 | |
| Author | Carlos Clarens |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Non-fiction, film |
| Publisher | G. P. Putnam's Sons |
Publication date | 1967 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 256 |
An Illustrated History of the Horror Film is a 1967 non-fiction book by film historian Carlos Clarens. In 1997, it was republished under the title An Illustrated History of Horror and Science-fiction Films: The Classic Era, 1895-1967.
An Illustrated History of the Horror Film is divided into a foreword, nine chapters, an appendix that includes credits for every film that is mentioned, an index, and numerous stills from some of the films that are discussed.
Chapter 1 explores Georges Méliès's contributions to cinema. Chapter 2 surveys German expressionist films from 1913's The Student of Prague to 1933's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse . Chapter 3 looks at American horror films from the earliest known examples of the 1900s to the ones that were made in the 1920s near the end of the silent era. Chapter 4 chronicles American horror films from 1928's The Terror to 1946's The Beast with Five Fingers . Chapter 5 analyzes Vampyr . Chapter 6 discusses Val Lewton's horror films and Dead of Night . Chapter 7 examines many science fiction films of the 1950s-1960s, particularly horrific ones that have to do with alien invasion, world destruction, and/or space travel. Chapter 8 looks at numerous kinds of horror and science fiction films of the 1950s-1960s from all over the world. Chapter 9 meditates on the science fiction film's evolution towards deeper philosophical themes and analyzes The Damned , The Birds , La Jetée , Alphaville , and Fahrenheit 451 .
Shortly after An Illustrated History of the Horror Film's release, R. C. Dale of Film Quarterly called it "the best history of the horror film now available in English." [1] Dale noted that he disagreed with many of Clarens's evaluations, including Clarens's dismissal of Hammer Horror and praise of recent Mexican horror films, but concluded, "none of these differences of opinion lessens my admiration for Clarens's book as a chronology and general study." [1]
In 2010, Kim Newman was asked by Sight & Sound to make a list of five of the most inspirational books about film ever written, and he included An Illustrated History of the Horror Film on his list, noting that it is "still a model of genre history/criticism." [2]
A film genre is a stylistic or thematic category for motion pictures based on similarities either in the narrative elements, aesthetic approach, or the emotional response to the film.
Horror is a genre of fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten or scare. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which are in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length... which shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing". Horror intends to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere for the reader. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for larger fears of a society.
In popular culture and UFO conspiracy theories, men in black (MIB) are government agents dressed in black suits, who question, interrogate, harass, threaten, allegedly memory-wipe or sometimes even assassinate unidentified flying object (UFO) witnesses to keep them silent about what they have seen. The term is also frequently used to describe mysterious men working for unknown organizations, as well as various branches of government allegedly tasked with protecting secrets or performing other strange activities.
Pulp magazines were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages; it was 7 inches (18 cm) wide by 10 inches (25 cm) high, and 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls, dime novels, and short-fiction magazines of the 19th century.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1956 American science-fiction horror film produced by Walter Wanger, directed by Don Siegel, and starring Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter. The black-and-white film was shot in 2.00:1 Superscope and in the film noir style. Daniel Mainwaring adapted the screenplay from Jack Finney's 1954 science-fiction novel The Body Snatchers. The film was released by Allied Artists Pictures as a double feature with the British science-fiction film The Atomic Man.
Ballantine Books is a major American book publisher that is a subsidiary of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Ballantine was founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. Ballantine was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann in 1998 and remains part of that company.
The Magician is a 1926 American silent fantasy horror film directed by Rex Ingram about a magician's efforts to acquire the blood of a maiden for his experiments to create life. It was adapted by Ingram from the 1908 novel The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham. It stars Alice Terry, Paul Wegener and Iván Petrovich. Critic Carlos Clarens wrote that it was "perhaps the most elusive of lost films." However, since the time Clarens wrote this, various prints of the film have surfaced. Some have screened at independent movie festivals from 1993 onwards, and the film has also been shown on Turner Classic Movies. It remained commercially unavailable until being released on DVD in the Warner Brothers Archive Collection in 2011.
Robert Lionel Fanthorpe, FCollP, FRSA, FCMI is a retired British priest and entertainer. Fanthorpe also worked as a dental technician, journalist, teacher, television presenter, author and lecturer. Born in Dereham in Norfolk, he lives in Cardiff in South Wales, where he served as Director of Media Studies and tutor/lecturer in Religious Studies at the Cardiff Academy Sixth form college.
Danse Macabre is a 1981 non-fiction book by Stephen King, about horror fiction in print, TV, radio, film and comics, and the influence of contemporary societal fears and anxieties on the genre. It was republished on February 23, 2010, with an additional new essay entitled "What's Scary".
