insecurity of the lost child he perceived himself to be."

Steve McQueen: The Great Escape

Born in Winchester, Indiana, Robert Wise spent much of his youth sitting in darkened movie theaters enthralled by the swashbuckling heroics of screen legend Douglas Fairbanks Sr. Through these viewings, Wise developed a passion for film a passion he followed for the rest of his life, making movies in Hollywood. Nationally known film historian Wes D. Gehring explores Wise s life from his days in the Hoosier State to the beginning of his movie career at RKO studios working as the editor of Orson Welles s classic movie Citizen Kane. Wise is best known for producing and directing two of the most memorable movie musicals in cinema history, West Side Story (co-director Jerome Robbins) and The Sound of Music, for which he won four Academy Awards two Best Picture and Best Director Oscars. But, as Gehring notes, other than Howard Hawks, Wise was arguably Hollywood s most versatile director of various celebrated genre films. For example, his roots in horror go back to a tutelage under the great producer Val Lewton, with Wise directing Boris Karloff s chilling The Body Snatcher (1945) for Lewton. Years late Wise brilliantly adapted a Shirley Jackson novel as a homage to Lewton, The Haunting (1963). No less a horror aficionado than Stephen King later gave both Jackson s novel (originally entitled The Haunting of Hill House) and the film his highest praise in his nonfiction study of horror, Danse Macabre. In an American Film Institute seminar in 1980 Wise told students, People ask me, do I prefer to do musicals to drama or comedy? I like them all. If it s good, exciting, gripping, original material, that s what s important, what counts. Wise died on September 14, 2005, four days after his ninety-first birthday.

Robert Wise: Shadowlands

The Charlie Chaplin Murder Mystery

New Century

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Books by Wes D. Gehring