McFarland possesses one of the most impressive collections of film-related books in the publishing industry. Their books deal with a wide range of topics - from cult movies and westerns to silent stars and fantasy femmes - and many of these topics have a distinctly popular appeal. Therefore, it has always been somewhat disappointing to see the high price tags attached to their books -- starting around $45 for books with sturdy library bindings and starting around $35 for paperbacks. However, by targeting libraries as the primary buyers of their books, McFarland has paradoxically kept their products out of the hands of many potential customers.

To help address this situation, McFarland has instituted a republishing effort for many of their older titles - in a series called McFarland Classics. This series offers paperback editions at relatively affordable prices, varying from $20 to $25. Most of these books are just as relevant today as when they were originally released, so it's irrelevant that ten or fifteen years have elapsed since they were first published.

The following capsule reviews provide a quick run-through of some of the most recently released books in the McFarland Classics series.

 

The Great Clowns of American Television by Karin Adir

This book profiles 17 comedians who are primarily known for their work on television, such as Jackie Gleason, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Milton Berle, and Ernie Kovacs. Each "clown" is represented in a chapter, ranging from 27 pages for Sid Caesar to 2 pages for Olsen and Johnson. First published as a library bound edition in 1988, The Great Clowns of American Television is aimed at those readers who want more than just a thumbnail sketch of a particular comedian but aren't yet ready to read an entire book-length study. The book's shorter profiles (such as the four-page chapter on Soupy Sales) are too brief to provide much insight on their subjects. But the longer profiles are frequently filled with valuable information. You'll learn that Dick Van Dyke's career started with a nightclub act that consisted of pantomime and lip-synching to records. You'll learn that Jackie Gleason periodically checked himself into Doctors Hospital for a near-starvation diet. You'll learn Ernie Kovacs' ex-wife abducted their two daughters and disappeared, and only after spending three years and $50,000 in private detective fees did he locate his daughters. (Kovacs had been awarded sole custody.) Author Karin Adir's focus falls upon those comics primarily known for their physical comedy. So you'll find Milton Berle and Dick Van Dyke but not Andy Griffith or Burns and Allen. Some might quibble about who is included and who isn't. For example, why Olsen and Johnson but not Don Knotts or Phil Silvers? But such quibbles aside, The Great Clowns of American Television is a valuable book for anyone who wants to know more about the great television comics.

 

Live Television by Frank Sturcken

This book offers a return to the days when dramas were broadcast live. Author Frank Sturcken takes a chronological look at the shows from this exciting and fascinating era. The book is arranged by television seasons (i.e., 1951-52, 1952-53, 1953-54, etc.). This approach allows Sturcken a better platform for describing the history of live drama on television. However, if you're just interested in reading about one show, such as Kraft Television Theater (which debuted in 1947 and ran until 1957), then you'll be forced to search for information scattered throughout several chapters. But this is a book that you're supposed meant to read - not just thumb through (unlike many of the other books in this survey of McFarland Classics). So if you're interested in learning about the days of live dramatic television, this is an excellent introductory volume. Strucken paints a picture of a time when new actors, directors, and playwrights "were being discovered by the dozens. Champagne flowed, and the great (dramatic) American Dream was no longer Hollywood's or Broadway's, it was television's."

 

The New Hollywood by James Bernardoni

According to many film historians, the 1970s were a time of revolution in the American film industry. A cadre of technically sophisticated filmmakers, some fresh out of film school, injected Hollywood with an invigorating rush of fresh ideas. Martin Scorsese gave us Mean Streets, George Lucas gave us American Graffiti, Francis Ford Coppola gave us The Godfather, Steven Spielberg gave us Jaws, and Robert Altman gave us Nashville. But not everyone agrees that a revolution was taking place. Author James Bernardoni takes a more pessimistic view of the '70s in his The New Hollywood. He accuses filmmakers of adopting the aesthetics of television, resulting in movies "overrun by a plague of zoom shots, telephoto lenses, and rack focus shots." (Here, Bernardoni sounds old-fashioned, particularly as he complains about "vulgarity" in '70s cinema.) He accuses filmmakers such as Brian De Palma of misreading the auterist assertions as a justification for directorial style as an end in its own right. (Here, Bernardoni is on more firm ground.) He suggests Robert Altman's M*A*S*H has a number of affinities with the comedies of Howard Hawks but that it "fails as film comedy because if lacks the deeper attributes that have been particularly associated with Hawks comedy." (Here, Bernardoni's arguments are grounded in an arguably erroneous assumption about M*A*S*H's relationship to the cinema of Hawks.) To avoid looking like a complete curmudgeon, Bernardoni focuses on a group of '70s movies in the second half of the book that he holds up as positive examples -McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Breaking Away, Annie Hall, and Escape From Alcatraz. (And here, Bernardoni's arguments are cogent and insightful.) But by this point he'll have likely lost most readers.

