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Overlook Film Encyclopedia: The Gangster Film

Average customer rating:

Good, though poorly organized.

Overlook Film Encyclopedia: The Gangster Film

Manufacturer: Overlook Hardcover
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0879518812

Amazon.com

Wow! Phil Hardy has been editing encyclopedias devoted to various film genres for years, but this book on the gangster film is perhaps his most impressive. A companion piece to his Western, science fiction, and horror encyclopedias, this is an extraordinary treat for lovers of crime movies. An oversized book, it contains more than 500 pages on the genre, covering it year by year from the beginning of the sound era until today and, uncharacteristically for Hardy, concentrating half its focus on films from the '60s through the '90s. Hardy and his team have composed hundreds of words on each of more than 1,500 films, considering the rarities of the genre as seriously as the classics, and focusing on foreign as well as English-language films. This is a must for aficionados and novices, those who want to pore over its pages, and those who are looking for a great browse. Big black-and-white stills, 650 in all, illustrate every page of this wonderful, magnificently researched, and tremendously entertaining volume. This is easily one of the best film books of the late 1990s. --Raphael Shargel

Book Description

The newest volume in the definitive film reference series, covering gangster films from Cagney to DeNiro.

Since the initial publication of the first three groundbreaking volumes--Horror, Science Fiction, and The Western--The Overlook Film Encyclopedia series has been deemed the most authoritative, stylish, and compulsively readable film reference series ever. In The Gangster Film, series editor Phil Hardy has created yet again a landmark in film reference.

Included in this lavish volume are critical entries on more than 1,500 gangster films, complete with plot synopses and credits, and 650 black and white photographs to capture the look of this exciting genre. Arranged chronologically, The Gangster Film offers deliciously opinionated and detailed descriptions, statistical information, credits and trivia from early classics such as Public Enemy, Key Largo, Dragnet, and On the Waterfront to contemporary blockbusters such as The Grifters, Chinatown, The Godfather, and Pulp Fiction. Essential, authoritative, and entertaining, The Gangster Film is the guide for serious students of film, film buffs, and home viewers.

"Movie fans will find Hardy's compilation hard to put down."-- The Washington Post Book World

"A definitive year-by-year survey."-- The New York Review of Books

"Vast in scope and loaded with information."-- American Cinematographer

Customer Reviews:

Good, though poorly organized........2003-02-07

At once, this book is amazing in its scope but horribly frustrating in its approach. Unlike a conventional encyclopedia, this voluminous tome orders the films within by year rather than alphabetically. This system makes the book virtually useless when trying to find a particular film at a glance. Sure, there's always the index but that fails miserably when a reader has interest in a film with a foreign title. Translated titles are available in the index, but too many foreign films have multiple titles. To make things worse the index is bereft of directors, stars, or any other means of cross-referencing a movie with which the reader might not be fully familiar. This is a flawed and ultimately ineffective work. (ISBN: 0879518812)

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