If not for the centennial yielding such a tidy title, I suspect Tony Lee Moral might want his latest to be called Go to Hell, Donald Spoto: And You, Too, Tippi! From University Press of Kentucky, A Century of Hitchcock: The Man, the Myths, the Legacy seeks to restore Alfred Hitchcock’s reputation as the Master of Suspense rather than a posthumous #MeToo casualty. To that end, it’s concentrated on the making of The Birds and Marnie more than any masterwork, casting aspersions on Hedren’s harassment claims by outright disproving them or presenting statements from other present parties (including a contradictory Hedren herself). Later, Moral grants a peek into how the seminal Hitchcock/Truffaut came to be, charts Hitch’s physical decline and examines 2012’s pair of biopics (HBO’s The Girl and Fox Searchlight’s Hitchcock). Moral’s Century is not Just Another Hitchcock Biography, but a keen mix of reportage and criticism that ultimately succeeds at its author’s rather ambitious goal.

In telling the making of Dog Day Afternoon, Rachel Walther leans heavily on the real-life events inspiring the film. One of the people involved is described as “pleasant, spunky, a little crazy, and up front about his high sex drive.” I believe the same could be said about Walther’s Headpress book, Born to Lose: The Misfits Who Made Dog Day Afternoon. It grabbed me immediately with the story of Sidney Lumet, Frank Pierson, Al Pacino and others crafting the all-time crime classic, then surprised me with how intoxicating the true tale of bank robber John Wojtowicz and his transgender lover, Liz Eden, is. Although the lover is present in the film (via Chris Sarandon), the volatile relationship between John and Liz Eden was fraught with so much tension and turmoil, it quite frankly deserves a movie all its own. Lastly, Walther ties the fact-based and factual narratives together by examining the legacy both bear even today. At around 150 pages, Born to Lose may be fairly slim, yet it makes a large impact. Attica! Attica!

Although growing up in America, I suffered my own Video Nasties battle; my Mary Whitehouse was my mother, so overprotective she deemed Grease 2 off-limits. So horror movies? Verboten! Although clearly British-focused, Peter Turner’s Unsuitable Film and Video Audiences: Underage Viewing Memories and Practices in 1980s United Kingdom translates well to my own cross-the-pond memories. That includes investigating the now-lost experience of the video store; the adjacent VHS culture, bootlegs included; and the uneasy, yet exhilarating feeling of “I shouldn’t be seeing this,” which was often literal in the UK’s case and extends from gory horror to T&A comedies. Taken page to page, Unsuitable Film is largely stodgy, despite the subject matter, so I often found myself skipping the academic passages to get to the next quoted recollection from study participants — not unlike fast-forwarding to “the good parts.” —Rod Lott

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Just because a film is a classic doesn’t mean I want to read an exhaustive account of its making, Of course, 1933’s King Kong is an exception, and Ray Morton’s King Kong: The History of a Movie Icon the authoritative last word on the subject — especially now that the book been significantly expanded and revised since its initial publication in 2005.

Researched to the point of minutiae and lavishly illustrated with a host of photographs, illustrations and storyboards, this History lesson begins with a brief overview of Kong creator Merian C. Cooper. If you’ve read Mark Cotta Vaz’s Cooper biography, Living Dangerously, this short chapter yields no new information. But it’s a mere appetizer to the meat: a long, hard look at Kong itself.

Arguably, the story behind the movie is more interesting than the story of the movie. With so many egos vying for control, movie sets are a hotbed of in-fighting, and Kong was hardly immune. Drawing Cooper’s particular ire was special effects genius Willis O’Brien, who soon would suffer a string of tragic events. The revelations are not limited to the original Kong, either, as Morton’s book devotes lengthy chapters to every sequel and remake thereafter, including the rushed Son of Kong and Japan’s one-two punch of the kiddie-matinee faves King Kong vs. Godzilla and King Kong Escapes.

For example, had Dino De Laurentiis had his way, his ’76 Kong would have outgrossed Jaws and been directed by Roman Polanski. At the time, Universal was trying to develop its own remake with a Bo Goldman script, which turned into a huge legal battle for Dino. He won, of course, leading the way for his Jessica Lange-starrer (wrongly thought of as a flop today) and its turkey of a follow-up, King Kong Lives, which screenwriter Ronald Shusett insists was written as a spoof, though not shot that way. The shooting of Lives may be the most interesting section of the book, as the process of an ill-fated film from idea to box-office bomb is something I always find fascinating.

Morton goes further to include a look at the King Kong films “that never were,” from a project announced by Roger Corman to a John Landis remake. (However, his scope pales next to John LeMay’s Kong Unmade.) Furthermore, Morton discusses the franchise’s various parodies, rip-offs, TV incarnations and mass merchandising efforts, with lots of photos of long-forgotten memorabilia.