Emil Petaja was an American science fiction and fantasy writer whose career spanned seven decades. He was the author of 13 published novels, nearly 150 short stories, numerous poems, and a handful of books and articles on various subjects. Though he wrote science fiction, fantasy, horror stories, detective fiction, and poetry, Petaja considered his work part of an older tradition of "weird fiction." Petaja was also a small press publisher. In 1995, he was named the first ever Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction Writers of America.
The Invisible Man is a 1933 American pre-Code science fiction horror film directed by James Whale based on H. G. Wells' 1897 novel, The Invisible Man, produced by Universal Pictures, and starring Gloria Stuart, Claude Rains and William Harrigan. The film involves a Dr. Jack Griffin (Rains) who is covered in bandages and has his eyes obscured by dark glasses, the result of a secret experiment that makes him invisible, taking lodging in the village of Iping. Never leaving his quarters, the stranger demands that the staff leave him completely alone until his landlady and the villagers discover he is invisible. Griffin goes to the house of his colleague, Dr. Kemp and tells him of his plans to create a reign of terror. His fiancée Flora Cranley the daughter of his employer Dr. Cranley, soon learn that Griffin's discovery has driven him insane, leading him to prove his superiority over other people by performing harmless pranks at first and eventually turning to murder.
A science fiction magazine is a publication that offers primarily science fiction, either in a hard-copy periodical format or on the Internet. Science fiction magazines traditionally featured speculative fiction in short story, novelette, novella or novel form, a format that continues into the present day. Many also contain editorials, book reviews or articles, and some also include stories in the fantasy and horror genres.
Denis Gifford was a British writer, broadcaster, journalist, comic artist and historian of film, comics, television and radio. In his lengthy career, he wrote and drew for British comics; wrote more than fifty books on the creators, performers, characters and history of popular media; devised, compiled and contributed to popular programmes for radio and television; and directed several short films. Gifford was also a major comics collector, owning what was perhaps the largest collection of British comics in the world.
Man-Made Monster is a 1941 American science-fiction horror film directed by George Waggner and produced by Jack Bernhard for Universal Pictures. Filmed in black-and-white, it stars Lon Chaney Jr. and Lionel Atwill. Man-Made Monster was re-released under various titles including Electric Man and The Mysterious Dr. R. Realart Pictures re-released the film in 1953 under the title The Atomic Monster as a double feature with The Flying Saucer (1950). On the film's original main title, there is no hyphen; it's simply Man Made Monster.
James Judson Harmon, better known as Jim Harmon, was an American short story author and popular culture historian who wrote extensively about the Golden Age of Radio. He sometimes used the pseudonym Judson Grey, and occasionally he was labeled Mr. Nostalgia.
Photoplay edition refers to movie tie-in books of the silent film and early sound era at a time when motion pictures were known as "photoplays". Typically, photoplay editions were reprints of novels additionally illustrated with scenes from a film production. Less typically, photoplay editions were novelizations of films, where the film script was fictionalized in narrative form. Today, vintage photoplay editions are sought after by film buffs, bibliophiles, and collectors.
Carlos Clarens (1930–1987) was a film historian and writer on the cinema particularly noted for his sensitive, pioneering An Illustrated History of the Horror Film. Having left Havana in his younger years, he made his mark in both Paris and New York, providing subtitles in the five languages with which he was fluent. One of the films he provided subtitles for was Franco Zeffirelli's La Traviata. He also worked as a production assistant for Jacques Demy and Robert Bresson while he was living in Paris.
Science fiction and fantasy have been part of mainstream Russian literature since the 18th century. Russian fantasy developed from the centuries-old traditions of Slavic mythology and folklore. Russian science fiction emerged in the mid-19th century and rose to its golden age during the Soviet era, both in cinema and literature, with writers like the Strugatsky brothers, Kir Bulychov, and Mikhail Bulgakov, among others. Soviet filmmakers, such as Andrei Tarkovsky, also produced many science fiction and fantasy films. With the fall of the Iron Curtain, modern Russia experienced a renaissance of fantasy. Outside modern Russian borders, there are a significant number of Russophone writers and filmmakers from Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, who have made a notable contribution to the genres.
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and usually inspired by mythology or folklore. The term "fantasy" can also be used to describe a "work of this genre", usually literary.
Seven Footprints to Satan is a 1929 American mystery film directed by Danish filmmaker Benjamin Christensen. Based on the 1928 story of the same name by Abraham Merritt, it stars Thelma Todd, Creighton Hale, William V. Mong and Sheldon Lewis. It was first released as a silent film and later as a part-talkie. The film survives in a sound version known as an International Sound Version in which the dialogue was cut and replaced with music. The sound disks for this foreign sound version are apparently not extant.