In response to my previous post on favorite film books, someone emailed me that they thought it was a great list, but noted how few new books there were. I hadn’t thought about that at the time, but that list included books I’d acquired over the years that I continually refer to. That was my criteria. I have many more film books, old and new, and while I may not return to them as frequently, they’ve survived periodic purges to make more shelf space. These are books I obviously feel are important to my collection. They include studies of genres, directors, individual films, and reviews. Here are some of them.

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Film Noir

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Animated Cartoons

I clearly have a preference for Warner Bros. cartoons.

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Science Fiction and Horror

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Directors

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Films

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Interviews and Reviews

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The American Film Director, a collection of photographs by Maureen Lambray, was published in late 1976. I hadn’t taken it off the shelf in a while. When I did so the other day, I saw from a note I’d made in the book that I’d purchased it in January of 1977, a week or so before I moved from Minneapolis to New York. The book is comprised of Lambray’s photographs of 82 feature film directors, all men. In an author’s note she writes: “To my great disappointment no woman feature film director that I could contact would agree to be photographed for this book.” I haven’t been able to find out why that was, but it’s unfortunate. I would like to have seen Ida Lupino, for example, included in this book. Additionally, the back jacket flap has this: “Maureen Lambray, living in New York City, is currently working on Volume II of The American Film Directors and completing the photographs for The European Film Directors.” To my knowledge, neither of these volumes ever appeared. It’s curious. But the book she did finish is an extraordinary series of photographs of directors, some of whom were relatively early in their careers. Here are a few of them:

Robert Altman

Nicholas Ray

Samuel Fuller

Francis Ford Coppola

Sidney Lumet

Martin Scorsese

Milos Forman

Mel Brooks

I really love this shot of  Cassavetes. It looks like he might have been in a fight. At least, I’d like to think so.

John Cassavetes

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I think that’s enough for now. See you at the movies. — Ted Hicks