From Vietnam to Hell: Interviews With Victims of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Shirley Dicks

“For many Americans the Vietnam War is over and long forgotten, but for thousands of veterans, they still live the horror of this war. In flashbacks, nightmares and other symptoms, they relive the time they spent in the jungle. Some turn to alcohol, others to drugs, to blot the inner agony that has no name but many faces. Some mistreat their wives and children; some withdraw from society altogether.
“This book tells the stories of some of these Vietnam veterans who have been to hell and back, and the wives who stood by their men. The stories are heartbreaking and meant to inform people about post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of these men are on death row. They were taught to kill women and children; they were taught that life wasn’t important; then they were never debriefed once back home. One day they were in the jungles of Vietnam; the next they were back in the States.”

Publisher: McFarland
Paperback: 144 pages
Illustrated

American Film Music: Major Composers, Techniques, Trends, 1915-1990

William Darby and Jack Du Bois

If one can remember the music from a film, it used to be said, the composer has failed. The author traces the evolution of the thankless task of scoring Hollywood’s films. Meet the maestros behind the movies’ most memorable music: Max Steiner (King Kong, Gone with the Wind), Bernard Herrmann (Citizen Kane, Taxi Driver), Miklos Rozsa (Spellbound, Quo Vadis), Henry Mancini (Touch of Evil, Breakfast at Tiffany’s), Elmer Bernstein (The Ten Commandments, Walk on the Wild Side), and dozens more in a comprehensive volume of essays detailing the musical careers of Hollywood’s greatest composers. Seventy-five years of filmmaking has left the cinema with a huge musical legacy: Steiner’s “Tara’s Theme” from Gone With the Wind, John Williams’ shark motto in Jaws, Bernstein’s “Marlboro” music from The Magnificent Seven, the haunting “Laura,” Mancini’s “Pink Panther Theme,” the first three notes of John Barry’s “Goldfinger,” all popular music from famous films. But isn’t it all just syrup stolen from the classical guys? The authors ask—and answer—the question: Can film music actually be enjoyed outside its immediate context? GR

Publisher: McFarland
Hardback: 605 pages
Illustrated

Company Museums, Industry Museums and Industrial Tours: A Guidebook of Sites in the United States That Are Open to the Public

Doug Gelbert

Publisher: McFarland
Paperback: 324 pages

Corporate Eponymy: A Biographical Dictionary of the Persons Behind the Names of Major American, British, European and Asian Businesses

Adrian Room

“This book can render a general service here, since by definition it has singled out the names from the words, the people from the places.” In Corporate Eponomy, one finds listed the many names of inventors and entrepreneurs who have come to the United States to profit from the experience and expertise of the land of consumerism. The book is filled with mini-biographies of founders of companies whose names became infamous in the corporate world. Names of British origin dominate the book although there are many continental European and Asian names too. The aim of the book is to give insight “into who those people were.” Included are: Campbell; Du Pont; Harper and Row; Schwepp; Sally Line, of Finland; Smirnoff, of Russia; Cartier, of France; Hasselblad, of Sweden; Honda, of Japan. OAA

Publisher: McFarland
Hardback: 280 pages

Planet of the Apes as American Myth: Race and Politics in the Films and Television Series

Eric Greene

“In the first movie in the five-film series, The Planet of the Apes, Hollywood filmmakers fashioned an allegory of racial conflict and the Vietnam War. As the series progressed, the films shifted their focus more and more to domestic racial conflict, demonstrating the effect that the ‘60s riots and the Black Power movement began to have on the movies. In the later films the racial tensions were continually—perhaps prophetically?—depicted as escalating to the point of cataclysmic violence.”

Publisher: McFarland
Hardback: 264 pages
Illustrated

Television Horror Movie Hosts: 68 Vampires,Mad Scientists and Other Denizens of the Late-Night Airwaves Examined and Interviewed

Elena M. Watson

Midnight, 1954. A striking woman in a torn black dress slinks down a cobwebbed, candelabra'd corridor. She stops, shrieks hysterically into the camera, then solemnly says, "Good evening, I am Vampira." Her real name is Maila Nurmi and she was the first in a long line of television horror movie hosts, commonly seen on independent stations' late-night "grade Z" offerings dressed as some zany ghoul or mad scientist. This book covers the major hosts in detail, along with styles and show themes.

Publisher: McFarland
Hardback: 256 pages
Illustrated

Black Action Films

James Robert Parish and George H. Hill

An alphabetical film-by-film listing of the classic blaxploitation films (Shaft, Superfly) which also covers related Hollywood fare like In the Heat of the Night, Rocky IV and 48HRS. Notable for digging up such obscurities as Black Gestapo and Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde, Black Action Films is valuable also for being one of the few sources for “making of” info on lesser-known blaxploitation gems as The Mack (a cinéma verité look at the rise of an Oaktown pimp starring the screenwriter of Cleopatra Jones and written by an incarcerated pimp) and The Spook Who Sat by the Door (the bloody tale of a renegade black CIA agent turned urban guerrilla). SS

Publisher: McFarland
Hardback: 385 pages
Illustrated

Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures

Mark Thomas McGee

“In 1984, Mr. McGee wrote the acclaimed Fast and Furious, a history of American International Pictures. But, as McGee wrote in his out-of-the-blue offer to do a bigger-and-better, ‘Because of my unnatural interest, I’ve never stopped.’ The result of his ceaseless efforts can be found in this updated and expanded look at AIP. From the time Sam Arkoff and Jim Nicholson founded the company, they dominated the low-budget film market with such teen-oriented movies as Beach Party and I Was a Teenage Werewolf. Their movies were frowned on by critics, not because they were terrible (which they mostly were) but because they were so shameless in their intent—to make money. This new work includes the most comprehensive AIP filmography ever assembled, as well as many new photographs not included in the earlier work.”

Publisher: McFarland
Hardback: 304 pages
Illustrated

Interviews With B Science Fiction and Horror Movie Makers: Writers, Producers, Directors, Actors, Moguls and Makeup

Tom Weaver

Sample quote from Curt Siodmak: “I’m a writer, and to write the right things is more important than getting a lot of dough for it… Today, nobody lives better than I do. I have an estate, 50 acres overlooking the mountains, and every night I say, ‘Heil, Hitler!’ because without the son of a bitch, I wouldn’t be in Three Rivers, California, I’d still be in Berlin!”

Publisher: McFarland
Hardback: 425 pages
Illustrated

Japanese Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films: A Critical Analysis and Filmography of 103 Features Released in the United States, 1950-1992

Stuart Galbraith

Publisher: McFarland
Hardback: 448 pages