 

Ronald Colman, Gentleman of the Cinema by R. Dixon Smith

This is the type of book that usually comes from Citadel Press. By that I mean it mostly consists of plot descriptions of each movie that Ronald Colman starred in, with plenty of photos and credits for each movie. So if you absolutely must know what happens in Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back (1934), for example, this is the book for you. But are there really any people out there who read the plot descriptions in books like this? I suspect the number is very small. This is how to put together a "biography" when you have precious little information on your subject. All the biographical information in this book would probably run no more than 50 total pages. So if you're turning to this book in hopes of finding many insights about Colman's developing career, as well as his years as a matinee idol … well, this is not the book. To be fair, author R. Dixon Smith's descriptions of each movie are much superior to those you'll typically find in a Citadel Press The Films of … publication. Mixed in with the plot descriptions, Smith drops in a few choice insights regarding the productions and maybe a quote or two from Colman himself. But to get to the comments, you have to wade through lengthy plot descriptions. As a result, this is a cumbersome book that required a different layout approach than McFarland's was willing to provide.

 

Hollywood Greats of the Golden Years by J.G. Ellrod

This book focuses exclusively on Hollywood's biggest stars of the '20s through the '50s, but to be included you have to be dead (as of the book's original publication date of 1988). So, for example, you won't find Jimmy Stewart or Katherine Hepburn in this slim volume (of less than 200 pages), but you will find Sonja Henie and Warren William (whose star power has dimmed considerably over the past few decades). It's a strange type of criteria: Why would someone only want to read about only the great, dead Hollywood stars? But discarding this problem for a moment, the book could still be of value if its short bios are insightful and packed with info. Unfortunately, however, the bios are very routine. You'd be much better off picking up a copy of Ephraim Katz's superb Film Encyclopedia, which covers thousands of both living and dead stars - and it covers them in more depth than Hollywood Greats (and Film Encyclopedia can be had for only a few additional dollars). The big advantage of McFarland's volume is its photos, but the duplications are so murky that this advantage is largely negated.

 

Children's Live-Action Musical Films by Thomas J. Harris

Some of McFarland's books cast such a wide net that they resultingly deal in generalities, but here's an incredibly specific volume that focuses on a very select group of movies. Author Thomas J. Harris covers 15 feature films, including The Wizard of Oz, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, Mary Poppins, and others. Each film gets its own chapter in which Harris offers his critical evaluation. Overall, his comments are insightful, although he is prone to drift into lengthy plot descriptions. Harris has no overall comments to make about the children's live-action musical genre (i.e., there is no introductory chapter that defines the genre and sets up his arguments). The book simply consists of comments on each movie. The author's rationale for the book comes mostly (as he explains in a brief introduction) from a desire to give serious critical attention to a group of films that has been lightly regarded and to help prompt readers to reconsider these films. But without an introduction section in which he could discuss the genre and its elements, the book lacks a unifying principle and becomes just a collection of commentaries. It's still a valuable book, yes, but it's not as valuable as if Harris had attempted to actually write about the genre instead of just a few sample movies. (Unlike some other McFarland publications, such as Hollywood Greats of the Golden Years, the photo reproduction quality in Children's Live-Action Musical Films is fairly decent.)

 

The Rock and Roll Encyclopedia of the 1950s by Mark Thomas McGee

Here's another book that benefits from its narrow scope (as with Children's Live-Action Musical Films). McGee stays focused on a specific type of film and provides what may be the best reference book on this critically neglected genre. The book is strictly arranged alphabetically by film, with no overview section in which Mc Gee could have discussed the genre and its history. Each movie gets from two to ten pages, and each entry is broken into several sections: 1) an opening section with a brief plot description, production info, and performers/filmmakers background; 2) a section titled "The Music" that lists the songs and in some cases discusses the performers; 3) a section titled "The Reception" that quotes reviews from newspapers and trade publications; 4) a section titled "The Cast" that lists all the performers and their character names; and 5) a section titled "The Credits" that lists the producer, director, screenwriter, and other principal behind-the-camera talent. As with many McFarland publications, the subject would have benefited from a more imaginative layout approach, but McFarland doesn't truck in such nonsense. They provide just photos (which are plentiful but frequently grainy and murky) and McGee's text. Regardless, if you ever wanted to know more about his small but vigorous genre, this is the book for you. It covers all the essential titles, such as Don't Knock the Rock! (1956), Go, Johnny, Go! (1959), High School Confidential (1958), Jailhouse Rock (1957), Rock Around the Clock (1956), Rock, Rock, Rock (1956), Shake, Rattle and Rock (1956), and Untamed Youth (1957) -- as well as many lesser titles. (McGee also authored Roger Corman, another McFarland Classics release.)
 

The McFarland Classics series is a welcome collection of budget releases that includes many excellent titles, such as Robert Parrish's Prison Pictures from Hollywood, Michael Pitts' Western Movies, David J. Hogan's Dark Romance, Roy Kinnard's Horror in the Silent Films, Jerry Warren's Keep Watching the Skies!, and Tom Weaver's Poverty Row Horrors. If you've avoided McFarland books in the past because of their robust price tags, now is the time to revisit these titles and consider whether $20 to $25 each is an attractive price.
 

The Great Clowns of American Television by Karin Adir. 270 pages. $25. Paperback. 6 x 9. Photographs. Originally published in 1988.

For more information, check out the McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Web site at www.mcfarlandpub.com.