Siegel Film: an Autobiography

Author:   Don Siegel
Publisher:   Faber & Faber
Edition:   New edition
ISBN:  

9780571178315


Pages:   512
Publication Date:   19 August 1996
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable   Availability explained
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Siegel Film: an Autobiography


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Overview

Don Siegel was one of Hollywood's most controversial directors. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of the very few acknowledged science-fiction classics, and 'Dirty Harry' Callahan, with his catchphrase 'Make my day', has become part of our modern consciousness. Siegel's five-film collaboration with Clint Eastwood created a body of work that is distinctive as it is varied and enriched both their reputations.This autobiography has all the fun and energy one would expect from Don Siegel. From his first days as an assistant editor in the Warner Brothers cutting rooms, Siegel charts his rich and varied career. This is a wonderful book of reminiscences, told in a lively and vivid style, whose cast of characters includes John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Steve McQueen, Bogart and Bacall and other luminaries of the golden age of the Hollywood studios.

Full Product Details

Author:   Don Siegel
Publisher:   Faber & Faber
Imprint:   Faber & Faber
Edition:   New edition
Dimensions:   Width: 13.80cm , Height: 2.80cm , Length: 21.70cm
Weight:   0.370kg
ISBN:  

9780571178315


ISBN 10:   0571178316
Pages:   512
Publication Date:   19 August 1996
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  General/trade ,  Professional & Vocational ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable   Availability explained
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.

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Reviews

Funny, ever entertaining, immensely readable and revealing autobiography of action/suspense director Don Siegel and how he made or contributed to some 50 or more movies and TV shows. For buffs spellbound by the inner organs of moviemaking, Siegel (b. 1912) chooses a terrific way to tell his saga: by improvised screenplay dialogue. Siegel co-wrote most of his scripts and has a faultless ear for the voices of his fellow directors, co-writers, famous cameramen, producers, and giants like John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Henry Fonda, and Elvis; actors like Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Edward O'Brien, Richard Widmark, Lauren Bacall, and Viveca Lindfors (Siegel's ex-wife); and studio execs like Hal Wallis and ogre Jack Warner. Siegel opens smashingly, with the taming of obscenity-spouting John Wayne for his farewell role as the cancer-ridden gunfighter of The Shootist (1976). Highlights include the making of prison pictures Riot in Cell Block 11 and Escape from Alcatraz; the horror classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers; detective flicks Dirty Harry, Madigan, and Coogan's Bluff; westerns Flaming Star and Two Mules for Sister Sara; crime epics Baby Face Nelson and Crime in the Streets; and oddities such as Clint Eastwood's The Beguiled. Siegel joined Warner Brothers in 1934 and worked his way through all the lesser departments of filmmaking until being put in charge of a second unit that created montages and inserts that glued stories together. For years, his fast-made but inventive montages accounted for more film per year than the footage of each of the studio's first-level directors. Siegel complains about studio heads, draws blood on folks who sold him out, and details the idiocy of trying to make a film (Rough Cut) produced by egomaniac Broadway producer David Merrick. So Dirty Harry isn't Hamlet! One of the top-drawer screen books, from which you rise gorged from an eye-popping Thanksgiving dinner of filmcraft. (Kirkus Reviews)


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