With this second edition for Bloomsbury, Morton’s been able to cover Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning blockbuster in full, as well as the recent Broadway musical and Warner Bros.’ current “Monsterverse” franchise with such hits as Kong: Skull Island. The beast remains alive and well. (Note: While this Bloomsbury edition has more content, owners of the Applause original may want to keep that one on shelves for being in color, which this new one is not.)

At more than 350 oversized pages, Morton’s History of a Movie Icon is an absolute treasure trove for Kong-philes, overflowing with more information than you ever knew before (and possibly wanted to) about filmdom’s most famous “Giant Terror Gorilla,” as Cooper so fondly referred to him.

If there’s a negative aspect to the book, it’s the beat-by-beat plot summaries of each film covered; they’re simply not needed and tiresome. That said, it’s obvious Morton undertook the project seriously and, more importantly, with genuine love. —Rod Lott

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Line 1 of Robert Guffey’s latest, Hollywood Haunts The World: An Investigation into the Cinema of Occulted Taboos, reads: “The secret history of the world can be decoded through film.” Guffey makes good on that thesis across nine chapters (a third of which are new to this Headpress collection), fusing his interest in movies with that of conspiracies, to varying effect. On the plus side, he catalogues Twin Peaks’ extensive references to rocket scientist/occultist Jack Parsons, discusses the real-world government experiments informing such fictions (?) as The Manchurian Candidate, and posits the U.S. military supplied UFO secrets to the makers of The Man from Planet X and The Thing from Another World. You don’t even have to believe it to enjoy it. Elsewhere, a quasi-poem covering the whole of Invisible Ghost, a Bela Lugosi cheapie, baffles for five pages. A few rail-jumpers like that hamper an otherwise enjoyable trip from a tour guide likely (and proudly) on at least one agency watchlist.

As readers of his classic making-of-Psycho book know, Stephen Rebello can write about an old movie like nobody’s business. What’s better than that? Him writing about 152 old movies! In particular, Hitchcockian Thrillers: Must-See Films in the Style of the Suspense Master. Pay no mind to the subtitle’s misnomer, as Rebello pans several entries, but as readers of his classic Bad Movies We Love book know, pleasure abounds regardless of the film at hand. This Bloomsbury hardback groups reviews by a dozen Hitch-ready themes (amnesia, voyeurism, doubles, etc.), IDs the MacGuffin of each and includes titles from the obvious to the obscure to the oddball. Rebello’s deep love for the medium (note the number of times he mentions the cinematographer) throbs on every page, as does his knack for turn of phrase (“a dozen other ‘You in danger, girl’ epics”). Pretty much essential.

Edinburgh University Press’ ReFocus series has examined revered auteurs like William Wyler, Jane Campion, Robert Altman and now … H.G. Lewis?!? Yep! And ReFocus: The Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis is a splendid collection of essays on the Godfather of Gore. I was predisposed to Gary D. Rhodes’ chapter on Lewis’ work in Oklahoma (which our own book interviewed Lewis about), but who knew HGL’s Carving Magic industrial short could merit a fascinating piece on its own (courtesy Jack O’Dwyer)? That’s the type of expectation upender lurking within the contents. Another: Richard J. Hand’s history lesson on the HGL’s Blood Shed Theater, a Grand Guignol-style live venue in Chicago that sounds like a solid argument for time travel. From mannequin heads to chocolate milk, Kate Russell surveys the intentional comedy in Lewis’ post-Blood trilogy pictures, while editor Calum Waddell redeems Blood Feast’s Connie Mason and makes a convincing case for her Final Girl status. It’s refreshing to see Lewis taken seriously, even when he’s taken to task.

After watching Morgan Neville’s brilliant Netflix culture documentary, Breakdown: 1975, two thoughts tore circles through my brain: First, “I really need to see Executive Action and The Parallax View.” Second was, “Shit, I forgot to review Andrew J. Rausch’s The Taking of New York City: Crime on the Screen and in the Streets of the Big Apple in the 1970s.” (My apologies, Andy!) NYC may not have had the greatest of decades then, but those felonious activities and bankruptcy troubles informed some great cinema. And also not-great. You’ll find movies of both types covered, with each year’s crop of art prefaced by Rausch setting the historical stage so the reader has full context of the times, too; after all, the two are inexorably linked. The films you’d expect are here, of course, but so is forgotten fare like Super Cops, The First Deadly Sin and From Corleone to Brooklyn. Rausch’s exhaustive, scrutinize-all scope is the main reason to make room on your TBR pile.

Nearly four summers ago, Jon Lewis knocked my Merino wool socks off with the excellent Road Trip to Nowhere: Hollywood Encounters with the Counterculture. Now, with his monogram of 1988’s Die Hard for the BFI Film Classics line, I was prepped to be blown through the theater’s back wall (to borrow the actioner’s marketing promise). I wasn’t. But don’t interpret that as time ill-spent. All in all, it’s yippee ki-okay. The initial section is more interested in global politics than I or the movie ever was; I more appreciated Lewis digging into the casting of Bruce Willis in the Schwarzenegger/Stallone era, then breaking down each and every “whammy” the movie delivers — all 17 of them, per a heretofore unknown-to-me theory of producer Joel Silver. In its closer, the slim volume considers the internet discourse on Die Hard’s merits as a Christmas movie.

