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Showing posts with label Bear Manor Media (publisher). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bear Manor Media (publisher). Show all posts

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Dr. Wesley Britton Reviews Mel Blanc, "The Man of a Thousand Voices"

Mel Blanc: The Man of a Thousand Voices

Author: Ben Ohmart

Publisher ‏ : ‎ BearManor Media (November 11, 2012)

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1593937881

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1593937881 

Available on Amazon

 

Dr. Wesley Britton Reviews  Mel Blanc, "The Man of a Thousand Voices"


I admit being a tad behind the curve reviewing this 2012 tome, but I only recently spotted the title in a perusal of the BearManor Media catalogue.  I also admit some might think I’m a tad biased as I’ve known the author, Ben Ohmart, for many years now. Seven of my books were published by his BearManor Media.  And I’ve reviewed a ton of BearManor titles in the past as that little company tends to pump out quality non-fiction explorations of entertainment history.  I’ve loved quite a few, but have pointed out clunkers when I run across them.

 

This time around, Ben gives us a 700 plus page deep dive into all things Mel Blanc. For a refresher, Blanc was the voice of most of the Warner Brothers cartoon characters including Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig,   Sylvester and Tweety bird, Yosemite Sam and all the other favorites you probably remember from your childhood. Beyond the Warner Brothers canon, Blanc occasionally did the Woody Woodpecker laugh, and voiced Barney Rubble and Dino for The Flintstones.    Add in countless characters for radio and television, including a lot of work with his friend Jack Benny, and it’s easy to understand how a serious cataloguing of his legacy would end up in a hefty sized book.

 

Naturally, the book is chock-full of behind-the-scenes  anecdotes revealing how Blanc came up with all those voices.  For example, Blanc didn’t like carrots so he kept a bucket handy whenever he had to do Bugs Bunny chopping on carrots.  Apparently, no other vegetable could duplicate the sound so Blanc would do his chomping and then spit out the remains in the bucket.  In the ‘60s, Blanc was surprised to find his characters singing Beatles and Rolling Stones songs as in Yosemite Sam doing “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”

 

We get a considerable amount of insight into Blanc’s personal life, especially as one principal source for the book was his son, Noel.  I doubt few readers can read the account of Blanc’s recovery from a near fatal car crash and not be affected by just how resilient Blanc was in getting back to work while still being laid up. In fact, few readers will put down this book without feeling a sense of admiration for the man, his talent, his values, the whole package.

 

If you’re like me and missed this volume when it first came out, it’s never too late to appreciate the life and legacy of a major contributor to many of our childhood hours watching TV and laughing at all those immortal characters Mel Blanc helped bring to life.


More About the Reviewer

 

Dr. Wesley Britton, educator and author, is a regular contributor to #TheNewBookReview blog and well as BookPleasures.com where this review first appeared. Use this blog's search engine to find more of his reviews.

 

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Authors, readers, publishers, and reviewers may republish their favorite reviews of books they want to share with others. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read and love. Please see submission guidelines in a tab at the top of this blog's home page or go directly to the submission guidelines at http://bit.ly/ThePlacetoRecycleBookReviews or to the guideline tab at the top of the home page of this blog. Authors and publishers who do not yet have reviews or want more may use Lois W. Stern's "Authors Helping Authors" service for requesting reviews. Find her guidelines in a tab at the top of the home page, too. Carolyn Wilhelm is our IT expert, an award-winning author, a veteran educator and also contributes reviews and posts on other topics related to books. Reviews, interviews, and articles on this blog are indexed by genre, reviewers' names, and review sites so #TheNewBookReview may be used as a resource for most anyone in the publishing industry. As an example, writers will find this blog's search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. #TheFrugalbookPromoter, #CarolynHowardJohnson, #TheNewBookReview, #TheFrugalEditor, #SharingwithWriters, #reading #BookReviews #GreatBkReviews #BookMarketing

Saturday, March 28, 2020

Dr. Wesley Britton Explores StarWarsday for Starwars Fans

THE GALAXY BRITAIN BUILT: The British Talent Behind Star Wars 
David Whiteley 
Foreword By Robert Watts: Star Wars Production Supervisor And Producer 
Publisher: BearManor Media
Release date: December 11, 2019
ASIN: B081YKQ2P7


Reviewed by Wesley Britton originally for BookPleasures

David Witeley's exploration into the behind-the-scenes British talent involved with the Star Wars franchise was first made public in a 1917 60-minute documentary broadcast over BBC television.     Google the title The Galaxy Britain Built, and you'll hit on the YouTube and BBC trailers, videos, and interviews conducted by David Whiteley promoting the film throughout 2017 and especially 2018.

If you explore any of Whiteley's online videos or his new BearManor Media book, you'll quickly learn how proud he is to have been born on May 4, 1977, known to fans as Star Wars day. So, in his opinion, he grew up with the franchise and became devoted to investigating how so much Star Wars work took place in Elstree Studios in North London. Why London and not Hollywood? Costs. The studios didn't want to invest too heavily in a science-fiction film as sci-fi hadn't been big box office for them. 

As it turned out, the British talent who worked on the films on the smallest of budgets and the tightest of schedules were just what the project needed, especially in terms of costumes, props, and sets. The results were so outstanding that Lucas returned to Elstreet again and again, using as much of the original talent as he could retain.


Whiteley's book chronicles to beginnings of the British work in the hot summer of 1976 through undreamed of sequels produced decades later. The stories are built on interviews with participants even the most devoted Star Wars aficionados might not have heard of: These include Robert Watts, Les Dilley, Nick Maley, Roger Christian, Peter Beale, Gareth Edwards, Colin Goudie and Louise Mollo. 

All of those involved contribute so many anecdotes about how the Star Wars mythos came to be. For example, Roger Christian tells us, "We called it the laser sword because we were British! I knew the lightsaber was the Excalibur of this film! I knew it would be the iconic image . . . I went to Brunnings on Great Marlborough Street in London, whom we rented all our film equipment from: photography, anything we needed, and I’d buy equipment there. I just said to the owner, ‘Do you have anything here that’s unusual, or stuff that might be interesting?’ He pointed me over to the side of the room. He said, ‘There’s a load of boxes under there, I haven’t looked at those for years, go and have a rummage through.’ And it was the first box, it literally was covered in dust. It hadn’t been out for, I don’t know, fifteen or twenty years. I pulled it out, opened the lid and there was tissue paper and then when I pulled it open . . . out came a Graflex handle from a 1940s press camera. I just took it and I went ‘There it is! This is the Holy Grail.’"

The Galaxy Britain Built is page-after-page of such nuggets and revelations.  I imagine many diehard Star Wars fans will have heard many of these stories before. But I doubt all of them

Without question, you got to be a serious Star Wars fan to one degree or another to want to dive into this book, no matter how much you think you already know about the production history of the saga.    It's a fast read as we get one short chunk of one interview, then another, then another, and so on.  I definitely had a feeling I was taken behind the sets and scripts and actors to see how a galaxy far away had been built with a deepened sense of just how collaborative moviemaking is. If that sort of stuff is your cuppa tea, then David Whiteley's book is just for you.

This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Sun. Jan. 12, 2020:

 MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Dr. Wesley Britton, is a frequent reviewer for The New Book Review, author of The Beta Earth Chronicles and reviewer for BookPleasures.com.  Learn more about his and his work: 





Dr. Wesley Britton Explores StarWarsday for Starwars Fans


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Monday, June 21, 2010

That's Entertainment! Horror Films, History and Scream Queens.