And finally, The Novelizers: An Affectionate History of Media Adaptations & Originals, Their Astonishing Authors — and the Art of the Craft: The Slightly Revised and Hugely Expanded Second Edition. Whew! This 644-page behemoth from David Spencer (and BearManor Media) boasts a cover as unappealing as its title is overlong, but also impressive breadth inside. The oft-derided (but not by me!) world of film and TV tie-in novelizations has one of its strongest defenders in Spencer. Whether you enjoy author interviews or author profiles, you’re in luck! That said, I was more drawn to the chapters that dive into the specialized, from tie-ins for Sherlock Holmes and British telly to the possibly counterintuitive novelizations of musicals — all illustrated in full color and detailed with full passion. —Rod Lott

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Here’s what I hate about Richard Scheib’s A Viewing Guide to the Pandemic: Depictions of Plague and Pandemic on Film and TV: I couldn’t buy it when I ran across it while honeymooning in London at summer’s start. There it sat on the shelves of the BFI Southbank theater’s store, yet I had no room left in my luggage. At least not any kind of room that wouldn’t bend the book like Beckham.

Now two months later and home in our not-so-United States, I can report the Headpress-published paperback is a pleasure to read. Chalk up another victory for delayed gratification! (And one that’s less frustrating than the pause-and-squeeze method.)

Not far removed from the COVID-19 hellhole that was 2020, one might consider the subject and think, “Too soon?” (Mind you, those people certainly are not the audience for Headpress’ wares of “unpopular culture.”) But it’s not too soon. Like Goldilocks’ preferences of porridges and pillows, it’s just right. After all, measles is currently making a comeback. Measles!

Virus-borne diseases and resulting quarantines/shutdowns aren’t fun. But A Viewing Guide to the Pandemic sure is, plumbing depths of obscurity and wealth of genre. Although you could reference it like an A-Z guide à la Leonard Maltin (“What’s Scheib say about Ebola Rex vs. Murder Hornets, honey?”), it’s not structured that way, nor by release dates.

Instead, the author weaves his way through themed chapters — some strict, some loose — rooted in reality. Think biowarfare, bird flu, the bubonic plague and assorted historical threats starting with letters other than B. Then he pivots to more fantasy-based flights, from vampire curses and zombie infections to further fictional outbreaks, e.g, The Crazies or Pontypool. In the book’s final section, he looks at COVID-era cinema, where sheltering in place forced creative thinking that didn’t always pay off onscreen.

Whether examining Steven Soderbergh’s all-star Contagion or Charles Band’s hasty Corona Zombies, it’s important to note Scheiber isn’t mocking pandemics. That’s not to say the text is humorless, although fairly subtle; on NBC’s Thirst, a bacteria-soaked telepic from 1998, he notes, “there is some rioting, but this only consists of about a dozen people scrabbling to get water bottles from the back of a truck.” 

2023’s recommended Diseased Cinema covered similar ground, albeit limited to American shores and written by three academics. Scheib admits he’s no expert in that regard, but that’s for the book’s betterment. In fact, his introduction details how terrifying COVID was for him and his companion, both at high risk due to respiratory disorders. That vulnerable decision makes A Viewing Guide to the Pandemic personal — and, therefore, relatable. Stay safe! —Rod Lott

Get it at Headpress.

Other than perhaps the practitioners behind them, nobody gets the film novelization better than S.M. Guariento. He acknowledges the general public’s dismissal of the oft-maligned publishing arm (“What the kazoo is to music, so is the novelization to prose,” he writes), then spends 530 pages of Light Into Ink: A Critical Survey of 50 Film Novelizations proving those people wrong.

Like any art form, you encounter both good and bad in the novelization; the joy is finding is what works for you. Guariento’s book is all about his discovery through several dozen examples. First published in 2019, his tome remains held in high regard by yours truly as a thoroughly engaging blend of scholarship and obsession.

Now, a half-decade later, it’s even more so as a Revised and Updated edition with 50 more pages, including an updated intro, several expanded chapters (most notably, The Incredible Melting Man), more cover art and — as if all that weren’t enough — an all-new index and outro. The latter includes Guariento’s list of the 10 best and brings the reader up to speed on his subject’s current resurgence via Severin Films and Encyclopocalypse Publications’ paperbacks for B-horror VHS favorites that never got the novelization treatment.

It bears repeating: more cover art. From thumbnails to full-page images, the hundreds upon hundreds of images are reason enough to merit a purchase, but what struck me the first time around remains: how splendidly written it is — no fandom-level first draft here.

Read my original review for a more in-depth look at the contents. As with that first volume, this Revised and Updated run comes in two flavors: the DeLuxe Edition in full, vibrant color and a more-affordable Midnight offering in black and white. —Rod Lott

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