Book Review: Confessions of a Scream Queen
By Matt Beckoff
Bear Manor Media
ISBN-13: 973-1-59393-539-9


Reviewed by: Wesley Britton


For fans of nostalgia and entertainment, small presses like Bear Manor Media fill niches no other publishers will touch. For example, BMM books run the range from memoirs by child stars of the 1930s to extremely well-researched histories of radio, film, and TV series, to collections of interviews with actors from a variety of genres. As a result, many of these books appeal to specific audiences hungry for insights into the films and shows that influenced them years ago. These are readers who enjoy nostalgia conventions where they visit autograph tables and meet participants from the thrilling days of yesteryear. These buffs provide many bit or retired actors a second career—telling old stories for enthusiastic fans of projects completed before many of them were born.

So, typically, Bear Manor Media’s Confessions of a Scream Queen is a book for a particular—and loyal--fan base, in this case lovers of horror and Sci-Fi movies. In this collection, interviewer Matt Beckoff has assembled a sort of mini-con in print with 15 actresses recalling their most famous or infamous roles. Many of these ladies had careers and parts as hit-and-run as some of these interviews. As a result, with a few exceptions, film students will not get in-depth behind-the-scenes discussions of how horror films came to be. Instead, we get snapshots, glimpses into how the acting profession has changed since the early days of talking pictures to the present. One theme resonating through this book as a whole is how these working girls once found roles in pictures that none expected to have long-shelf lives, only to be happily surprised to learn they still have fans hoping to both see their work again and again and learn more about them personally long after the camera stopped rolling. For others, with more diverse resumes, their surprise is how they’ve become “Scream Queens” at all as their roles in horror movies are but a small section of their credits.

Appropriately beginning with the first talkies, Beckoff spoke with Carla Laemmle, Lupita Tovar, Janet Ann Gallow, and Elena Verdego who worked with the likes of Lon Chaney and Bela Lugosi in the early horror films of Universal Studios. These are the shortest discussions in the book as these actresses had the shortest time on screen—first, young actresses who rarely spent time with the leading men, then married and raised families, and years later discovered themselves cult favorites. Then Beckoff moved into the noir era with Colleen Gray who appeared in such films as Kiss of Death, working with directors like Henry Hathaway and actors including Richard Widmark.

The book kicks into a higher gear with Kathleen Hughes as she appeared in a number of horror/Sci-Fi projects like IT Came From Outer Space and Judith O’Dea (Night of the Living Dead). Some devotees might be disappointed Hammer Films were represented by only one alumni--Ingrid Pitt (Vampire Lovers, Countess Dracula, Wicker Man). But “slasher” fans get Marilyn Burns (Texas Chain Saw Massacre), Betsy Palmer (Friday the 13th), and P. J. Soles (Carrie, Halloween). This trio are extremely erudite about the roles that made them famous and their appreciation for the audience response ever after. In fact, readers might raise an eyebrow to hear these actresses revealing how much professionalism they brought to movies none thought were more than a paycheck for a few weeks work.

For the wider film audience, the nuggets in the collections are conversations with actresses whose careers ran a wide range of genres such as Karen Black, Jessica Harper, and Dee Wallace. Black, for example, reminisced about her work on Five Easy Pieces, her time with Hitchcock in Family Plot, and her role as a country singer in Nashville. The final interview in the group, with Adrienne Barbeau, is the perfect finale as, in this crowd, she seems the Queen of Queens. After all, she not only appeared in four major John Carpenter films, she was married to him.

This isn’t a tome for research libraries, but it’s one to take with you for autographs at all those conventions. It’s enjoyable, and even more so for the pictures contributed by the interviewees and new photos taken by Beckoff—making this package attractive for every heterosexual male alive. Well, considering the subject matter, alive might be too restrictive an adjective. This collection was clearly a labor of love as Beckoff obviously did his homework and preparation by seeing all the movies and reading past interviews, some apparently twenty years old. So the book might not be indispensible reading, but it might give readers new appreciation for “Scream Queens”—even those who never did scream on-screen.

Order this book at bearmanormedia.bizland.com
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Dr. Wesley Britton is the author of four books on fictional espionage, owner of www.spywise.net, and co-host of the online radio show, “Dave White Presents” on KSAV.org and available for download.




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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor. As a courtesy to the author, please tweet and retweet this post using the widget below: